Reviews for BEC vantage masterclass

The average rating for BEC vantage masterclass based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-12-05 00:00:00 Sameer Kagade Of course, Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is best known for his prose work, with superb novels such as The Mayor of Casterbridge, Far From the Madding Crowd, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. I did not know that he also had an extensive poetic oeuvre. This booklet contains a selection. Compiler Tom Paulin makes it clear that his poetic work was just as important to Hardy, especially in the second half of his life. It shows: the most appealing poems date from after 1900. They are rather of a nostalgic and elegiac nature, often musing about the inexorability of Time, or yearning for a lost loved one. In any case, they testify to a formal mastery of metrics and imagination. Paulin also makes it clear that also Hardy’s prose work had a clear poetic flavour. I am going to read his masterpieces with different eyes now. As an example of this formal mastery, the poem "Regret not me", published in 1914: Regret not me; Beneath the sunny tree I lie uncaring, slumbering peacefully. Swift as the light I flew my faery flight; Ecstatically I moved, and feared no night. I did not know That heydays fade and go, But deemed that what was would be always so. I skipped at morn Between the yellowing corn, Thinking it good and glorious to be born. I ran at eves Among the piled-up sheaves, Dreaming, "I grieve not, therefore nothing grieves." Now soon will come The apple, pear, and plum And hinds will sing, and autumn insects hum. Again you will fare To cider-makings rare, And junketings; but I shall not be there. Yet gaily sing Until the pewter ring Those songs we sang when we went gipsying. And lightly dance Some triple-timed romance In coupled figures, and forget mischance; And mourn not me Beneath the yellowing tree; For I shall mind not, slumbering peacefully.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-12-13 00:00:00 STEVEN CARRY We stood by a pond that winter day, And the sun was white, as though chidden of God, And a few leaves lay on the starving sod, —They had fallen from the ash, and were gray. Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove Over tedious riddles solved years ago ; And words played between us to and fro— On which lost the more by our love. The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing Alive enough to have strength to die ; And a grin of bitterness swept thereby Like an ominous bird a-wing. . . . Since then, keen lessons that love deceives, And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree, And a pond edged with grayish leaves.