• ISBN13: 9788126900909
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: English Literature
• Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd
• Publisher Imprint: N/A
• Publication Date: August 20, 2014
• Pages: 352
• Original Price: INR 995.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 370 grams

Thomas Hardy was equally eminent as a novelist and a poet and thus holds a unique place in English Literature. More than seven decades after his death, Thomas Hardy is still surprisingly alive if uninterrupted critical attention is a test. The nineteen essays included in the volume — thirteen on Hardy’s fiction, five on his poetry, and one on general overview — cover a broad range of critical perspective on Hardy’s fiction and poetry, which include the comparative, the Freudian, the existentialist, the absurdist, the ‘psychospatial,’ the feminist, the aesthetic-artistic, the historicist, the dialectical, the mythical, the symbolic, among others. The collection will be relevant and useful to both students and scholars of English literature as it brings into focus a wide spectrum of interesting sidelights on, and illuminating analyses of the various dimensions of Hardy’s works; some of the papers are refreshingly original and perceptive in their approach to and treatment of the respective subjects. As a ‘great’ writer Hardy has remained problematic, demanding that his readers wrestle with him. The present volume claims to have joined that unbroken wrestle — more than a century-old — with the words and meanings of Hardy’s works. Contributions from the eminent scholars in the field have enhanced the value of the collection.

Dr. Rama Kundu is a full Professor of English. She has been teaching in the Post-graduate Department of English, Burdwan University, West Bengal, since 1976. She is the author of three books : Vision and Design in Hardy’s Fiction, Wrestling With God : Studies in English Devotional Poetry, and a Bengali book Anandamath O Sampradaikta on Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay. She has also edited an anthology of research papers on Rabindranath Tagore’s Home and the World, and translated a book of poems into English — On the Revolving Stage. She has written a large number of research papers (73) published in scholarly journals and anthologies in India and abroad. Professor Kundu has participated and chaired sessions in a large number of National and International Conferences including three stints in Europe.