Talk:Thomas Hood

Major Changes
This article has undergone major changes since the below discussion was entered and since the last assessment was made. It now contains footnotes and is better and more thorough. This effort is ongoing and the article will soon deserve a reassessment. kirbycairo —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kirbycairo (talk • contribs) 21:30, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Tone problem ?????
In what way exactly is this article lacking neutrality? It appears to be perfectly allright as far as I can see. The claim that the article isn't encyclopedic is completely absurd. Why shouldn't it be written biographicaly, why shouldn't artistic assesments feature within it? The comments included are nothing short of ridiculous. Gruesome Pet

The utterly pointless comments about the tone of this article should not be acknowledged with a your "balanced view warning" & the use of the word "encyclopedic" is bizarre. This man Farmbrough is a complete fool.

Phil Butcher

Like Phil Butcher, I see no problem with the tone of this article. It doesn't seem unbalanced or biased. It seems straight forward and competent. I am not calling anyone a fool, but I have a good edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica and this article would not be out of place with the articles there. There seems to be a number of people out there who are under the impression that 'encyclopedic' articles include absolutely no reference to, for example, the perceived quality of a writer's work or the prevailing opinions relating to such subjects. Let us not forget that the word 'encyclopedia' is a latin word relating to education and has no implication of 'objectivity.' It is fair to call for balanced views without excessive praise or detraction, an article should not be a panegyric nor a negative expose. But I see no problem with a sympathetic readable tone. (Kirbycairo)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kirbycairo (talk • contribs) 14:55, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Tone problem
This is a fun article, but the tone is wrong for an encyclopedic entry. It reads more like an independent biography, complete with value judgments and such. I'm not necessarily complaining, just pointing out that it's not really the right style for an encyclopedia.

But I'm not going to change it; I'll leave that to someone who cares more about it than I do. (unsigned)


 * More to the point where is it from. It appears to be scanned, maybe it's from EB 19911. THe date can't be very far off. Rich Farmbrough 19:24, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

From Volume V13, Page 667, 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. "The chief sources of his biography are: Memorials of Thomas Hood, collected, arranged and edited by his daughter (186o); his " Literary Reminiscences " in Hood's Own ; Alexander Elliot, Hood in Scotland (1885). See also the memoir of Hood's friend C. W. Dilke, by his grandson Sir Charles Dilke, prefixed to Papers of a Critic; and M. H. Spielmann's History of Punch. There is an excellent edition of the Poems of Thomas Hood (2 vols., 1897), with a biographical introduction of great interest by Canon Alfred Ainger." Rich Farmbrough 19:43, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I did cut out a lot of waffle and POV stuff. I think it is now more reasonable. Charles Matthews 09:14, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

IP Waffle
An anonymous IP destroyed some of the layout, replaced content with badly-written schoolchild commentary. Have reverted. Any dispute, settle here. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 12:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Faithless Nelly Gray
Seems to be one of his well known poems but not mentioned at all in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.37.159 (talk) 11:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Important factors overlooked
Though very talented in the ways of humor, Hood also had a serious side, a key factor in his life that Wikipedia seems to overlook. He used his recognition as a humorist to publish two serious poems on the need for social activism. “The Song of the Shirt” and “The Bridge of Sighs” are both works that one would never guess to have been authored by Hood, but in turn shape Hood into a much more diverse writer than one would have expected. These works are the strings which tie Hood into the area of Humanities, with his raw look into the life of a seamstress during the transition into the Industrial Revolution. According to scholar and lecturer Charles Cowden Clarke, “Had Hood not written those two little serious and exquisitely affecting poems, ‘The Bridge of Sighs’ and ‘The Song of the Shirt,’ three-fourths of the world would have considered him in no other light than that of an inveterate punster; and assuredly he has never yet received the honor due to his merits, as a grave and even forceful classical writer; meaning “classical” in the sense of purity and constructiveness, both with regard to his language and collocation of words in his sentences—in other words, his ‘style’” (Clarke, 659). Thomas Hood’s critical reception is that of a talented young man who was never able to make it past the distinction of a minor poet due to his untimely death and writing restrictions as an impoverished man. However, his mastery of pun and humor combined with his calling for social activism proved him to be a great intellectual throughout his short life. Though Wikipedia does reference these poems, I think it is important to really highlight how these were out of the poet's genre and what a monumental effect they had upon the society of the times.

Clarke, Charles Cowden. "On the Comic Writers of England: Thomas Hood." The Gentleman's Magazine. 8.232 (January-June 1872): 659-685. Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Jay Parini and Janet Mullane. Vol. 16. Detroit: Gale 	Research, 1987. 659-685. Literature Resource Center. Gale. Pepperdine University SCELC. 18 Nov. 2009 .

Laurenaldrich (talk) 21:35, 28 November 2009 (UTC)laurenaldrich

Serious Poems
My daughter has a collection of "Hood's Serious Poetry" compiled and published by Tom Hood, though this was posthumous, should it not be added to the list? It has an interesting introduction by Tom, who obviously feels that Hood should be known better for his serious work (personal note: I think most of his 'serious poems' are just comic ones where the punchline falls flat...) Stub Mandrel (talk) 17:05, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

November
There seem to be two versions of this poem, the one quoted on this page, a mere 8 lines, and a much longer version published in The Works of Thomas Hood, vol 3, some time about 1860, see for example the reference in https://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides5/november.html. Unfortunately I can't find access to the work to verify. If anyone can help, the page needs updating.

Wellset (talk) 10:19, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Gutenberg has the full poem, titles "No!" in The Comic Poems of Thomas Hood. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/56712/56712-h/56712-h.htm Should we replace what is currently on the page with the full poem, or add some ellipsis to indicate that this is an extraction, or find a source for the short version? Doctormatt (talk) 06:00, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh I just went and added the whole poem with citation. Doctormatt (talk) 06:11, 9 November 2020 (UTC)