William Barnes and Thomas Hardy Study Day

The William Barnes Society and the Thomas Hardy Society are pleased to present a joint study day on Saturday 26th October at the Dorford Centre (Coffee Lounge), Dorchester. The programme will focus on aspects of the relationship between Barnes and Hardy through their lives and work.

Programme

10:45 am | ARRIVE - tea/coffee available

11:00am | Mark Chutter, Chair and Academic Director for the Thomas Hardy Society introduces the day. Brian Caddy, Chair of the William Barnes Society will read some Barnes' poems.

11:15am - 12:00noon | Dr. Alan Chedzoy gives the opening talk: A Persistent Voice. It is suggested that the Dorset dialect ‘voice’ of William Barnes sounded persistently in Thomas Hardy’s mind when he came to write his first poems and later in his Wessex novels, but this thesis has not been well understood. Dr. Chedzoy will illustrate this ‘persistent voice’ with a brief examination of one of Hardy’s astonishingly brilliant early dialect poems and by reference to his novel The Woodlanders.

12:00noon - 12:30pm | Mark Chutter: Imagined conversations between Barnes and Hardy.

12.30pm - 1.30 pm | LUNCH - Lunch on your own - Shire Hall or Dorset Museum and Art Gallery both on High West Street, or bring a picnic lunch!

1:30 pm - 1:45 pm | Rod Drew (Volunteer at Max Gate and member of the Barnes Society) reads from Hardy’s Return of the Native.

1:45 pm - 2:15 pm | Dr. John Blackmore, member of the William Barnes Society, presents on Country Roads: Wessex and the Nineteenth Century Nation in the Writing of Thomas Hardy and William Barnes.

2:15pm - 2:45 pm | Alastair Braidwood, folk musician and actor, talks – and sings – about the Thomas Hardy family collection of Dorset songs and tunes as a context for the poetry of William Barnes.

2:45pm - 3:00pm | Final remarks from Mark Chutter and concluding poetry reading from Brian Caddy and other William Barnes Society members.

Tickets

Tickets for the event are £10 to cover room rental. Any additional funds raised will go toward the William Barnes Society's Barnes for All! fundraising campaign for the Barnes Archive at the Dorset History Centre.