Edward Thomas and Hedges: England’s going out of Stile

Abstract

Abstract Edward Thomas’s life and writing are marked by his attentiveness to rural England. With an overview of Thomas’ prose writings and then a set of close readings of his poetry, this essay describes how he presented hedges as an especially important part of the English countryside. Examining Thomas’s prose, the essay sets out how he saw hedges bringing natural life together into concentrated versions of landscapes, and how he argued that these concentrations could represent the English national identity. As the essay demonstrates, these ideas came into his poetry. His speakers see English field life as intricately interwoven. Some respond to the ongoing First World War by building on this intricacy. Their sense of being at home in England and belonging there is fuelled by treating hedges as portals to an eternal and a pre-industrial England. By considering the roles that hedges have in his poems, this essay shows how Thomas shaped them into a focal point for portraying speakers who have a connection to the national identity.