This essay surveys a variety of important contexts for considering Hardy's “The Oxen”: biographical, historical, literary-historical, religious, and personal, among them. It will seek to open up possibilities of reading the poem that extend beyond what can seem its de facto status as a (self-evident) exemplification of Hardy's attitudes on matters of religion. Critics sometimes give the impression that this is a poem about which there is little more to be said, but these pieces seek to counter this by close examination of its ways of saying. The companion essay (in a following issue) will offer a metrical reading of “The Oxen,” seeking to show that a close study of the expressive dynamics of metre in this poem allow one to examine how extensive is the poem's meaning, and how characteristically it is shaped by an internal drama of voice and intonation
