3. Introduction

"When I set out for Lyonnesse" written by Thomas Hardy, is a poem on his own travel experiences. Hardy was interested in understanding the workings behind houses and took up architecture. He had in fact built and designed his own house, which he named Max Gate, in Dorchester, as a gift to his wife. His fictional place named Wessex, which he used in most of his novels, references his idea of designing a town. He vividly imagined the plans and put forth the ideas in his writings. He had also worked as an apprentice to learn more about architecture. The poem is written on one such occasion when he visits a church in Cornwall, England, to supervise the restoration done to the chapel. The journey also proved to be a spiritual awakening for Hardy. He names the place as Layonnesse, which is considered to be the connecting point between Cornwall and the Sicily Isles in the English Channel. The word Lyonnesse, which is also spelt as Layonnes, means "Lost". It refers to the poet getting lost in the spiritual presence of the land. When he returned, he had carried a crumbled piece of paper that contained his thoughts on the place, in the form of poetry.