Thomas Hardy

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Thomas Hardy
Thomashardy restored.jpg
Natere

2 iunie 1840

Stinsford, Dorchester, Anglia

Deces 11 ianuarie 1928
Dorchester
Ocupaie

poet, romancier

Naionalitateenglez Anglia
Activitatea literar
Micare/curent literar

naturalism

Opere semnificative

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Departe de lumea dezlnuit

Note
Signature of Thomas Hardy.jpg
modific Consultai documentaia formatului
Thomas Hardy, (n. 2 iunie 1840 d. 11 ianuarie 1928) a fost un scriitor i poet
naturalist britanic, cunoscut pentru romanele sale Tess i Departe de lumea
dezlnuit. Evenimentele din majoritatea operelor sale se desfoar n comitatul
semi-imaginar Wessex i sunt marcate de descrieri poetice i fatalism.

Prin opera sa, caracterizat prin studiul amnunit al caracterelor i ambianelor,

simpatie uman pentru eroi, prin viziunea fatalist i pesimist, se opune
convenionalitii epocii victoriene.

Cuprins [ascunde]
1 Biografie
2 Opera

2.1 Romane despre caracter i natur

2.2 Romane de dragoste i fantezii
2.3 Romane de candoare
2.4 Poezie (selecii)
2.5 Dram
3 Note
4 Legturi externe
4.1 Poezii
Biografie[modificare | modificare surs]
Thomas Hardy s-a nscut la Higher Bockhampton, un stuc din parohia localitii
Stinsford, la est de Dorchester n comitatul Dorset. Tatl su a fost un zidar i
constructor local. Mama lui Hardy a fost o femeie educat i ambiioas, contribuind
la educaia fiului ei pn la mplinirea vrstei de 16 ani, cnd a devenit ucenicul lui
John Hicks, un arhitect local. Hardy a studiat arhitectura la Dorchester pn n 1862,
cnd s-a mutat la Londra. Cinci ani mai trziu s-a ntors la Dorset pentru a lucra ca
asistentul lui Hicks. A fost premiat de Institutul Regal al Arhitecilor Britanici i de
Asociaia Arhitectural.

n 1870, Hardy a cunoscut-o pe Emma Lavinia Gifford, care i-a devenit soie n 1874.
[1] Dei pn la urm s-au desprit, decesul ei n 1912 a avut un efect traumatic
asupra lui. A cltorit la Cornwall pentru a revedea locuri legate de ea i de
tinereea lor, i a scris o serie de poezii ntre 1912-13, prin care i-a exprimat
durerea. Dei n 1914 s-a cstorit cu secretara sa Florence Dugdale, care era cu 40
de ani mai tnr i pe care a cunoscut-o n 1905, Hardy a rmas preocupat de
decesul subit al Emmei, ncercnd s-i nving remucarea compunnd poezii.[2]

Scriitorul Robert Graves, n autobiografia sa "Goodbye to All That", i amintete de

ntlnirea cu Hardy la Dorset la nceputul anilor 1920. Hardy a fost o gazd
primitoare pentru Graves i proaspta lui soie, i l-a ncurajat pe tnrul autor n
domeniul scrisului.

Viaa religioas a lui Hardy pare s fi fost un amestec de agnosticism i spiritism.

Totui el a scris deseori despre forele spirituale care controleaz universul mai mult
prin indiferen sau capriciu dect prin reguli stricte. De asemenea, Hardy a dovedit

n lucrrile sale o anume fascinaie referitor la fantome i spirite. n ciuda acestor

sentimente, Hardy a avut totui o legtur emoional puternic fa de ritualurile
Bisericii Cretine, mai ales cele din comunitile rurale, care au avut o influen
formativ n timpul copilriei sale. Unii critici literari au atribuit perspectiva cenuie
din mai multe romane ale sale ca fiind reflectiv a prerii sale c nu exist
Dumnezeu.

Monumentul funerar al inimii lui Thomas Hardy

Hardy a fcut o infecie la plmni n decembrie 1927 i a murit n ianuarie 1928,
dup ce a dictat ultimul su poem soiei, pe patul morii. nmormntarea sa, pe 16
ianuarie la catedrala Westminster Abbey, a fost un eveniment controversat: familia
i prietenii au dorit ca locul de veci s fie la satul natal Stinsford, dar executorul su,
Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, a insistat s fie la "Poets' Corner" (Colul Poeilor, o
seciune de la Westminster Abbey unde se afl urnele a numeroi poei i scriitori
britanici). S-a ajuns la un compromis prin care inima sa a fost ngropat la Stinsford
cu Emma, iar cenua a fost depus la Colul Poeilor din Catedrala Westminster.

Opera lui Hardy a fost admirat de muli autori, printre care D.H. Lawrence i
Virginia Woolf. n 1910 i s-a acordat Ordinul Britanic de Merit.

La scurt timp dup deces, corespondena i notele sale au fost arse de executorul
su. Doisprezece dosare au rmas, unul din ele coninnd note i extrase de articole
de ziar din anii 1820, folosite de Hardy n ultimele sale lucrri.[3]

Opera[modificare | modificare surs]

Romanele lui Hardy se desfoar n comitatul fictiv Wessex (n parte real, n parte
imaginar), care a pstrat numele regatului Anglo-Saxon care a existat n zon.
Peisajul a fost modelat dup comitatele reale Berkshire, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire,
Somerset i Wiltshire, cu locuri fictive bazate pe aezri reale. Hardy a descris
epoca dinaintea cilor ferate i a revoluiei industriale care au schimbat Anglia
rural. Operele sale au un ton pesimist i conin o ironie amar, iar stilul su de
scris este necizelat, dar las o impresie profund. Hardy avea ochi pentru detalii
amnunite, ca de exemplu ntinderea petei de snge pe tavan de la sfritul
romanului Tess of the d'Urbervilles sau nota de sinucidere din Jude the Obscure

(trad. romn Jude Netiutul); el a pstrat articole i reportaje decupate din ziare,
pe care le-a folosit ca detalii n romanele sale.

Primul roman al lui Hardy, The Poor Man and the Lady, terminat prin 1867, nu a fost
preluat de nici o editur, iar Hardy a distrus manuscrisul; s-au pstrat doar
fragmente. A fost ncurajat de mentorul i prietenul su, scriitorul George Meredith,
s ncerce din nou. Desperate Remedies (1871) i Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)
au fost publicate anonim. n 1873 A Pair of Blue Eyes, bazat pe curtea fcut de
Hardy primei sale soii, a fost publicat sub numele propriu.

Hardy a declarat c a folosit comitatul Wessex pentru prima dat n Far from the
Madding Crowd (trad. romn Departe de lumea dezlnuit) n (1874), urmtorul
roman al su (i primul semnificativ). Romanul s-a bucurat de succes suficient
pentru ca Hardy s poat renuna la activitatea arhitectural i s se dedice carierei
literare. Pe durata urmtorilor 25 de ani, Hardy a semnat nc zece romane. El nsui
s-a referit la cele mai bune titluri ale sale ca "romane de caracter i mprejurri".
Hardy a fost un pesimist care a subliniat forele impersonale i n general negative
ale soartei asupra oamenilor simpli ai clasei muncitoare despre care a scris.

Hardy i soia s-au mutat de la Londra la Yeovil i dup aceea la Sturminster

Newton, unde a scris The Return of the Native (1878). n 1885 s-au mutat pentru
ultima oar, la Max Gate, o cas de lng Dorchester proiectat de Hardy i
construit de fratele su. Acolo a scris romanele The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
(trad. Primarul din Casterbridge), The Woodlanders (1887) (Pdurenii) i Tess of the
d'Urbervilles (1891), din care ultimul a fost criticat pentru prezentarea prea
nelegtoare a unei "femei uoare" i iniial i s-a refuzat publicarea. Subtitlul
acestuia, A Pure Woman / Faithfully Narrated (O femeie pur / povestit cu fidelitate),
a fost intenionat s ridice sprncenele clasei mijlocii din era Victorian.

Jude the Obscure (Jude netiutul), publicat n 1895, a fost ntmpinat cu proteste i
mai intense din partea publicului din era Victorian pentru modul deschis trateaz
actele sexuale, i a fost adesea referit cu titlul "Jude the Obscene" (Jude obscenul).
Romanul a fost foarte criticat pentru aparentul atac asupra instituiei cstoriei, i a
contribuit la rcirea i mai grav a relaiilor deja dificile dintre Hardy i soia sa,
deoarece Emma Hardy a ngrijorat-o ideea c Jude the Obscure ar putea fi
interpretat ca fiind un roman autobiografic. Unii vnztori de carte au vndut
romanul n pungi de hrtie maro, iar episcopul de Wakefield este reputat c a ars un
volum.[3]

n ciuda acestor critici, Hardy devenise deja o celebritate n literatura englez la

nceputul anilor 1900, fiind autorul mai multor romane foarte bine vndute. Totui el
a fost dezgustat de modul n care publicul a primit dou din cele mai importante
lucrri ale sale, i a renunat s scrie noi romane. Civa critici literari sunt de
prere c Hardy nu prea mai avea ce s scrie, epuiznd creativ tonul din ce n ce
mai fatalist al romanelor sale, ntre care Jude fiind punctul culminant.

Hardy i-a mprit romanele i coleciile de nuvele n trei categorii:

Romane despre caracter i natur[modificare | modificare surs]

The Poor Man and the Lady (1867, nepublicat i pierdut)
Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)
Far from the Madding Crowd (Departe de lumea dezlnuit, 1874)
The Return of the Native (ntoarcerea btinaului, 1878)
The Mayor of Casterbridge (Primarul din Casterbridge, 1886)
The Woodlanders (1887)
Wessex Tales (1888, colecie de povestiri)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)
Life's Little Ironies ( Micile ironii ale vietii, 1894, colecie de povestiri)
Jude the Obscure (Jude netiutul, 1895)
Romane de dragoste i fantezii[modificare | modificare surs]
A Pair of Blue Eyes ( Doi ochi albastri, 1873)
The Trumpet-Major (1880)
Two on a Tower ( Idila pe un turn, 1882)
A Group of Noble Dames (1891, colecie de povestiri)
The Well-Beloved (1897) (publicat sub form de serial n 1892).
Romane de candoare[modificare | modificare surs]

Desperate Remedies (1871)

The Hand of Ethelberta (1876)
A Laodicean (1881)
Hardy a mai scris povestiri scurte i un roman n colaborare, intitulat The Spectre of
the Real (Fantoma realului)(1894). Alt colecie de povestiri, n afara celor
menionate mai sus, este A Changed Man and Other Tales (Un om schimbat i alte
poveti), 1913. Operele sale au fost publicate n antologiile de 24 de volume a
ediiei Wessex (1912-1913) i 37 de volume n ediia Mellstock (1919-1920).
Biografia sa, n mare parte scris de el nsui, apare sub numele celei de-a doua
soii, n dou volume aprute ntre anii 1928-1930, cu titlul The Early Life of Thomas
Hardy, 1840-1891 (Tinereea lui Thomas Hardy) i The Later Years of Thomas Hardy,
1892-1928; actualmente aprut ntr-un singur volum sub titlul The Life and Work of
Thomas Hardy (Viaa i opera lui Thomas Hardy) n 1984.

Poezie (selecii)[modificare | modificare surs]

Wessex Poems and Other Verses (Poezii din Wesex i alte versuri, 1898)
Poems of the Past and Present (1901)
The Dynasts|The Dynasts, Part 1 (Suveranii, partea 1, 1904)
The Dynasts|The Dynasts, Part 2 (Suveranii, partea 2, 1906)
The Dynasts|The Dynasts, Part 3 (Suveranii, partea 3, 1908)
Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses (1909)
Satires of Circumstance (1914)
Collected Poems (1919, parte din ediia Mellstock)
Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses (1922)
Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925)
Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres (Cuvinte de iarn n diverse moduri i
metrici, 1928, publicat post-mortem)
Dram[modificare | modificare surs]
The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall (1923)
Note[modificare | modificare surs]

^ "Thomas Hardy - the Time-Torn Man", BBC Radio 4, difuzat la 24 octombrie 2006
(lectur de Claire Tomalin a crii cu acelai titlu).
^ bbc.co.uk (accesat la 12 august 2006)
^ a b bbc.co.uk, (accesat la 12 august 2006)
Legturi externe[modificare | modificare surs]
Wikicitat
La Wikicitat gsii citate legate de Thomas Hardy.
Wikisurs
La Wikisurs exist texte originale legate de Thomas Hardy
Commons
Wikimedia Commons conine materiale multimedia legate de Thomas Hardy
Poezii de Thomas Hardy la PoetryFoundation.org
Poezii alese la Inspired Poetry
Lucrri de Thomas Hardy la Proiectul Gutenberg
Thomas Hardy's Wessex site, inclusiv hri, de Dr Birgit Plietzsch
Eseu despre Hardy's Afterwards
Societatea Thomas Hardy
Asociaia Thomas Hardy
Opere de Thomas Hardy varianta e-book
Urna lui Thomas Hardy de la Westminster Abbey
Fotografii cu Thomas Hardy vizitnd-o pe Marie Stopes la farul din Portland, Dorset
Scrisoare a lui Hardy ctre Bertram Windle, transcris de Birgit Plietzsch, dup CL,
vol 2, pp 131-133
Viaa i moartea lui Thomas Hardy @ Ward's Book of Days
Poezii[modificare | modificare surs]
The Dead Man Walking
At Castle Boterel

Afterwards
On the Departure Platform
The Robin
The Oxen
Categorii: Nateri n 1840Decese n 1928Scriitori britaniciPanteitinmormntri la
Westminster AbbeyPersoane care au refuzat titlul de cavalerFellows of the Royal
Society of Literature
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Ultima modificare efectuat la 17:58, 30 decembrie 2014.
Acest text este disponibil sub licena Creative Commons cu atribuire i

Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and
poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his
novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth.[1] Charles
Dickens was another important influence.[2] Like Dickens, he was highly critical of
much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society.

While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a
poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, therefore, he gained
fame as the author of novels, including Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The
Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure
(1895). However, beginning in the 1950s Hardy has been recognised as a major
poet; he had a significant influence on the Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s,
including Philip Larkin.[3]

Most of his fictional works initially published as serials in magazines were set in
the semi-fictional region of Wessex. They explored tragic characters struggling
against their passions and social circumstances. Hardy's Wessex is based on the
medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom and eventually came to include the counties of
Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest
and south central England.

Contents [hide]
1 Life
2 Novels
3 Literary themes
4 Poetry
5 Religious beliefs
6 Locations in novels
7 Influence
8 Works
8.1 Prose
8.2 Poetry collections
8.3 Drama
9 References
10 Biographies and criticism
10.1 Research resources
11 External links

Life[edit]
Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in Higher Bockhampton (Upper Bockhampton in his
day), a hamlet in the parish of Stinsford to the east of Dorchester in Dorset,
England, where his father Thomas (died 1892) worked as a stonemason and local
builder. His mother Jemima (ne Hand;[4] died 1904) was well-read, and she
educated Thomas until he went to his first school at Bockhampton at age eight. For
several years he attended Mr. Last's Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester.
Here he learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential.[5] Because Hardy's
family lacked the means for a university education, his formal education ended at
the age of sixteen, when he became apprenticed to James Hicks, a local architect.
[6] Hardy trained as an architect in Dorchester before moving to London in 1862;
there he enrolled as a student at King's College London. He won prizes from the
Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association. Hardy was in
charge of the excavation of the graveyard of St Pancras Old Church prior to its
destruction when the Midland Railway was extended to a new terminus at St
Pancras.[7]

But Hardy never felt at home in London, because he was acutely conscious of class
divisions and his social inferiority. However, during this time he became interested
in social reform and the works of John Stuart Mill. He was also introduced by his
Dorset friend Horace Moule to the works of Charles Fourier and Auguste Comte. Five
years later, concerned about his health, he returned to Dorset, settling at
Weymouth, and decided to dedicate himself to writing.

In 1870, while on an architectural mission to restore the parish church of St Juliot in

Cornwall,[8] Hardy met and fell in love with Emma Lavinia Gifford, whom he married
in 1874.[9][10] Although they later became estranged, her death in 1912 had a
traumatic effect on him and after her death, Hardy made a trip to Cornwall to revisit
places linked with their courtship, and his Poems 191213 reflect upon her death. In
1914, Hardy married his secretary Florence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years his
junior. However, he remained preoccupied with his first wife's death and tried to
overcome his remorse by writing poetry.[11] In 1910, Hardy had been awarded the
Order of Merit.

Florence Hardy at the seashore, 1915

In 1885 Thomas and his wife moved into Max Gate, a house Hardy had designed
himself and his brother had built.

Hardy became ill with pleurisy in December 1927 and died at Max Gate just after 9
pm on 11 January 1928, having dictated his final poem to his wife on his deathbed;
the cause of death was cited, on his death certificate, as "cardiac syncope", with
"old age" given as a contributory factor. His funeral was on 16 January at
Westminster Abbey, and it proved a controversial occasion because Hardy and his
family and friends had wished for his body to be interred at Stinsford in the same
grave as his first wife, Emma. However, his executor, Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell,
insisted that he be placed in the abbey's famous Poets' Corner. A compromise was
reached whereby his heart was buried at Stinsford with Emma, and his ashes in
Poets' Corner.[12]

Shortly after Hardy's death, the executors of his estate burnt his letters and
notebooks, but twelve documents survived, one of them containing notes and
extracts of newspaper stories from the 1820s, and research into these has provided
insight into how Hardy used them in his works.[13] In the year of his death Mrs
Hardy published The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 18411891, compiled largely from
contemporary notes, letters, diaries, and biographical memoranda, as well as from
oral information in conversations extending over many years.

Hardy's work was admired by many younger writers, including D. H. Lawrence,[14]

John Cowper Powys,[15] and Virginia Woolf.[16] In his autobiography Goodbye to All
That, (1929) Robert Graves recalls meeting Hardy in Dorset in the early 1920s and
how Hardy received him and his new wife warmly, and was encouraging about his
work.

Hardy's birthplace in Bockhampton and his house Max Gate, both in Dorchester, are
owned by the National Trust.

Novels[edit]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this
article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (February 2014)

Thomas Hardy's birthplace at Higher Bockhampton, where Under the Greenwood

Tree and Far from the Madding Crowd were written

View of the River Frome from the bridge at Lower Bockhampton. In Tess of the
d'Urbervilles the lowland vale of the river is described as the Vale of the Great
Dairies, in comparison to Tess's home, the fertile Vale of Blackmore, which is the
Vale of Little Dairies.
Hardy's first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, finished by 1867, failed to find a
publisher. He then showed it to his mentor and friend, the Victorian poet and
novelist, George Meredith, who felt that The Poor Man and the Lady would be too
politically controversial and might damage Hardy's ability to publish in the future.
So Hardy followed his advice and he did not try further to publish it. Later, he
destroyed the manuscript.

After he abandoned his first novel, Hardy wrote two new ones that he hoped would
have more commercial appeal, Desperate Remedies (1871) and Under the
Greenwood Tree (1872), both of which were published anonymously. In 1873 A Pair
of Blue Eyes, a novel drawing on Hardy's courtship of his first wife, was published
under his own name. The term "cliffhanger" is considered to have originated with
the serialised version of this story (which was published in Tinsley's Magazine
between September 1872 and July 1873) in which Henry Knight, one of the
protagonists, is left literally hanging off a cliff.

In his next novel Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Hardy first introduced the idea
of calling the region in the west of England, where his novels are set, Wessex.
Wessex had been the name of an early Saxon kingdom, in approximately the same
part of England. Far from the Madding Crowd was successful enough for Hardy to
give up architectural work and pursue a literary career. Over the next twenty-five
years Hardy produced ten more novels.

Subsequently the Hardys moved from London to Yeovil, and then to Sturminster
Newton, where he wrote The Return of the Native (1878). Hardy published Two on a
Tower in 1882, a romance story set in the world of astronomy. Then in 1885, they
moved for the last time, to Max Gate, a house outside Dorchester designed by
Hardy and built by his brother. There he wrote The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886),
The Woodlanders (1887), and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), the last of which
attracted criticism for its sympathetic portrayal of a "fallen woman" and was initially

refused publication. Its subtitle, A Pure Woman: Faithfully Presented, was intended
to raise the eyebrows of the Victorian middle classes.

Egdon Heath, a major location of The Return of the Native.

Jude the Obscure, published in 1895, met with an even stronger negative response
from the Victorian public because of its controversial treatment of sex, religion and
marriage. Furthermore its apparent attack on the institution of marriage caused
further strain on Hardy's already difficult marriage because Emma Hardy was
concerned that Jude the Obscure would be read as autobiographical. Some
booksellers sold the novel in brown paper bags, and the Bishop of Wakefield,
Walsham How, is reputed to have burnt his copy.[13] In his postscript of 1912,
Hardy humorously referred to this incident as part of the career of the book: "After
these [hostile] verdicts from the press its next misfortune was to be burnt by a
bishop probably in his despair at not being able to burn me".[17] Despite this,
Hardy had become a celebrity by the 1900s, but some argue that he gave up
writing novels because of the criticism of both Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the
Obscure.[18] The Well-Beloved, first serialized in 1892, was published in 1897.

Hardy painted by William Strang, 1893

Literary themes[edit]
Considered a Victorian realist, Hardy examines the social constraints on the lives of
those living in Victorian England, and criticizes those beliefs, especially those
relating to marriage, education and religion, that limited people's lives and caused
unhappiness. Such unhappiness, and the suffering it brings, is seen by poet Philip
Larkin as central in Hardy's works:

What is the intensely maturing experience of which Hardy's modern man is most
sensible? In my view it is suffering, or sadness, and extended consideration of the
centrality of suffering in Hardy's work should be the first duty of the true critic for
which the work is still waiting [. . .] Any approach to his work, as to any writer's
work, must seek first of all to determine what element is peculiarly his, which
imaginative note he strikes most plangently, and to deny that in this case it is the
sometimes gentle, sometimes ironic, sometimes bitter but always passive
apprehension of suffering is, I think, wrong-headed.[19]

In Two on a Tower, for example, Hardy takes a stand against these rules of society
with a story of love that crosses the boundaries of class. The reader is forced to
reconsider the conventions set up by society for the relationships between women
and men. Nineteenth-century society had conventions, which were enforced. In this
novel Swithin St Cleeve's idealism pits him against such contemporary social
constraints.

In a novel structured around contrasts, the main opposition is between Swithin St

Cleeve and Lady Viviette Constantine, who are presented as binary figures in a
series of ways: aristocratic and lower class, youthful and mature, single and
married, fair and dark, religious and agnostic...she [Lady Viviette Constantine] is
also deeply conventional, absurdly wishing to conceal their marriage until Swithin
has achieved social status through his scientific work, which gives rise to
uncontrolled ironies and tragic-comic misunderstandings.[20]
Fate or chance is another important theme. Hardy's characters often encounter
crossroads on a journey, a junction that offers alternative physical destinations but
which is also symbolic of a point of opportunity and transition, further suggesting
that fate is at work. Far From the Madding Crowd is an example of a novel in which
chance has a major role: "Had Bathsheba not sent the valentine, had Fanny not
missed her wedding, for example, the story would have taken an entirely different
path."[21] Indeed, Hardy's main characters often seem to be held in fate's
overwhelming grip.

Poetry[edit]

Thomas Hardy by Walter William Ouless, 1922

For online poems, see "Poetry collections" below.

In 1898 Hardy published his first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems, a collection of
poems written over 30 years. While some suggest that Hardy gave up writing novels
following the harsh criticism of Jude the Obscure in 1896, the poet C. H. Sisson calls
this "hypothesis" "superficial and absurd".[22][23] In the twentieth century Hardy
only published poetry.

Thomas Hardy wrote in a great variety of poetic forms including lyrics, ballads,
satire, dramatic monologues, and dialogue, as well as a three-volume epic closet

drama The Dynasts (1904-8),[24] and though in some ways a very traditional poet,
because he was influenced by folksong and ballads,[25] he "was never
conventional," and "persistently experiment[ed] with different, often invented,
stanza forms and metres,[26] and made use of "rough-hewn rhythms and colloquial
diction".[27]

A portrait of Thomas Hardy in 1923

Hardy wrote a number of significant war poems that relate to both the Boer Wars
and World War I, including Drummer Hodge, In Time of The Breaking of Nations,
and "The Man He Killed" and "[h]is work had a profound influence on other war
poets such as Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon".[28] Hardy in these poems
often used the viewpoint of ordinary soldiers and their colloquial speech.[29] A
theme in the Wessex Poems is the long shadow that the Napoleonic Wars cast over
the nineteenth century, as seen, for example, in "The Sergeant's Song" and
"Leipzig".[30] The Napoleonic War is of course the subject of The Dynasts.

Some of Hardy's most famous poems are from "Poems of 191213", part of Satires
of Circumstance (1914), written following the death of his wife Emma in 1912. They
had been estranged for twenty years and these lyric poems express deeply felt
"regret and remorse".[31] Poems like After a Journey, The Voice, and others from
this collection "are by general consent regarded as the peak of his poetic
achievement".[24] In a recent biography on Hardy, Claire Tomalin argues that Hardy
became a truly great English poet after the death of his first wife, Emma, beginning
with these elegies, which she describes as among "the finest and strangest
celebrations of the dead in English poetry."[32]

Many of Hardy's poems deal with themes of disappointment in love and life, and
"the perversity of fate", but the best of them present these themes with "a carefully
controlled elegiac feeling".[33] Irony is also an important element in a number of
Hardy's poems, including "The Man he Killed" and "Are You Digging on My Grave".
[34] A few of Hardy's poems, such as "The Blinded Bird", a melancholy polemic
against the sport of vinkenzetting, reflect his firm stance against animal cruelty,
exhibited also in his antivivisectionist views and his membership in The Royal
Society Against Cruelty to Animals RSPCA.[35]

A number of notable English composers, including Gerald Finzi,[36] Benjamin

Britten,[37] and Gustav Holst,[38] set poems by Hardy to music. Holst also wrote
Egdon Heath (Homage to Hardy), for orchestra, Op. 47.

Although his poems were initially not as well received as his novels had been, Hardy
is now recognised as one of the greatest twentieth-century poets, and his verse has
had a profound influence on later writers, including Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, Dylan
Thomas, and, most notably Philip Larkin.[27] Larkin included twenty-seven poems
by Hardy compared with only nine by T. S. Eliot in his edition of the Oxford Book of
Twentieth Century English Verse in 1973 (though, of course, Eliot is most famous for
long poems).[39] There were also fewer poems by W. B. Yeats.[40]

Religious beliefs[edit]
Hardy's family was Anglican, but not especially devout. He was baptised at the age
of five weeks and attended church, where his father and uncle contributed to music.
However, he did not attend the local Church of England school, instead being sent
to Mr Last's school, three miles away. As a young adult, he befriended Henry R.
Bastow (a Plymouth Brethren man), who also worked as a pupil architect, and who
was preparing for adult baptism in the Baptist Church. Hardy flirted with conversion,
but decided against it.[41] Bastow went to Australia and maintained a long
correspondence with Hardy, but eventually Hardy tired of these exchanges and the
correspondence ceased. This concluded Hardy's links with the Baptists.

The irony and struggles of life and a curious mind led him to question the traditional
Christian view of God:

The Christian god the external personality has been replaced by the intelligence
of the First Cause...the replacement of the old concept of God as all-powerful by a
new concept of universal consciousness. The 'tribal god, man-shaped, fiery-faced
and tyrannous' is replaced by the 'unconscious will of the Universe' which
progressively grows aware of itself and 'ultimately, it is to be hoped, sympathetic'.
[42]
Hardy's religious life seems to have mixed agnosticism, deism, and spiritism. Once,
when asked in correspondence by a clergyman about the question of reconciling the
horrors of pain with the goodness of a loving God, Hardy replied,

Mr. Hardy regrets that he is unable to offer any hypothesis which would reconcile
the existence of such evils as Dr. Grosart describes with the idea of omnipotent
goodness. Perhaps Dr. Grosart might be helped to a provisional view of the universe
by the recently published Life of Darwin and the works of Herbert Spencer and other
agnostics.[43]
Hardy frequently conceived of, and wrote about, supernatural forces, particularly
those that control the universe through indifference or caprice rather than any firm
will. He also showed in his writing some degree of fascination with ghosts and
spirits.[43] Even so, he retained a strong emotional attachment to the Christian
liturgy and church rituals, particularly as manifested in rural communities, that had
been such a formative influence in his early years, and Biblical references can be
found woven throughout many of Hardy's novels.

Hardy's friends during his apprenticeship to John Hicks included Horace Moule (one
of the eight sons of Henry Moule), and the poet William Barnes, both ministers of
religion. Moule remained a close friend of Hardy's for the rest of his life, and
introduced him to new scientific findings that cast doubt on literal interpretations of
the Bible,[44] such as those of Gideon Mantell. Moule gave Hardy a copy of
Mantell's book The Wonders of Geology (1848) in 1858, and Adelene Buckland has
suggested that there are "compelling similarities" between the "cliffhanger" section
from A Pair of Blue Eyes and Mantell's geological descriptions. It has also been
suggested that the character of Henry Knight in A Pair of Blue Eyes was based on
Horace Moule.[45]

Grave of Thomas Hardy's heart at Stinsford parish church

Locations in novels[edit]
Sites associated with Hardy's own life and which inspired the settings of his novels
continue to attract literary tourists and casual visitors. For locations in Hardy's
novels see: Thomas Hardy's Wessex, and the Thomas Hardy's Wessex[46] research
site, which includes maps.[47]

Influence[edit]
D. H. Lawrence's Study of Thomas Hardy (1936), indicates the importance of Hardy
for him, even though this work is a platform for Lawrence's own developing
philosophy rather than a more standard literary study. The influence of Hardy's

treatment of character, and Lawrence's own response to the central metaphysic

behind many of Hardy's novels, helped significantly in the development of The
Rainbow (1915) and Women in Love (1920). A contemporary of Lawrence, John
Cowper Powys's first novel, Wood and Stone (1915) was "Dedicated with devoted
admiration to the greatest poet and novelist of our age Thomas Hardy". Hardy was
clearly the starting point for the character of the novelist Edward Driffield in W
Somerset Maugham's novel Cakes and Ale (1930). Thomas Hardy's works also
feature prominently in the American playwright Christopher Durang's The Marriage
of Bette and Boo (1985), in which a graduate thesis analysing Tess of the
d'Urbervilles is interspersed with analysis of Matt's family's neuroses.

Works[edit]

The title page from a 1874 first edition of Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas
Hardy.
Prose[edit]
Hardy divided his novels and collected short stories into three classes:

Novels of Character and Environment

The Poor Man and the Lady (1867, unpublished and lost)
Under the Greenwood Tree: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School (1872)
Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
The Return of the Native (1878)
The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character (1886)
The Woodlanders (1887)
Wessex Tales (1888, a collection of short stories)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented (1891)
Life's Little Ironies (1894, a collection of short stories)
Jude the Obscure (1895)

Romances and Fantasies

A Pair of Blue Eyes: A Novel (1873)

The Trumpet-Major (1880)
Two on a Tower: A Romance (1882)
A Group of Noble Dames (1891, a collection of short stories)
The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Temperament (1897) (first published as a serial
from 1892)
Novels of Ingenuity

Desperate Remedies: A Novel (1871)

The Hand of Ethelberta: A Comedy in Chapters (1876)
A Laodicean: A Story of To-day (1881)
Online texts: Works by Thomas Hardy at Project Gutenberg and Works by Thomas
Hardy[48] at Internet Archive

Hardy also produced a number of minor tales; one story, The Spectre of the Real
(1894) was written in collaboration with Florence Henniker.[49] An additional shortstory collection, beyond the ones mentioned above, is A Changed Man and Other
Tales (1913). His works have been collected as the 24-volume Wessex Edition
(191213) and the 37-volume Mellstock Edition (191920). His largely self-written
biography appears under his second wife's name in two volumes from 1928 to
1930, as The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 184091 and The Later Years of Thomas
Hardy, 18921928, now published in a critical one-volume edition as The Life and
Work of Thomas Hardy, edited by Michael Millgate (1984).

Short stories (with date of first publication)

"How I Built Myself A House" (1865)

"Destiny and a Blue Cloak" (1874)

"The Thieves Who Couldn't Stop Sneezing" (1877)

"The Duchess of Hamptonshire" (1878)
"The Distracted Preacher" (1879)
"Fellow-Townsmen" (1880)
"The Honourable Laura" (1881)
"What The Shepherd Saw" (1881)
"A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four" (1882)
"The Three Strangers" (1883)
"The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid" (1883)
"Interlopers at the Knap" (1884)
"A Mere Interlude" (1885)
"A Tryst at an Ancient Earthwork" (1885)
"Alicia's Diary" (1887)
"The Waiting Supper" (188788)
"The Withered Arm" (1888)
"A Tragedy of Two Ambitions" (1888)
"The First Countess of Wessex" (1889)
"Anna, Lady Baxby" (1890)
"The Lady Icenway" (1890)
"Lady Mottisfont" (1890)
"The Lady Penelope" (1890)
"The Marchioness of Stonehenge" (1890)
"Squire Petrick's Lady" (1890)
"Barbara of the House of Grebe" (1890)
"The Melancholy Hussar of The German Legion" (1890)
"Absent-Mindedness in a Parish Choir" (1891)

"The Winters and the Palmleys" (1891)

"For Conscience' Sake" (1891)
"Incident in Mr. Crookhill's Life"(1891)
"The Doctor's Legend" (1891)
"Andrey Satchel and the Parson and Clerk" (1891)
"The History of the Hardcomes" (1891)
"Netty Sargent's Copyhold" (1891)
"On The Western Circuit" (1891)
"A Few Crusted Characters: Introduction" (1891)
"The Superstitious Man's Story" (1891)
"Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver" (1891)
"To Please His Wife" (1891)
"The Son's Veto" (1891)
"Old Andrey's Experience as a Musician" (1891)
"Our Exploits At West Poley" (189293)
"Master John Horseleigh, Knight" (1893)
"The Fiddler of the Reels" (1893)
"An Imaginative Woman" (1894)
"The Spectre of the Real" (1894)
"A Committee-Man of 'The Terror'" (1896)
"The Duke's Reappearance" (1896)
"The Grave by the Handpost" (1897)
"A Changed Man" (1900)
"Enter a Dragoon" (1900)
"Blue Jimmy: The Horse Stealer" (1911)
"Old Mrs. Chundle" (1929)

"The Unconquerable"(1992)
Poetry collections[edit]
Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898)
Poems of the Past and the Present (1901)
Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses (1909)
Satires of Circumstance (1914)
Moments of Vision (1917)
Collected Poems (1919)
Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses (1923)
Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925)
Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres (1928)
The Complete Poems (Macmillan, 1976)
Selected Poems (Edited by Harry Thomas, Penguin, 1993)
Hardy: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, 1995)
Thomas Hardy: Selected Poetry and Nonfictional Prose (St. Martin's Press, 1996)
Selected Poems (Edited by Robert Mezey, Penguin, 1998)
Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems (Edited by James Gibson, Palgrave, 2001)
Online poems: Poems by Thomas Hardy[50] at Poetry Foundation and Poems by
Thomas Hardy at poemhunter.com[51]

Drama[edit]
The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon (verse drama)
The Dynasts, Part 1 (1904)
The Dynasts, Part 2 (1906)
The Dynasts, Part 3 (1908)
The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall at Tintagel in Lyonnesse (1923) (oneact play)

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Armstrong, Tim. "Player Piano: Poetry and Sonic Modernity" in Modernism/Modernity
14.1 (January 2007), 119.
Beatty, Claudius J.P. Thomas Hardy: Conservation Architect. His Work for the Society
for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Dorset Natural History and Archaeological
Society 1995. ISBN 0-900341-44-0
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the Stone, in Thomas Hardy, Francesco Marroni and Norman Page (eds), Pescara,
Edizioni Tracce, 1995, pp.197222.
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the Post-Darwinian World. Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007 (The Nineteenth Century
Series).
Halliday, F. E. Thomas Hardy: His Life and Work. Bath: Adams & Dart, 1972.
Hands, Timothy. Thomas Hardy : Distracted Preacher? : Hardy's religious biography
and its influence on his novels. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989.
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Hardy, Florence Emily. The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 18401891. London:
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York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), 2003.
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Jedrzejewski, Jan. Thomas Hardy and the Church. London: Macmillan, 1996.
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Dialogic Analysis", in "Thomas Hardy Journal", 14, 2 (May 1998) pp. 3544
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Morgan, Rosemarie, Cancelled Words: Rediscovering Thomas Hardy (Routledge,

Chapman & Hall),1992
Morgan, Rosemarie, Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy
(Routledge & Kegan Paul), 1988; paperback: 1990.
Musselwhite, David, Social Transformations in Hardy's Tragic Novels: Megamachines
and Phantasms, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
O'Sullivan, Timothy. Thomas Hardy: An Illustrated Biography. London: Macmillan,
1975.
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Orel, Harold. The Unknown Thomas Hardy. New York: St. Martin's, 1987.
Phelps, Kenneth. The Wormwood Cup: Thomas Hardy in Cornwall. Padstow: Lodenek
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Pite, Ralph. Thomas Hardy: The Guarded Life. London: Picador, 2006.
Saxelby, F. Outwin. A Thomas Hardy dictionary : the characters and scenes of the
novels and poems alphabetically arranged and described (London: G. Routledge,
1911).
Seymour-Smith, Martin. Hardy. London: Bloomsbury, 1994.
Stevens-Cox, J. Thomas Hardy: Materials for a Study of his Life, Times, and Works.
St. Peter Port, Guernsey: Toucan Press, 1968.
Stevens-Cox, J. Thomas Hardy: More Materials for a Study of his Life, Times, and
Works. St. Peter Port, Guernsey: Toucan Press, 1971.
Stewart, J. I. M. Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.,
1971.
Turner, Paul. The Life of Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography. Oxford: Blackwell,
1998.
Weber, Carl J. Hardy of Wessex, his Life and Literary Career. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1940.
Wilson, Keith. Thomas Hardy on Stage. London: Macmillan, 1995.
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Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.

Wilson, Keith, ed. A Companion to Thomas Hardy. Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.

Wotton, George. Thomas Hardy: Towards A Materialist Criticism. Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield, 1985.
Letter from Hardy to Bertram Windle, transcribed by Birgit Plietzsch, from CL, vol 2,
pp.131133 The letter is contained in the maps section of the TTHA website.
Works by or about Thomas Hardy in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
A Hyper-Concordance to the Works of Thomas Hardy at the Victorian Literary
Studies Archive, Nagoya University, Japan
Research resources[edit]
Thomas Hardy Memorial Collection at Dorset County Museum, Dorchester, Dorset.
The largest Hardy collections in the world, donated directly to the Museum by the
Hardty family and enscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World register for the
United Kingdom.
Hardy Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
External links[edit]
Library resources about
Thomas Hardy
Resources in your library
Resources in other libraries
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Thomas Hardy
Wikisource has original works written by or about:
Thomas Hardy
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica article Hardy,
Thomas.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thomas Hardy.
Dorset County Museum
The Thomas Hardy Association (TTHA)
The Thomas Hardy Society
[hide] v t e

Works by Thomas Hardy

Novels
The Poor Man and the Lady (1867) Desperate Remedies (1871) Under the
Greenwood Tree (1872) A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) Far from the Madding Crowd
(1874) The Hand of Ethelberta (1876) The Return of the Native (1878) The TrumpetMajor (1880) A Laodicean (1881) Two on a Tower (1882) The Mayor of Casterbridge
(1886) The Woodlanders (1887) Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) Jude the Obscure
(1895) The Well-Beloved (1897)