Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June, 1840 – 11 January, 1928) was a novelist and poet, generally regarded as among the greatest poets and novelists in English literature. The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-imaginary county of Wessex, is marked by imaginative poetic descriptions, and a foreboding sense of fatalism.

Biography

Thomas Hardy was born at Upper Bockhampton near Dorchester in Dorset. His father was a stonemason. His mother was ambitious and well-read and supplemented his formal education. Hardy trained as an architect in Dorchester before moving to London to take up employment. He won prizes from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association.

Related Topics:
Dorchester - Dorset - Architect - London - Royal Institute of British Architects - Architectural Association

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His first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, was finished in 1867 but failed to find a publisher and Hardy destroyed the manuscript. Only parts of the novel remain. He was encouraged to try again by mentor and friend, fellow Victorian poet and novelist, George Meredith. Desperate Remedies (1871) and Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) were published anonymously. In 1873 A Pair of Blue Eyes was published under his own name. The story draws on Hardy's courtship of Emma Gifford whom he married in 1874. His next novel, Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), is considered Hardy's milestone as it was his first important work. Hardy is quoted to have said that in Far from the Madding Crowd he first introduced Wessex. The novel was successful enough for Hardy to be able to give up his architectural work and take up a full-time literary career.

Related Topics:
Novel - The Poor Man and the Lady - 1867 - George Meredith - Desperate Remedies - 1871 - Under the Greenwood Tree - 1872 - 1873 - A Pair of Blue Eyes - Emma Gifford - 1874 - Far from the Madding Crowd - Wessex

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Over the next 25 years Hardy produced 10 more novels. His finest prose work is classified by himself as "Novels of Character and Environment". Hardy is known for having been a gloomy pessimist who believed in the impersonal and, generally, negative powers of fate; for his realistic representation of people, mostly the working class; and his fatalistic, pessimistic view of life.

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Hardy's finest fiction and poetry usually present situations which illustrate his concern with circumstances or forces beyond human control. For example, in his novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the main character, through no fault of her own, goes through a chain of hardships and punishments. Hardy's last two major novels in particular, Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895) criticize the social order of the Victorian Age. The former concerns the treatment of women while the latter is a critique of the institution of marriage and the difficulty for the working class to gain a footing in the same privileges that upper classes enjoy.

Related Topics:
Tess of the d'Urbervilles - 1891 - Jude the Obscure

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Most of Hardy's fiction and poetry was set in his, largely rural, native land of Southwest England that he called Wessex, according to the region's ancient tribal name. The Hardys moved from London to Yeovil and then to Sturminster Newton, where he wrote The Return of the Native (1878). In 1885 they returned to Dorchester, moving into Max Gate—a house that Hardy had designed himself. There Hardy wrote two of his most famous novels, The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), and The Woodlanders (1887). These two novels solidified Hardy's popularity and approval with Victorian readers.

Related Topics:
Southwest England - Wessex - London - Yeovil - Sturminster Newton - The Return of the Native - 1878 - 1885 - Max Gate - The Mayor of Casterbridge - 1886 - The Woodlanders - 1887

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In 1891, Hardy's most famous novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles was published. It was bitterly denounced by critics at the time and by the time Hardy's final major novel, Jude the Obscure was published, in 1895, it was met with even stronger negative outcry by the Victorian public for its frank treatment of sex. It was mocked and jokingly referred to by critics as "Jude the Obscene." Hardy was thin-skinned and these remarks hurt him. His frustration at the outcry against his two novels published in the 1890's caused him to stop writing novels altogether. In the twentieth century, and the modern age of realism in literature that followed, Hardy's work was finally respected and admired by such authors as D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf.

Related Topics:
1891 - Victorian - D.H. Lawrence - Virginia Woolf

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In 1898 Hardy published his first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems, a collection of poems written over the previous 30 years. On ceasing to write novels Hardy turned his hand to poetry, which he had always claimed was his first love. Hardy continued to publish collections until his death in 1928.

Related Topics:
1898 - Wessex Poems - 1928

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Although Hardy had been estranged from his wife for some years, her sudden death in 1912 had a traumatic effect on him. He made a trip to Cornwall to revisit places linked with her, and with their courtship, and wrote a series, Poems 1912-13, exploring his grief.

Related Topics:
1912 - Cornwall - Poems 1912-13

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In 1914 he married Florence Dugdale, 40 years his junior, whom he had first met in 1905. The writer Robert Graves, in his autobiography Goodbye to All That, recalls meeting Hardy in Dorset in the early 1920s. Hardy received Graves and his newly married wife very warmly and was encouraging about the younger author's work. The incident reveals a warmth of personality that belies the gloomy aspect of many of his novels.

Related Topics:
1914 - Florence Dugdale - Robert Graves - Goodbye to All That - 1920s

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Hardy was a confirmed atheist at a time when this was still not deemed "respectable" in much of polite society. Some have attributed the bleak outlook of many of his novels as reflecting his view of the eternal and profound absence of God or any higher presence in coming to man's aid in his times of woe.

Related Topics:
Atheist - God

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Hardy fell ill in December 1927 and died in January 1928, having dictated his final poem to his wife on his deathbed. His funeral, on 16 January at Westminster Abbey, was a controversial occasion: his family and friends had wished him to be buried at Stinsford but his executor, Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, had insisted he should be placed in Poets' Corner. A compromise was reached whereby his heart was buried at Stinsford and his ashes were interred in the abbey.

Related Topics:
1927 - 1928 - 16 January - Westminster Abbey - Stinsford - Sydney Carlyle Cockerell - Poets' Corner

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Hardy's cottage at Bockhampton and Max Gate in Dorchester are owned by the National Trust.

Related Topics:
Bockhampton - National Trust

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