HARDY 



3838 



remarkable homogeneity, due 

 partly to the literary patriotism, 

 or " localism," that confines his 

 scenes and persons to the limits of 

 a province, but most of all to the 

 character of a writer strong and 

 unglamoured in his view of man 

 and the universe, fearless and un- 

 flinching in his artistic sincerity. 



What distinguishes him de- 

 finitely from the purely Victorian 

 writers is his complete abjuration 

 of the popular sentimental attitude 

 towards love, life, and religion, 

 and his almost pagan sense of fate. 

 The difference can be seen by a 

 comparison of the two dairymaids, 

 Hetty Sorrel, in Adam Bede, and 

 Tess in Tess of the D'Urbervilles. 

 Hardy seems to see human life as 

 something almost pitiably tran- 

 sient against the eternal impassiv- 

 ity of nature. Thus, in The Return 

 of the Native, 1878, the most 

 powerful creation is not a person, 

 but a place, Egdon Heath, grim, 

 sinister, and almost malignant in 

 its immemorial indifference to the 

 life that flutters briefly on its 

 ancient bosom. 



Hardy's artistic geography must 

 not be taken too literally. It is not 

 for nothing that he reverts to the 

 ancient name Wessex, calls Dor- 

 chester Casterbridge, Oxford 

 Christminster, and so forth. He is 

 often treated as the exploiter of a 

 province ; but his Wessex is a cre- 

 ation rather than a transcript. 



Hardy's output of work was very 

 regular seventeen long novels or 

 collections of stories in twenty-six 

 years, all at a very high level of 

 imaginative and technical excel- 

 lence. Every reader will have pre- 

 ferences , but general agreement 

 would group together Tess of the 

 D' Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure, 

 The Mayor of Casterbridge, The 

 Return of the Native, The Wood- 

 landers, and Far from the Madding 

 Crowd, as superior to Desperate 

 Remedies, A Pair of Blue Eyes, 

 The Hand of Ethel berta, and A 

 Laodicean. Never overlooked, 

 Hardy became most famous when 

 Tess of the D'Urbervilles, with its 

 challenge to the conventions of 

 respectability, appeared in 1891, 

 and something like a storm burst 

 when the grim and dreadful pic- 

 ture of sordid existence, called Jude 

 the Obscure, followed a few years 

 later. The Well-Beloved (1897), 

 a puzzling fantasy, seemed to 

 indicate a loss of power. 



The unwavering views of 

 Hardy's novels find their parallel 

 in the poems. Verse was his 

 earliest literary activity and his 

 latest. What followed 'The Well- 

 Beloved was not another novel, but 

 Wessex Poems (1898), including 

 some dating from his activity in 



the 'sixties. Four other volumes of 

 verse, Poems of the Past and the 

 Present, Time's Laughing-Stocks, 

 Satires of Circumstance, and 

 Moments of Vision, succeeded. 



The poems exhibit the homogene- 

 ity of the stories. Many of them, 

 the poet is careful to tell us, are 



Abbots Cernel, Cerne Abbas ; Ald- 

 brickham, Reading ; Alfredston, Wan- 

 tage ; Anglebury, Wareham ; Buck- 

 bury Fitzp'iers, Okeford Fitzpaine ; 

 Budmouth Regis, Weymouth ; Canford 

 Manor, Chine Manor ; Casterbridge, 

 Dorchester ; Castle Boterel, Boscastle ; 

 Chalk Newton, Maiden Newton ; Chase- 

 town, Cranborne ; Christminster, Ox- 

 ford ; Corvesgate Castle, Corfe Castle ; 

 Downstaple, Barnstaple ; Durnover, 

 Fordington ; East Egdon, Affpuddle ; 

 Emminster, Beamiuster ; Endelstow, St. 

 Juliet's ; Enkworth, Enkcombe ; Ever- 

 shead, Evershot ; Falls Park, Mells ; 

 Flintcomb Ash, Dole's Ash ; Great 

 Hintock, Minterne Magna ; Havenpool, 

 Poole ; Holmstoke, East Stoke ; I veil, 

 Yeovil ; Kingsbere, Bere Regis ; King's 

 Hintock Court, Melbury Sampford ; 

 Knollingwood, Wimborne St. Giles ; 

 Knollsea, Swanage ; Leddenton, GiHing- 

 ham ; Little Hintock, Melbury Osmund ; 

 Lornton, Horton ; Lulshead, Luhvorth ; 

 Marlott, Marnhuil ; Marygreen, Fawley 

 Magna ; Melchester, Salisbury ; Middle- 

 ton Abbey, Milton Abbey ; Mill-pond St. 

 Jude's, Milborne St. Andrews ; Narro- 

 bourne, East Coker ; Nuzzlebury, 

 Hazlebury Bryan ; Overcombe, Sutton 

 Poyutz ; PortBredy, Bridport ; Po'sham, 

 Portisham ; Quartershot, Aldershot ; 

 Ringworth, Ringstead ; Sandbourne, 

 Bournemouth ; Shaston, Shaftesbury ; 

 Sherton Abbas, Sher borne ; Shottsford 

 Forum, Blandford Forum ; Solentsea, 

 Southsea ; Stancy Castle, Dunster ; 

 Stickleford, Tincleton ; Stoke Barehills, 

 Basingstoke ; Stourcastle, Sturminster 

 Newton ; Talbothays, Norris Mill Farm ; 

 Tolchurch, Tolpuddle ; Toneborough, 

 Taunton ; Warborne, Wimborne ; 

 Weatherbury, Puddletown ; Wellbridge, 

 Woolbridge ; Weydon Priors, Weyhill ; 

 Wintoncester, Winchester ; Yewsholt, 

 Farrs. 



Thomas Hardy. Place-names in the 



Wessex novels, with their generally 



accepted identifications. The fictitious 



names are printed in italic. 



" dramatic or personative in con- 

 ception," that is, utterances of 

 invented persons, and not neces- 

 sarily his own. But it is impossible 

 not to find in them the strong, sad~ 

 sincerity, occasional bitterness, 

 and tragic recognition of life's 

 futility that form a kind of ground 

 bass to the novels. Hardy's poems, 

 it should be added, are original in 

 manner, and but lightly touched 

 with verbal grace and felicity ; but 

 he is a genuine poet ; the lyric in- 

 spiration of his verse is unquestion- 

 able. It is not impossible that the 

 poet may survive the story-teller. 



The suspicion of exhausted 

 power aroused byTheWell-Beloved 

 was removed when the most 

 amazing of his works, The Dynasts, 

 an epic-drama of the Napoleonic 

 Wars, began to appear in 1904. 

 Two further instalments came in 

 1906 and 1908. It is a pity that the 

 work did not first appear as a com- 

 pleted thing, for the vastness of 

 the design and the mastery of 

 execution could not be appre- 

 ciated in a periodical reading of 

 parts coming at intervals of two 

 years. The unique greatness of 

 The Dynasts is generally admitted. 

 Hardy's implied view of man as a 

 puny, temporary creature, fretting 

 himself briefly against a spectral 

 background of remote and inex- 

 orable forces, here becomes ex- 

 plicit, for the events of the conflict 

 are shown first in the dimensions 

 of man's own experience, and then 

 as the faint writhings of ant-like 

 creatures on little plots of earth, 

 watched from above, interpreted 

 by all-seeing spiritual powers. 



As poetry, drama, and history, 

 The Dynasts is a noble contri- 

 bution to world-literature. The 

 choral odes of the spirits, the de- 

 scriptive prose directions and con- 

 nexions, and the serviceable verse 

 of the major dialogue are all in 

 varying degree most admirable. A 

 great life-work is thus fully rounded 

 off by a great achievement. 



Thomas Hardy was given the 

 Order of Merit in 1910, and 

 awarded the gold medal of the 

 Royal Society of Literature. He 

 received the degrees of LL.D. 

 (Aberdeen), Litt.D. (Cambridge), 

 Litt.D. (Oxford), and became an 

 Honorary Fellow of Magdalene 

 College, Cambridge. He was twice 

 married, first, in 1874, to Emma 

 Lavinia Gifford, and next, in 

 1914, to Florence Emily Dugdale. 

 Published Works. Desperate Reme- 

 dies, 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 Trumpet-Major, 1880; 

 A Laodicean, 1881 ; Two on a Tower, 



