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Y Thomas HardyBORN: 1840, Dorset, England

DIED: 1928, Dorset, England

NATIONALITY: English

GENRE: Fiction, poetry, drama

MAJOR WORKS:The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891)Jude the Obscure (1896)

OverviewThe works of the English novelist, poet, and dramatistThomas Hardy (1840–1928) unite the Victorian andmodern eras. His work revealed the strains that wide-spread industrialization and urbanization placed on tradi-tional English life. Major social changes took place duringHardy’s life. When he was a young man, England still hada largely agricultural economy and Queen Victoria pre-sided over an ever-expanding worldwide empire. By thetime he died, the forces of modernization had changedEngland forever.

Works in Biographical and HistoricalContext

Early Years During a Period of Rapid Industri-alization in England Thomas Hardy was born onJune 2, 1840, in Higher Bockhampton in Dorset, Eng-land, which later would form part of the ‘‘Wessex’’ of hisnovels and poems. During his early years, Hardy wit-nessed the changing of his landscape and rural commun-ity brought on by the Industrial Revolution. While theIndustrial Revolution had begun at the turn of the nine-teenth century, it was ongoing through the beginning ofthe twentieth century. Populations increasingly shiftedfrom the country to the cities. Railroads linked townsand villages that were once remote to major urban cen-

ters. And with new mobility and new economic pressure,people faced new social issues, too, including a sharpspike in prostitution rates and infamous abuses of childlabor in factories and mines

After attending local schools, Hardy was apprenticedin 1856 to John Hicks, an architect in Dorchester. Dur-ing his time as apprentice architect, Hardy read many ofthe influential works of the era, such as Charles Darwin’sOrigin of the Species (1859), which was published whenHardy was nineteen. By the time he was twenty, Hardyhad abandoned religion after being convinced of theintellectual truth of a godless universe.

Early Writing Experience: Failures, Then SuccessIn 1862 Hardy began to write poems but was unable toget them published. Eventually, he accepted that he mustbecome a novelist to succeed as an author. The novelist’sprofession had by this time become well paid and wellregarded. Hardy wrote his first novel, The Poor Man andthe Lady, in 1867, but was advised not to publish it. Hisnext novel Desperate Remedies (1871), was published butunsuccessful. On March 7, 1870, he met Emma LaviniaGifford, with whom he fell in love. In spite of his con-tinuing lack of success with literature, he decided tocontinue with it, hoping eventually to make enoughmoney to enable him to marry Emma.

Hardy was paid thirty pounds for his next novel,Under the Greenwood Tree (1872). The following year itwas published in New York by Holt and Williams. Thebook was well received, and he was asked to write a novelfor serialization in a magazine. In September 1872 APair of Blue Eyes began to appear, which records Hardy’scourtship with Gifford.

Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), also serialized,was a financial and critical success, allowing Hardy to giveup architecture and marry Emma in 1874. The Hand ofEthelberta (1876) also appeared as a serial but was not assuccessful. It did not have the country setting of Far fromthe Madding Crowd, which his audience had been pre-viously responsive to. Hardy began to feel a sense of

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discontent as a novelist because his real desire was tosucceed as a poet. He preferred his poetry to his proseand considered his novels to be merely a way to earn aliving.

Mid-Career Work His next novel, The Return of theNative (1878), received mixed attention. The novel’stheme of the collision of Old World and New World, ofrural and modern, allowed Hardy to explore his growingsense that humans are driven by impulses that are notunder rational control. Some reviewers praised thegraphic descriptions, but others found Hardy’s writingstrained and pretentious.

The Trumpet-Major (1880), set in the Napoleonicperiod, represents Hardy’s attempt at historical fiction. Itwas followed by A Laodicean (1881), which Hardy dic-tated to his wife while he was ill. In September 1881,while that novel was still running its course, the editor ofthe Atlantic Monthly invited Hardy to write a serial for hismagazine. The result was Two on a Tower (1882).

Later Fiction and Controversy over ‘‘Immoral’’Content During this time, Hardy decided to return tohis native Dorset for good. This move initiated a majorperiod of Hardy’s creative life as a novelist. The Mayor ofCasterbridge (1886), his next novel, presents Hardy’sbelief that ‘‘character is fate.’’ Heralded as a turning point

in the writer’s career, primarily for the skill with which hepresents his male protagonist, The Mayor of Casterbridgeis further acclaimed as a pivotal work in the developmentof the English novel, demonstrating that the genre couldpresent a significant psychological history and still serve asan important social document.

Hardy’s next novel, The Woodlanders (1887), a tradi-tional pastoral, actually ends on a happy note. The samecannot be said, however, for Tess of the d’Urbervilles(1891), in which an innocent country girl falls victim toVictorian social hypocrisy.

The Well-Beloved (1892) is thin by comparison.Hardy described it in a letter to his American publishersas ‘‘short and slight, and written entirely with a view toserial publication.’’ It was followed in 1896 by whatwould be his final novel, Jude the Obscure, which followsthe life and early death of Jude Fawley. More than any ofHardy’s other novels, Jude the Obscure was met withsavage critical attacks, mainly for what was perceived asimmoral content. Despite the controversy it inspiredimmediately after publication, the novel was eventuallywidely translated and recognized as a masterpiece beforeHardy’s death.

Apart from his fourteen novels, Hardy was a prolificwriter of short stories, most of which were collected infour volumes. They were written for magazine publica-tion and are of uneven quality. Most were written in thelate 1880s and early 1890s.

Return to Poetry After 1896, Hardy returned to hisfirst love: poetry. Hardy the poet is best known for versesthat borrow from the tradition of the ballad. Wessex Poemsappeared in 1898. Later work encompassed everythingfrom the monumental drama ‘‘The Dynasts’’ to simplerand even joyful poems celebrating nature and themoment of being, such as ‘‘The Darkling Thrush.’’

After declining the offer of a knighthood, in 1910Hardy accepted the Order of Merit—the highest honorthat can be accorded to an English author. Two yearslater his wife died. Filled with remorse over the fact thattheir marriage had not been better, Hardy wrote severalpoems about their relationship. In 1914, Hardy marriedagain, this time to teacher and children’s book authorFlorence Emily Dugdale, a woman forty years his junior.From 1920 to 1927, Hardy worked on his autobiogra-phy, which, when it appeared, was disguised as being thework of his wife. He died on January 11, 1928. While herequested that he be buried next to his first wife, thatwish was only partly granted. Hardy’s body was interredin Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey, in London, whilehis heart was buried in his first wife’s grave.

Works in Literary ContextStrongly identifying with the county of Dorset, Hardysaw himself as a successor to the Dorset dialect poetWilliam Barnes, who had been a friend and mentor.Author William Rutland cites the Bible, the Romantic

Thomas Hardy Downey / Getty Images

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poets—especially Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, andWilliam Wordsworth—and Barnes as early influences onHardy. Hardy also turned to the classics, reading Virgil,Horace, Catullus, Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, andAeschylus, whose recurring theme was ‘‘call no manhappy while he lives.’’ In later years, scores of youngerauthors, including William Butler Yeats, Siegfried Sas-soon, and Virginia Woolf, visited Hardy. The poet andnovelist also discussed poetry with modernist poet EzraPound.

Classic Tragedy Return of the Native borrows thestructural pattern of a Greek tragedy and follows thefive-part division of a Shakespeare tragedy. The sense ofplace is intensified by the numerous references to localfolk customs. The character of Eustacia has been com-pared to Emma Bovary, though Hardy claimed that hehad not read Flaubert’s 1856 novel at this time.

Shakespearean Tragedy As with The Return of theNative, The Mayor of Casterbridge invites comparisons toShakespearean tragedy, especially King Lear. A parallelwith the Old Testament story of Saul and David has alsobeen suggested. The professional reviewers were disap-pointingly unappreciative, but three writers all praised itprivately—novelists George Gissing and Robert LouisStevenson in letters to Hardy, and poet Gerard ManleyHopkins in a letter to Robert Bridges, fellow poet andlater poet laureate of England.

Works in Critical ContextEarly critics viewed Hardy as a consummate realist, whilelater evaluations by such critics as Albert J. Guerardsuggest that he may be recognized as a predecessor ofantirealist trends in twentieth-century fiction. For theintegrity of his moral and philosophical views and forthe imaginative achievement in creating the world ofWessex, Hardy continues to receive undiminishedacclaim from critics, scholars, and the reading public.

Far from the Madding Crowd Author DaleKramer calls Far from the Madding Crowd ‘‘the non-tragic predecessor’’ to Hardy’s later novels. The storyends happily, although the darker side of life is never faraway. Kramer declares that this situation is based on theidea of dichotomy: ‘‘The assumption of the aesthetic inthe novel is that any and all reactions to situations will bebetween two extremes, or on one of two extremes.’’Hardy’s skill in describing the countryside, the farms,and the setting of the novel is emphasized by authorJoseph W. Beach: ‘‘[W]e know by evidence of all oursenses that we are dealing here with ‘substantial things.’’’

Tess of the d’Urbervilles Critics of Hardy’s day havebeen joined by their modern counterparts in citing Tess ofthe d’Urbervilles as the culminating point in Hardy’sefforts at creating a modern form of tragedy. Many con-sider it Hardy’s greatest novel.

Author Byron Caminero-Santangelo writes, ‘‘Duringthe second half of the nineteenth century, much of theBritish intellectual and scientific community believed thatethical and social progress was linked with the naturalprocess of evolution. Charles Darwin, T.H. Huxley, andHerbert Spencer all believed that ethics and values couldbe understood and formulated using the knowledge theyhad of the natural, material world. . . . In Tess of thed’Urbervilles, Hardy . . . severs the link between ethicsand nature, but he hardly portrays British society as eth-ical, kind, or just. In Tess, society, technology, and law allcontribute to the harshness of the ‘cosmic process.’ Inparticular, the novel exposes the way that a patriarchalsociety uses a ‘natural’ discourse to oppress women.Thus, Tess challenges the linking of the ethical and thenatural as well as the social structures which are validatedby this link.’’ He continues, ‘‘For Hardy, a humane eth-ical system could not be grounded in nature becausenature itself is harsh and ‘cruel,’ and it could not berooted in religion because he does not posit the possibil-ity of a just deity.’’

Jude the Obscure Of Jude the Obscure, author DavidGrylls writes, ‘‘It is true that the book’s hero tries hope-lessly to harmonise the dual demands of his nature; true,too, that he is trapped between two contrasting women,spiritual Sue and fleshly Arabella. But behind this themelies something even larger—what Hardy called ‘the trag-edy of unfulfilled aims.’ Jude the Obscure is about the painof disappointment—frustration, disillusion, loss.’’

Grylls continues: ‘‘[T]he book also mounts anonslaught on marriage. In this it has affinities with thecontemporary New Woman novels, which questionedmarriage and urged ‘free union’ . . . underlying such glee-fully grim ridicule is a serious critique of monogamous

LITERARY AND HISTORICALCONTEMPORARIES

Hardy’s famous contemporaries include:

George Eliot (1819–1880): Pen name of Mary AnnEvans, English novelist. Eliot was a leading realist writer.

Emile Zola (1840–1902): French novelist and playwright;leader of the literary school of naturalism.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900): German philosopherwho criticized religion. Nietzsche is best known forannouncing that ‘‘God is dead.’’

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903): Leading Primitivist painter.Gauguin moved to Polynesia and painted local scenesusing bold colors and simple lines.

Olive Schreiner (1855–1920): White South African nov-elist and early feminist. Schreiner lived in London in the1880s and wrote about prostitution and birth control.

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morality—the belief that all sexual relations outside mar-riage must automatically be condemned, all inside sanc-tioned and approved. This belief, or the pressure it exerts,is responsible for virtually every disaster.’’

Responses to Literature

1. Thomas Hardy is known mainly as a novelist, but heconsidered his poetry better than his novels. Afterreading a selection of Hardy’s prose and poety,what is your opinion? Was he a better poet thannovelist? Write a paper stating your position, usingexamples from the novels and poems to supportyour points.

2. Hardy shocked his readers by writing about suchthings as sexual relationships outside of marriage.Hip-hop artists today shock some people by writingabout violence, drug use, and crime. One hundredyears from now, do you think society will havechanged so that those topics are no longer consid-ered shocking?

3. How do you interpret the end of Tess of thed’Urbervilles? Does Hardy have Tess end tragiclybecause society demanded that fallen women be‘‘punished’’? Or is the ending an indictment of Vic-torian society? What would have to change in thenovel for Tess to find happiness?

4. Readers interested in works that bear a kinship toHardy’s should try the works of D.H. Lawrence(1885–1930). Lawrence, like Hardy, is considered arealist who looked fearlessly at changing terms of themost intimate human relationships. His major novelsinclude: Sons and Lovers (1913), The Rainbow(1915), and Women in Love (1920).

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Books

Beach, Joseph W. The Technique of Thomas Hardy. NewYork: Russell & Russell, 1922.

Grylls, D. ‘‘Jude the Obscure,’’ in Reference Guide toEnglish Literature. London: St. James Press, 1991.

Guerard, Albert J. Thomas Hardy: The Novels andStories.Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,1949.

Kramer, Dale. Thomas Hardy: The Forms of Tragedy.Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press;London: Macmillan, 1975.

Lerner, L., and J. Holstrom. Thomas Hardy and HisReaders. London: The Bodley Head, 1968.

Page, Norman, ed. Thomas Hardy: The Writer and HisBackground. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980.

Rutland, William R. Thomas Hardy: A Study of HisWritings and Their Background. New York: Russelland Russell, 1962.

Periodicals

Caminero-Santangelo, Byron. ‘‘A Moral Dilemma: Ethicsin Tess of the d’Urbervilles.’’ English Studies 75, no. 1(1994): 46–61.

Shumaker, Jeanette. ‘‘Breaking with the Conventions:Victorian Confession Novels and Tess of thed’Urbervilles.’’ English Literature in Transition1880–1920 37, no. 4 (1994): 445–62.

Y Jaroslav HasekBORN: 1883, Prague, Bohemia (now the CzechRepublic)

DIED: 1923, Lipnice, Czechoslovakia

NATIONALITY: Czech

GENRE: Fiction, Poetry

MAJOR WORKS:The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the

World War (1923)

COMMON HUMANEXPERIENCE

With the birth of modern scientific inquiry, the Victoriansrequired a radical readjustment to new concepts of space as wellas time. Not only had the earth been shown to be immenselymore ancient than had previously been believed, the discoveriesof nineteenth-century astronomy revealed a universe of bound-less space. Here are some other works that deal with societalchange:

Where the Air Is Clear (1958), a novel by Carlos Fuentes.This novel employs a tone of bitter and violent protestand describes many grave social problems in contem-porary Mexico City.

The Vortex (1924), a novel by Jose Eustacio Rivera. Thiswas the first novel written by a Colombian to offerrealistic descriptions of Colombian cowherders of theplains and jungle rubber workers.

Les Miserables (1862), a novel by Victor Hugo. Hugopaints a vivid picture of Paris’s seamier side while dis-cussing the causes and results of revolution, the moralredemption of its main character, an ex-convict, and themoral redemption of a nation through revolution.

The Faerie Queene (1590), an epic poem by EdmundSpenser. This epic poem portrays the England ofSpenser’s dreams at a time when Queen Elizabeth I wason the throne and there was no heir to the crown.

Dragon’s Teeth (1942), a novel by Upton Sinclair. Thisnovel explores the rise of Nazism and won Sinclair the1943 Pulitzer Prize for Literature.

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Jaroslav Hasek