E04 – 테스(Tess of the D'urbervilles) / 하디(Thomas Hardy, 1840~1928)

E04 – 테스(Tess of the D'urbervilles) / 하디(Thomas Hardy, 1840~1928)

(출전: 동서고전 200선 해제3 / 반덕진 / 가람기획)

부호의 아들에게 순결을 빼앗기고 농장경영을 지망하는 성직자 아들에게 희생되어, 끝내는 살인을 범하고 사형을 당하게 되는 청순한 테스를 탁월한 예술적 솜씨로 그린 이 작품에는 인간의 운명이 그것을 좌우하는 우주의 맹목적인 <내재의지>에 대한 작가의 <비관주의적 운명관>이 펼쳐지고 있다. 테스라는 한 젊은 여인이 비정한 인간사회에 던져진 채 세파에 시달리며 겪어야 하는 일련의 고초는 독자들로 하여금 삶의 의미에 대한 원초적 물음을 진지하게 던지지 않을 수 없게 한다.

a. 건축학도 출신의 작가

 디킨스와 함께 빅토리아 시대 영국 문학사의 쌍벽을 이루는 인물인 하디는 영국 남부의 도싯(Dorset) 주에서 태어났다. 건축업자인 부친은 음악을 즐겼으며, 어머니는 왕성한 독서가로 하디는 어려서부터 책을 좋아했고 고독을 사랑했다.

  그는 출생하는 순간 사산으로 오인할 만큼 허약한 체질이었는데, 이러한 신체적 조건은 그의 비관주의적 사상의 원초적 원인이 되었다. 하디는 가정적으로 행복한 환경 속에서 자랐으나, 신체적 허약함 때문이지 우울한 소년시절을 보낸다. 그러나 음악과 시에 대한 감수성은 예민하여, 이 시절 하디는 뒤마의 소설과 셰익스피어의 비극을 즐겨 읽으며 문학에 대한 열정을 키워나갔다.

  16세 때 부친의 직업을 이어받기 위해 도체스터 교회 건축사인 존 힉스의 제자로 들어가 그에게서 건축의 기초와 라틴어 그리스어를 배웠다. 이 무렵의 하디는 책벌레라 불릴 만큼 독서에 열중했고, 특히 로마의 시인들을 좋아했다. 한편 그는 여기서 두 번의 교수형을 목격하는데, 이는 그에게 그의 소설 <테스>에서 테스가 사형당하는 장면으로 재현될 정도로 강한 충격을 주었다.

  20세 때 하디는 옥스퍼드 출신의 모울을 알게 되는데 그에게서 학문적으로나 사상적으로 상당한 영향을 받는다. 하디는 그와 교우하는 동안 상당량의 독서를 하게 된다. 특히 <아가멤논> <오이디푸스>등의 그리스 비극에 심취했다. 전지전능한 신의 장난에 의해 나약한 인간의 운명이 결정되는 장면들을 목격하고 이때부터 그의 정신세계에는 비관주의적 색채가 착색되었다. 그러나 무엇보다도 청년 하디를 사로잡은 것은 다윈의 진화론과 쇼펜하우어의 염세철학이었다.

  29세 때 첫 소설 <가련한 남자와 숙녀>를 썼으나, 31세 때 쓴 <최후의 충고>가 사실상 그의 처녀작이 되었다. 그러나 하디가 영국 문단에 확고한 지위를 갖게 된것은 35세 때 쓴 <광란의 무리를 떠나서>다. 이 작품은 이른바 <웨섹스 소설>의 첫 작품으로 자연과 인간감정이 초래하는 비극적 결과들을 목가적 풍경 속에서 열정적으로 그려냈다.

  이 소설로 호평을 받자 그는 건축을 떠나, 결혼한 다음 고향에 <맥스 게이트>라는 저택을 짓고 평생 동안 문학에 전념했다. 하디는 <맥스 게이트>에서 살면서 계절마다 아름답고 변화하는 자연과 그 속에서 소박하게 살아가는 사람들에게 무한한 애정을 느겼다. 그는 고향인 웨섹스(Wessex:도싯의 옛이름) 지방을 배경으로 많은 작품을 남겨 그의 소설을 <웨섹스 소설>이라 부른다.

  이후 <웨섹스 소설>들인 <테스> <비운의 주드> <귀향> <숲속의 사람들> <푸른 숲의 나무 그늘 아래서> 등이 창작된다. 하디 문학의 주제와 특성이 집약되어 있는 <웨섹스 소설> 중에서도 특히 뛰어난 작품이 <테스>와 <비운의 주드>다.

  그의 예술적 정점이라 할 수 있는 <테스>는 진지한 양심세계와 심오한 도덕성이 조화를 이룬 작품으로 그를 세계적인 작가로 만들었다. 그러나 출판 당시 비도덕적이고 반기독교적인 통속소설이라는 혹평을 받았다.

  그의 마지막 장편 소설인 <비운의 주드>는 매우 비범한 작품으로 그의 천재성이 유감없이 드러난 소설이었지만, 그 암담한 결말과 비극적 스토리로 인해 <테스>보다 더 심한 혹평을 받았다. 사상적 깊이와 예술적 완성도가 뛰어났음에도 기존 윤리관과 가치관에 막혀 정당한 평가를 받지 못했던 것이다. 결국 하디는 <테스>와 <비운의 주드>에 쏟아진 혹평을 계기로 소설의 세계를 단념하고 못다한 문학의 열정을 시의 세계에서 실현하게 된다.

  하디가 소설에서 시로 전화하게 된 것은 자신의 소설에 대한 사회의 비난에도 그 이유가 있었지만, 보다 근원적인 원인은 시에 대한 그의 선천적인 애정 때문이기도 했다. 시 분야에서 그의 필생의 대작은 나폴레옹과 그의 시대를 그린 철학적 대하 서사시인 <제왕들>이다. 이 작품에는 삶의 온전함과 전쟁의 자제를 바라는 평화주의가 호소력을 얻고 있는데, 이러한 연유로 말년의 하디는 생존한 영국작가 중 최고로 칭송되었다.

  1928년(88세) 하디는 두번째 부인이 지켜보는 가운데 88세를 일기로 그의 생애를 마감했다. 그의 유해는 뒤늦게 그의 문학을 인정한 많은 사람들의 애도 속에 웨스트민스터 사원에 묻혔다.

b. 시대적 배경과 문학세계

 시대적 배경

 하디가 살았던 19세기는 산업혁명이 농촌중심의 영국사회를 도시중심의 산업국가로 개편하는 과정에 있었다. 또한 자유경쟁과 그에 따른 부의 증가와 불평등으로 영국 사회의 전통과 인습이 무너지는 와중이었다.

  이러한 변화 속에서 19세기 중엽부터 대두하기 시작한 다윈의 진화론은 서구사회를 지배하고 있던 기독교 사상을 근본적으로 뒤흔들어놓았다. 다윈의 <종의 기원>은 당시 기독교 신념에 젖어 있던 하디에게도 충격이 아닐 수 없었다. 새로이 진화론과 과학적 사고방식을 접한 하디에게 이제 더이상 신의 섭리는 의미가 없었다. 이러한 생각은 쇼펜하우어의 철학과 결합되어 <내재의지>라는 새로운

사상을 낳게 되었다. 그리고 이에 따라 인간은 자신의 의지 여하에 관계없이 우주와 자연이 지배하는 맹목적인 내재의지에 의하여 행불행이 좌우된다는 하디의 비관주의적 운명관이 확립되기에 이르렀으며, 그의 문학세계의 핵심사상으로 작용하게 되었다.

   문학세계

 그의 문학은 한마디로 인간의 숙명적 부조리와 대결하는 비극의 문학으로, 그에게 인생은 인간들의 진실된 욕망이 외면당한 채 파멸되는 과정에 불과하다. 인생이란 실의와 고난의 실체이며, 인간의 행복이란 인간비극에서 하나의 우연한 에피소드에 불과한 것이라고 생각했다. 따라서 그의 비관주의적 사상은 허무주의적이라는 통념상의 비관주의가 아니라, 인생을 깊고 뜨겁게 공감하고 절망 속에서 괴로워하며 인생의 진실과 고뇌와 비탄에서 구제의 방법을 찾아내려는 적극적인 태도인 것이다. 다시 말해서 비극을 통한 인간의 구원인 것이다.

  하디 자신은 자기가 염세주의자라기보다는 사회 개선론자라고 불려지기를 원했다. 그러한 그의 열망은 고통과 좌절의 체험을 통해서 사회의 모순됨을 인식하고 보다 나은 미래를 건설하고자 하는 개선의 의지를 갖는 소설 속의 주인공들을 통해 잘 반영되어 있다. 하디는 작품 속에서 끝없이 닥쳐오는 불운의 회오리 속에서 괴로워하고 고통스러워하는 주인공들의 아픔을 공유하고, 운명을 극복하기 위해 끝까지 싸우는 인간의 모습을 그려놓았다는 점에서 그를 염세주의자라기보다는 진정한 의미의 휴머니스트라고 불러도 무리는 없을 것 같다.

c. 비극적 운명에 희생되는 한 여인의 삶

  하디가 <테스>를 발표한 것은 그의 문학이 원숙기에 접어든 1891년(51세)이었다. 이 작품에는 창작활동 초기부터 그가 집요하게 모색해온 사회비판정신이 보다 강하게 부각되어 있다. 그리고 <테스>는 하디의 비관적 운명론의 하나의 상징인 것이다. <테스>는 운명의 장난에 휘말려든 한 순진한 아가씨의 불행한 이야기다. 웨섹스의 가난한 농가에서 태어난 테스가 무책임한 남자에게 처녀성을 유린당하는 데서부터 이 소설의 비극이 시작된다.

  명문 더버빌의 후손이라는 자의식에 도취되어 술로 세월을 보내는 게으른 아버지와 무능한 어머니, 그리고 많은 동생들을 둔 테스는 집안 살림을 돕기 위해 먼 친척인 스토크 더버빌의 집을 방문한다. 그곳에서 양계일은 하던 중 테스는 바람둥이 청년 알렉에게 처녀성을 잃는다. 그후 집에 돌아와 사생아를 낳는데, 그 아이는 태어난 지 얼마 안되어 세례조차 받지 못하고 죽는다.

  테스는 인생 최초의 비극을 경험하지만, 아직 삶에 대한 집착을 버리지 못하고 고향을 떠나 젖 짜는 일을 시작한다. 그녀가 새생활을 시작한 낙농장에는 농장경영을 지망하는 에인젤이라는 건실한 청년이 있었다. 목사의 아들인 에인젤은 성직에 회의를 품고 농사를 짓기 위해 이곳으로 일을 배우러 와 있었던 것이다.

  테스는 에인젤의 뜨거운 사랑을 받고 자신이 처녀가 아니라는 사실 때문에 번민하게 된다. 그러나 에인젤의 고매한 인품에 이끌려 그를 자기 자신보다 더 사랑하게 된 테스는, 그가 과거의 잘못을 너그럽게 용서해줄 것으로 믿고 마침내 결혼한다. 그러나 첫날밤 과거를 고백하자 처녀성을 중시하는 에인젤은 신부를 남겨둔채 혼자 외국으로 떠나버린다. 이리하여 테스는 다시 버림받은 몸이 되었으나, 언젠가는 남편이 다시 돌아오리라는 희망을 잃지 않고, 모진 고생을 참아낸다. 그 무렵 우연히 테스를 만난 알렉은 열정에 사로잡혀 또다시 그녀를 유혹한다.

  한편 테스의 집에서는 아버지가 갑작스럽게 죽고 식구들은 집에서 쫓겨나게 된다. 가족의 생계를 떠맡게 된 테스는 결국 지난날 자기의 인생을 짓밟았던 알렉의 원조의 손길을 물리치지 못하고, 그의 정부가 된다. 그때 뜻하지 않게 테스를 버리고 떠났던 남편이 정신적으로 훨씬 성장한 모습으로 그녀를 찾아온다. 그토록 기다리던 남편이 돌아왔건만 기쁜 마음으로 재회할 수 없게 된 테스는 이성을 잃고 자신을 정부의 위치로 전락시킨 알렉을 과도로 찔러 죽인다.

  그런 다음 테스는 에인젤을 뒤따라가 처음으로 행복한 시간을 보낸다. 1주일 뒤, 그들의 짧지만 황홀했던 행복은 막을 내리고, 테스는 뒤따라온 경찰에게 체포되어 처형된다. 작가는 마지막에 쓰기를 <<드디어 심판은 끝났다. 신들은 말하기를 <거느리는 자>는 마침내 테스에 대한 희롱을 마친 것이다. >> 결국 사회 전체가 그녀를 사형대 위에 올려놓은 것이다.

d. 환경에 의해 결정되는 비극적인 운명론

 <순결한 여인>이라는 부제가 내포하고 있듯이, 테스는 피해자이지 죄인이 아니다. 그런데도 그녀는 막다른 길로 몰아가는 운명의 힘에 쫓겨 마침내 엄청난 살인죄를 저지르고 사형당하게 되는 것이다. 교수형이 집행되는 날 감옥의 탑 위에서 나부끼는 검은 깃발은 하디 문학의 상징이라고도 할 수 있다.

  테스가 일자리를 옮김에 따라 변화하는 웨섹스의 경관과 그 평화롭고 전원적인 분위기는 테스가 겪고 있는 불행을 한층 심화시킨다. 이렇듯 서사적인 기교와 작가의 리얼리티가 융화됨으로써 하디는 <테스>에 의해 <젊은 세대에 가장 큰 영향을 미친 위대한 작가>로 평가받으며 불멸의 명성을 떨칠 수 있었던 것이다.

  이 작품을 한 여인의 슬픈 이야기쯤으로 이해해서는 안된다. 이 작품에는 당시 영국사회를 지배했던 인습의 모순이 예리하게 파헤쳐져 있고 비관적 운명관을 가진 작가의 사상이 전편에 흐르고 있기 때문이다.

  하디는 이 작품의 곳곳에서 정신적인 정조를 강조하고 있다. 때문에 가련한 주인공 테스로 하여금 다시 소생하는 데 조금도 인색치 않았다. 간음한 여자이자 살인자인 테스를 서슴없이 순결한 여인으로 일컫는다. <<테스의 본연의 순결성은 마지막까지 온전했다고 나는 아직도 생각한다. 하긴 그녀가 쓰러졌을 때 육체적인 순결성은 사라졌을지라도. >> 그토록 험난한 운명 앞에서 인간의 힘으로 최선을

다했다는 것만으로도 구원은 내려진 것이다.

  <테스>에서 우리가 음미하고 넘어가야 하는 것은 첫째 육체의 순결성보다는 정신의 순결성을 높이 평가하고 있다는 점, 둘재 불가항력적인 운명이 연약한 인간에게 부여하는 재난에 대한 문제, 셋째 종교적인 문제로서 죄지은 자 대신 죄 없는 자가 끊임없이 받는 형벌이라는 비극을 보여준 것이라 하겠다.

  <테스>가 발표되었을 때 <타임>지의 비평자는 하디의 최고 작품이라고 갈파하는 동시에 <<인습적인 관념을 다루는 데 대담하고 애틋한 비애감이 서리는 동시에 지극히 감동적인 비극감을 자아냈다>>고 말했고, 시인 윌리엄 와트슨은 <테스>를 읽으면 인간의 지적 정서적 경험폭이 넓어진다고 말했다. 웨스트민스터의 비평가는 <<조지 엘리어트가 별세한 뒤 영국이 낳은 최고 역량의 작품>>으로 극찬했다.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thomas Hardy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other people named Thomas Hardy, see Thomas Hardy (disambiguation).

Thomas Hardy

Thomashardy restored.jpg

Hardy between about 1910 and 1915

Born 2 June 1840

Stinsford, Dorset, England

Died 11 January 1928 (aged 87)

Dorchester, Dorset, England

Resting place

Stinsford parish church (heart)

Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey (ashes)

Occupation Novelist, poet, and short story writer

Alma mater King's College London

Literary movement Naturalism, Victorian literature

Notable works Tess of the d'Urbervilles,

Far from the Madding Crowd,

The Mayor of Casterbridge,

Collected Poems

Jude the Obscure

Spouse

Emma Gifford

(1874–1912)

Florence Dugdale

(1914–1928)

Signature

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] He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.

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 such novels as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin.[2]

Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England. Two of his novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[3]

Contents  [hide] 

1 Life and career

1.1 Early life

1.2 Novel writing

1.3 Final years

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

11 External links

Life and career[edit]

Early life[edit]

"The Hardy Tree" in Old St Pancras churchyard, growing between gravestones moved while Hardy was working there

Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840 in Higher Bockhampton (then Upper Bockhampton), a hamlet in the parish of Stinsford to the east of Dorchester in Dorset, England, where his father Thomas (1811–1892) worked as a stonemason and local builder, and married his mother Jemima (née Hand;[4] 1813–1904) in Beaminster, towards the end of 1839.[5] Jemima was well-read, and she educated Thomas until he went to his first school at Bockhampton at the age of eight. For several years he attended Mr. Last's Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester, where he learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential.[6] 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.[7]

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. He joined Arthur Blomfield's practice as assistant architect in April 1862 and worked with Blomfield on All Saints' parish church in Windsor, Berkshire in 1862–64. A reredos, possibly designed by Hardy, was discovered behind panelling at All Saints' in August 2016.[8][9] In the mid-1860s, Hardy was in charge of the excavation of part 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.[10]

Hardy never felt at home in London, because he was acutely conscious of class divisions and his social inferiority. 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. After five years, concerned about his health, he returned to Dorset, settling in Weymouth, and decided to dedicate himself to writing.

Novel writing[edit]

Max Gate in 2015

In 1870, while on an architectural mission to restore the parish church of St Juliot in Cornwall,[11] Hardy met and fell in love with Emma Gifford, whom he married in Kensington in the autumn of 1874.[5][12][13] In 1885 Thomas and his wife moved into Max Gate, a house designed by Hardy and built by his brother. Although they later became estranged, Emma's subsequent 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; his Poems 1912–13 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.[14] In 1910, Hardy had been awarded the Order of Merit and was also for the first time nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He would be nominated for the prize eleven years later.[15]

Final years[edit]

Florence Hardy at the seashore, 1915

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 had wished for his body to be interred at Stinsford in the same grave as his first wife, Emma. His family and friends concurred; 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.[16] Hardy's estate at death was valued at £95,418 (£5276015 in 2015 sterling).[17]

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.[18] In the year of his death Mrs Hardy published The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1841–1891, 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,[19] John Cowper Powys, and Virginia Woolf.[20] 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]

Thomas Hardy's birthplace and cottage 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. He subsequently destroyed the manuscript, but used some of the ideas in his later work.[21]

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; it was while working on the latter that he met Emma Gifford, who would become his wife.[21] In 1873 A Pair of Blue Eyes, a novel drawing on Hardy's courtship of Emma, 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.[22]

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).[23] 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.

A major location of The Return of the Native as part of Hardy's fictional Egdon Heath.

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.[18] 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".[24] 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.[25] The Well-Beloved, first serialised 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 criticises 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."[26]

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."[27]

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."[28] 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".[25][29] In the twentieth century Hardy published only 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 (1904–08),[30] and though in some ways a very traditional poet, because he was influenced by folksong and ballads,[31] he "was never conventional," and "persistently experiment[ed] with different, often invented, stanza forms and metres,[32] and made use of "rough-hewn rhythms and colloquial diction".[33]

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"; his work had a profound influence on other war poets such as Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon.[34] Hardy in these poems often used the viewpoint of ordinary soldiers and their colloquial speech.[34] 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".[35] The Napoleonic War is the subject of The Dynasts.

Some of Hardy's most famous poems are from "Poems of 1912–13", 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".[34] Poems like “After a Journey,” “The Voice,” and others from this collection "are by general consent regarded as the peak of his poetic achievement".[30] 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."[36]

A portrait of Thomas Hardy in 1923

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".[37] 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".[38] 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 for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.[39]

A number of notable English composers, including Gerald Finzi,[40][41] Benjamin Britten,[42] and Gustav Holst,[43] set poems by Hardy to music. Holst also wrote the orchestral tone poem Egdon Heath: A Homage to Thomas Hardy in 1927.

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.[33] 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.[44] There were also fewer poems by W. B. Yeats.[45]

Religious beliefs[edit]

Thomas Hardy aged 70, by William Strang

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.[46] 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, coupled with his naturally 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'.[47]

Scholars have debated Hardy's religious leanings for years, often unable to reach a consensus. However, Hardy's religious life seems to have mixed agnosticism, deism, and spiritism. Once, when asked in correspondence by a clergyman, Dr A. B. Grosart, about the question of reconciling the horrors of human and animal life with "the absolute goodness and non-limitation of God",[48] 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.[49]

Hardy frequently conceived of, and wrote about, supernatural forces, particularly those that control the universe through indifference or caprice, a force he called The Immanent Will. He also showed in his writing some degree of fascination with ghosts and spirits.[49] 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,[50] 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.[51]

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[52] research site, which includes maps.[53]

Influence[edit]

Hardy corresponded with and visited Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell at Wenlock Abbey and many of Lady Catherine's books are inspired by Hardy, who was very fond of her.[54]

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).[55]

Wood and Stone (1915), the first novel by John Cowper Powys, who was a contemporary of Lawrence, was "Dedicated with devoted admiration to the greatest poet and novelist of our age Thomas Hardy".[56] Powys's later novel Maiden Castle (1936) is set in Dorchester, Hardy's Casterbridge, and was intended by Powys to be a "rival" to Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.[57] Maiden Castle is the last of Powys's so-called Wessex novels, Wolf Solent (1929), A Glastonbury Romance (1932), and Weymouth Sands (1934), which are set in Somerset and Dorset.[58]

Hardy was clearly the starting point for the character of the novelist Edward Driffield in W. Somerset Maugham's novel Cakes and Ale (1930).[59] 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.[60]

Hardy has been a significant influence on Nigel Blackwell, frontman of the post-punk British rock band Half Man Half Biscuit, who has often incorporated phrases (some obscure) by or about Hardy, into his song lyrics.[61]

Works[edit]

The title page from a first edition of Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)

Prose[edit]

Hardy divided his novels and collected short stories into three classes:[citation needed]

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)

Hardy also produced a number of minor tales; one story, The Spectre of the Real (1894) was written in collaboration with Florence Henniker.[62] An additional short-story 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 (1912–13) and the 37-volume Mellstock Edition (1919–20). 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, 1840–91 and The Later Years of Thomas Hardy, 1892–1928, 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) (collected in A Group of Noble Dames)

"The Distracted Preacher" (1879) (collected in Wessex Tales)

"Fellow-Townsmen" (1880) (collected in Wessex Tales)

"The Honourable Laura" (1881) (collected in A Group of Noble Dames)

"What The Shepherd Saw" (1881) (collected in A Changed Man and Other Stories)

"A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four" (1882) (collected in Wessex Tales)

"The Three Strangers" (1883) (collected in Wessex Tales)

"The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid" (1883) (collected in A Changed Man and Other Stories)

"Interlopers at the Knap" (1884) (collected in Wessex Tales)

"A Mere Interlude" (1885) (collected in A Changed Man and Other Stories)

"A Tryst at an Ancient Earthwork" (1885) (collected in A Changed Man and Other Stories)

"Alicia's Diary" (1887) (collected in A Changed Man and Other Stories)

"The Waiting Supper" (1887–88) (collected in A Changed Man and Other Stories)

"The Withered Arm" (1888) (collected in Wessex Tales)

"A Tragedy of Two Ambitions" (1888) (collected in Life's Little Ironies)

"The First Countess of Wessex" (1889) (collected in A Group of Noble Dames)

"Anna, Lady Baxby" (1890) (collected in A Group of Noble Dames)

"The Lady Icenway" (1890) (collected in A Group of Noble Dames)

"Lady Mottisfont" (1890) (collected in A Group of Noble Dames)

"The Lady Penelope" (1890) (collected in A Group of Noble Dames)

"The Marchioness of Stonehenge" (1890) (collected in A Group of Noble Dames)

"Squire Petrick's Lady" (1890) (collected in A Group of Noble Dames)

"Barbara of the House of Grebe" (1890) (collected in A Group of Noble Dames)

"The Melancholy Hussar of The German Legion" (1890) (collected in Wessex Tales)

"Absent-Mindedness in a Parish Choir" (1891)

"The Winters and the Palmleys" (1891)

"For Conscience' Sake" (1891) (collected in Life's Little Ironies)

"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) (collected in Life's Little Ironies)

"A Few Crusted Characters: Introduction" (1891) (collected in Life's Little Ironies)

"The Superstitious Man's Story" (1891)

"Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver" (1891)

"To Please His Wife (nl)" (1891) (collected in Life's Little Ironies)

"The Son's Veto" (1891) (collected in Life's Little Ironies)

"Old Andrey's Experience as a Musician" (1891)

"Our Exploits At West Poley" (1892–93)

"Master John Horseleigh, Knight" (1893)

"The Fiddler of the Reels" (1893) (collected in Life's Little Ironies)

"An Imaginative Woman" (1894) (collected in Life's Little Ironies)

"The Spectre of the Real" (1894)

"A Committee-Man of 'The Terror'" (1896) (collected in A Changed Man and Other Stories)

"The Duke's Reappearance" (1896) (collected in A Changed Man and Other Stories)

"The Grave by the Handpost" (1897) (collected in A Changed Man and Other Stories)

"A Changed Man" (1900) (collected in A Changed Man and Other Stories)

"Enter a Dragoon" (1900) (collected in A Changed Man and Other Stories)

"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 (1922)

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[63] at Poetry Foundation and Poems by Thomas Hardy at poemhunter.com[64]

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) (one-act play)