Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy 1 Thomas Hardy 1840

Thomas Hardy.

Thomas Hardy 1. Thomas Hardy (1840 -1928) • Born of humble parents at Upper Bockhampton, near Dorchester. • When left school, was apprenticed to a local architect and church restorer. Thomas Hardy Only Connect. . . New Directions

Thomas Hardy 1. Thomas Hardy (1840 -1928) • Read the works of Comte, Mill, Darwin, which helped shape his thought. • The philosophy of his works echoes the ideas expressed by Schopenhauer in his The World as Will and Idea, i. e. Hardy adopts Schopenhauer’s idea of an “Immanent Will”? • He believes that mankind is subject to obscure impersonal forces which rule the universe and are indifferent, and even, hostile to man’s fate. Only Connect. . . New Directions

Thomas Hardy 2. Hardy’s works Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) Far From the Madding Crowd (1874) The Return of the Native (1878) The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) The Hardy cottage in Higher Bockhampton, Dorchester Only Connect. . . New Directions

Thomas Hardy 2. Hardy’s works The Woodlanders (1887) Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) Jude the Obscure (1895) Wessex Poems (1928) The Hardy cottage in Higher Bockhampton, Dorchester Only Connect. . . New Directions

Thomas Hardy 3. Features of Hardy’s novels • Interest in the life of the peasants in an age of decline and decay of peasantry. • Nostalgia for the pastoral and patriarchal way of life. • Deterministic view, deprived of the consolation of Divine order. • Man’s life controlled by hostile, cruel fate, «insensible chance» . A contemporary edition of The Return of the Native. Only Connect. . . New Directions

Thomas Hardy 3. Features of Hardy’s novels • Superb sense of place: description of ruins of churches, towers, walls, but also important monuments like Stonehenge. • Love of detail to strengthen the final effect a naturalistic approach. A contemporary edition of Far from the Madding Crowd. Only Connect. . . New Directions

Thomas Hardy 4. Hardy’s style • Use of colour strongly linked to emotion and experience, especially connected with natural landscape. • Victorian omniscient narrator. • Use of cinematic techniques similar to the «camera eye» and the «zoom» . Hardy and his dog. Only Connect. . . New Directions

Thomas Hardy 4. Hardy’s style • Detailed, controlled language, rich in symbolism. • Use of metaphor, simile, personification. • Important role of the language of sense impressions. Hardy and his dog. Only Connect. . . New Directions

Thomas Hardy 5. Hardy’s Wessex The Wessex of the Novels & Poems in Hardy’s own drawing. In Hardy’s major novels there is the progressive mapping of a semi-fictional region, the south-west corner of England his native county of Dorset. Only Connect. . . New Directions

Thomas Hardy 6. Why Wessex? The Wessex of the Novels & Poems in Hardy’s own drawing. By Wessex Hardy meant the old Saxon kingdom of Alfred the Great. Only Connect. . . New Directions

Thomas Hardy 7. Hardy’s Themes • The difficulty of being alive. • Nature • indifferent to man’s destiny, • sets the pattern of growth and decay; • implies regeneration, expressed through the cycle of seasons. A contemporary edition of Tess of the D’Ubervilles. Only Connect. . . New Directions

Thomas Hardy 7. Hardy’s Themes • Criticism of the most conventional, moralistic, hypocritical aspects of Victorian society. • Polemic attitude to religion: Christianity is no longer capable of fulfilling the needs of modern man. A contemporary edition of Tess of the D’Ubervilles. Only Connect. . . New Directions