Thomas Hardy

Introduction

Thomas Hardy, an English author and poet, was born on June 2, 1840, and passed away on January 11, 1928. His poetry and novels were rooted in Romanticism, particularly William Wordsworth. He was also a realist whom George Eliot influenced. Hardy was a critic of Victorian Society and was especially critical of the poor living conditions of rural people in South West England, especially those from his area.

He was mainly a poet and wrote poetry throughout his life; his first collection didn't come out until 1898. He was best known for his books, such as Jude the Obscure in 1895, Tess of the d'Urbervilles in 1891, The Mayor of Casterbridge in 1886, and Far from the Madding Crowd in 1874.

Throughout his life, Hardy was highly esteemed by younger poets, particularly the Georgians, who admired his work. After his death, his work was praised by Philip Larkin and W.H. Auden, as well as Ezra Pound. His semi-fictional world of Wessex, which was originally based on the medieval kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons but later expanded to include parts of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire, and much of Berkshire in southwest and south-central England, is the home of many of his novels, which tell the stories of people struggling with their passions and social life. Two of his books, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, made it to the top 50 of the BBC's The Big Read.

Profile of Thomas Hardy

Date of Birth: June 2, 1840
Place of Birth: England
Country: United Kingdom
Horoscope: Gemini
Profession: Novelist
Height: 5 Ft 7 In
Date of Death: 11 January, 1928
Father Name: a stonemason and local builder, Thomas
Mother Name: Jemima
First Wife's Name: Emma Gifford
Second Wife's Name: Florence Emily
Net Worth: 5 million

Childhood Years of Thomas Hardy

During Hardy's time working in London, a large tree known as "The Hardy Tree" grew among the shifting gravestones in London's old St Pancras cemetery. In December of 2022, the tree toppled.

June 2, 1840, marked the birth of Thomas Hardy in Stinsford, Dorset. Thomas Hardy and Jemima Hardy were his parents. On December 22, 1839, Thomas and Jemima were married in Melbourne, England. His dad was a builder in the area and a stonemason.

Thomas' mother, Jemima, was a well-read woman who sent him away for his first school education at eight years old, where he studied Latin. He attended Mr. Last's Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester for several years, demonstrating potential in his academic career. Since his family could not afford to take him to university, Hardy's official schooling ended when he was sixteen, and he started an apprenticeship with the local architect, James Hicks. During a visit to his father's dovecote-rebuilding business, Hardy painted a watercolor of a Tudor gatehouse. In contrast, his father worked on the design of a new church at the nearby estate of Athelhampton.

In 1862, Hardy moved to London and enrolled at King's College London, where he studied architecture. The "Royal Institute of British Architects" and the Architectural Association both gave him awards. In April 1862, he began work as an assistant architect to Arthur Blomfield, working on projects for Blomfield's Christ Church, East Sheen in Richmond, London (where the tower collapsed in 1863) and All Saints parish church at Windsor, Berkshire (from 1862 to 1864).

In August 2016, under paneling at All Saints, a reredos believed to have been made by Hardy was discovered. Hardy was responsible for excavating a section of St. Pancras old church cemetery in the mid-19th century before it was demolished to make way for a new station on the Midland Railway.

As a result of Hardy's awareness of social inequality and class divisions, he felt uncomfortable in London. John Stuart Mill's works and societal development initially captivated his interest. He was introduced to the writings of Auguste Comte, Charles Fourier, and other Dorset writers by a friend, Horace Moule. He was also attracted to the sophisticated liberal Freethinker idealism of Matthew Arnold and his friend Leslie Stephen. After five years of ill health, Hardy returned to Dorset, settling in Weymouth and deciding to concentrate solely on writing.

About His Personal Life

In 1870, Hardy and Emma Gifford met while he was on an architectural project to renovate St Juliot Parish Church in Cornwall. He subsequently married Emma in Kensington at the end of 1874 after spending a year at St David's Villa in Southborough. Thomas and Emma moved to Max Gate, a house that Hardy had designed and his brother had built in Dorchester in 1885. Despite their long-term relationship, Hardy was greatly affected by Emma's passing in 1912.

He subsequently traveled to Cornwall to revisit the places associated with their relationship, and his poetry of 1912-13 reflects his grief at Emma's passing. Florence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years Hardy's junior, and he were married in 1914. Despite his first wife's passing, Hardy was still consumed by his emotions, and he turned to poetry to help him overcome those feelings. In 1910, Hardy was nominated for his first Nobel Prize in Literature, and eleven years later, he was again nominated for the award.

Hardy and the Theatrical Experience

In the 1860s, Hardy got into the theater for the first time. He wrote for a bunch of different adaptations over the years, with Jack Grein and Charles Jarvis and with Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886. He was hurt by a play that was put on because it caused controversy and bad reviews. He was worried about what it would do to his writing reputation, so he was careful about what he wrote.

He joined a local amateur society in 1908, which at the time was known as the 'Dorchester Drama and Debating Society' but later changed its name to the 'Hardy Players,' and did so with great enthusiasm and openness. Initially, he did his best to conceal his involvement in the play, as he had doubts about having his work adapted. Still, in the later years of his life, he enjoyed a long and successful partnership with the Players, thanks in no small part to the success of the play 'The Trumpet Major' (1923). The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall was The Players' scheduled 1923 performance in Tintagel, Lyonnesse.

Later in Life

Hardy was an early member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and became increasingly active in campaigns to prevent the destruction or damaging modernization of historic structures, starting in the 1880s. In his correspondence, he talks about his vain attempts to stop significant renovations to the parish church in Puddletown near his Max Gate residence.

He regularly visited Athelhampton House, which he had known since he was a teenager. He urged Alfred Cart de Lafontaine, the building's owner, to handle the building's renovation tactfully in his correspondence. Among the fifty-three renowned British writers who signed the "Authors' Declaration" in 1914 to support Britain's engagement in the First World War were Hardy, H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

After giving his wife a poem to say goodbye on his deathbed in December 1927, Hardy got sick with pleurisy and died at Max Gate just after midnight on January 11, 1928. It mentioned his age and cardiac syncope as the reason for death on his death certificate.

Hardy had requested that his remains be buried in Stinsford in the same grave as his first wife, Emma; therefore, his burial, which took place on January 16 at Westminster Abbey, became an emotional event. Although his friends and family agreed, Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, his executor, requested that he be buried in the abbey's renowned Poets' Corner. A compromise was achieved wherein his remains were buried at Poets' Corner, and his heart was buried in Stinsford alongside Emma.

Twelve notebooks remained, one of which had notes and parts from newspaper reports from the 1820s. Hardy utilized these in his works, and his study into them has shed light on this. The executors of Hardy's estate burned his letters and notebooks shortly after his death.

When Thomas Hardy died, his wife published The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1841-1891. It was mostly assembled from oral histories conducted over a long period and from current notes, letters, diaries, and biographical memoranda.

Many contemporary authors admired Hardy's writing, including Virginia Woolf, John Cowper Powys, and D. H. Lawrence. Robert Graves wrote an autobiography, Goodbye to All That (1929), about his encounter with Hardy in the early 1920s in Dorset. Hardy was enthusiastic about Graves's work and kindly treated him and his new wife. The National Trust holds Hardy's birthplace in Bockhampton and his Dorchester house, Max Gate.

Thomas Hardy's Style of Writing

His writings are social commentary due to realism, language style, characters, and societal critique. He was an energetic opponent of social injustice and poverty. His well-known works are Oliver Twist, which depicts early Victorian England, and Great Expectations.

Hardy's Life Philosophy

Hardy is a firm believer in the inconsistency of the empirical world. His theory of chance, where chance is a 'blind force of nature' that has the 'power to change man's destiny,' is reflected in his major works.