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THOMAS HARDY (1840- )

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 947 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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THOMAS See also:HARDY (1840- )  , See also:English novelist, was See also:born in See also:Dorsetshire on the 2nd of See also:June 1840 . His See also:family was one of the branches of the See also:Dorset Hardys, formerly of See also:influence in and near the valley of the See also:Frome, claiming descent from See also:John Le See also:Hardy of See also:Jersey (son of See also:Clement Le Hardy, See also:lieutenant-See also:governor of that See also:island in 1488), who settled in the See also:west of See also:England . His maternal ancestors were the Swetman, See also:Childs or See also:Child, and kindred families, who before and after 1635 were small landed proprietors in Melbury Osmond, Dorset, and adjoining parishes . He was educated at See also:local See also:schools, 1848-1854, and afterwards privately, and in 1856 was articled to Mr John See also:Hicks, an ecclesiastical architect of See also:Dorchester . In 1859 he began See also:writing See also:verse and essays, but in 1861 was compelled to apply himself more strictly to See also:architecture, sketching and measuring many old Dorset churches with a view to their restoration . In 1862 he went to See also:London (which he had first visited at the See also:age of nine) and became assistant to the See also:late See also:Sir See also:Arthur See also:Blomfield, R.A . In 1863 he won the See also:medal of the Royal See also:Institute of See also:British Architects for an See also:essay on Coloured See also:Brick and Terra-See also:cotta Architecture, and in the same See also:year won the See also:prize of the Architectural Association for See also:design . In See also:March 1865 his first See also:short See also:story was published in See also:Chambers's See also:Journal, and during the next two or three years he wrote a See also:good See also:deal of verse, being somewhat uncertain whether to take to architecture or to literature as a profession . In 1867 he See also:left London for See also:Weymouth, and during that and the following year wrote a " purpose " story, which in 1869 was accepted by Messrs See also:Chapman and See also:Hall . The See also:manuscript had been read by Mr See also:George See also:Meredith, who asked the writer to See also:call on him, and advised him not to See also:print it, but to try another, with more See also:plot . The manuscript was withdrawn and re-written, but never published . In 187o Mr Hardy took Mr Meredith's See also:advice too literally, and constructed a novel that was all plot, which was published in 1871 under the See also:title Desperate Remedies .

In 1872 appeared Under the See also:

Greenwood See also:Tree, a" rural See also:painting of the Dutch school," in which Mr Hardy had already " found himself," and which he has never surpassed in happy and delicate perfection of See also:art . A Pair of See also:Blue Eyes, in which tragedy and See also:irony come into his See also:work together, was published in 1873 . In 1874 Mr Hardy married Emma Lavinia, daughter of the late T . Attersoll See also:Gifford of See also:Plymouth . His first popular success was made by Far from the Madding See also:Crowd,(1874), which, on its See also:appearance anonymously in the Cornhill See also:Magazine, was attributed by many to George See also:Eliot . Then came The See also:Hand of Ethelberta (1876), described, See also:riot inaptly, as " a See also:comedy in chapters "; The Return of the Native (1878), the most sombre and, in some ways, ,the most powerful and characteristic of Mr Hardy's novels; The See also:Trumpet-See also:Major (188o); A Laodicean (1881); Two on a See also:Tower (1882), a See also:long excursion in constructive irony; The See also:Mayor of Casterbridge (1886); The Woodlanders (1887); Wessex Tales (1888) ; A See also:Group of See also:Noble Dames (1891); Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), Mr Hardy's most famous novel; See also:Life's Little Ironies (1894); See also:Jude the Obscure (1.895), his most thoughtful and least popular See also:book; The Well-Beloved, a reprint, with some revision, of a story originally published in the Illustrated London See also:News in 1892 (1897); Wessex Poems, written during the previous See also:thirty years, with illustrations by the author (1898); and The Dynasts (2 parts, 1904-1906) . In 1909 appeared See also:Time's Laughing-See also:stocks and other Verses . In all his work Mr Hardy is concerned with one thing, seen under two aspects; not See also:civilization, nor See also:manners, but the principle of life itself, invisibly realized in humanity as See also:sex, seen visibly in the See also:world as what we call nature . He is a fatalist, perhaps rather a determinist, and he studies the workings of See also:fate or See also:law (ruling through inexorable moods or humours), in the See also:chief vivifying and disturbing influence in life, See also:women . His view of women is more See also:French than English; it is subtle, a little cruel, not as tolerant as it seems, thoroughly a See also:man's point of view, and not, as with Mr Meredith, man's and woman's at once . He See also:sees all that is irresponsible for good and evil in a woman's See also:character, all that is untrustworthy in her See also:brain and will, all that is alluring in her variability . He is her apologist, but always with a reserve of private See also:judgment .

No one has created more attractive women of a certain class, women whom a man would have been more likely to love or to regret loving . In his earlier books he is somewhat careful over the reputation of his heroines; gradually he allows them more See also:

liberty, with a franker treatment of See also:instinct and its consequences . Jude the Obscure is perhaps the most unbiassed See also:consideration in English fiction of the more complicated questions of sex . There is almost no See also:passion in his work, neither the author nor his characters ever seeming able to pass beyond the See also:state of curiosity, the most intellectually interesting of limitations, under the influence of any emotion . In his feeling for nature, curiosity sometimes seems to broaden into a more intimate communion . The See also:heath, the See also:village with its peasants, the See also:change of every See also:hour among the See also:fields and on the roads of that English countryside which he has made his own—the Dorsetshire and See also:Wiltshire " Wessex "—mean more to him, in a sense, than even the spectacle of man and woman in their See also:blind and painful and absorbing struggle for existence . His knowledge of woman confirms him in a suspension of judgment; his know-ledge of nature brings him nearer to the unchanging and consoling See also:element in the world . All the entertainment which he gets out of life comes to him from his contemplation of the See also:peasant, as himself a rooted See also:part of the See also:earth, translating the dumbness of the fields into See also:humour . His peasants have been compared with See also:Shakespeare's; he has the Shakespearean sense of their placid vegetation by the See also:side of hurrying See also:animal life, to which they See also:act the part of See also:chorus, with an unconscious See also:wisdom in their See also:close, narrow and undistracted view of things . The See also:order of merit was conferred upon Mr Hardy in See also:July 1910 . See Annie See also:Macdonell, See also:Thomas Hardy (London, 1894) ; Lionel P, See also:Johnson, The Art of Thomas Hardy (London, 1894) . (A .

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