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HISTORY
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Thomas Hardy And His Career As A Writer
One of the most acclaimed writers of his era, Hardy uniquely captured the world of Victorian Britain with dramatic and thrilling literature.
By Will Street
Jul. 25, 2019, 11:30 AM
Introduction
It is not often that 19th and 20th century literature would rise above the herd. It is not often that a single author would stand out so much amongst his peers. It seldom happens that one man would leave such an imprint on English Literature.
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However, this man is a man called Thomas Hardy. Born on the 2nd June 1840 in Higher Bockhampton (known at the time as Upper Bockhampton), he was an author who would go on to achieve the fame and acclaim of the English-speaking world. Emerging as a writer during the reign of Queen Victoria, he was from Dorset and, specifically, a hamlet in the parish of Stinsford, which was east of Dorchester in the county of Dorset. His financial situation was of mixed fortunes and success would only come with public estimation.
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However, Hardy’s achievements as a writer would define our impressions of his skill and literary craft. Today, he is considered a “Victorian Realist” and, as such, posed a continuation of the tradition begun by George Eliot. Yet on the other hand, Hardy took great inspiration from Romanticism both in his novels and poems. Within that corpus further, he manifests the influence of William Wordsworth, specifically identified as a “Romantic”.
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Situating himself amongst the society he lived in, Hardy was, in fact, critical of large parts of Victorian society. Much of his criticism was directed at the decline in the status of rural people (specifically in his native South West England), which was an ongoing phenomenon within Victorian Britain.
And when it came down to his medium of literature, the author would include multiple genres. Primarily, he considered himself a poet. However, his first collection was not published until 1898. Alternatively, he gained fame with his novels. For instance, the release of the novels, “Far from the Madding Crowd” (1874), “The Mayor of Casterbridge” (1886), “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” (1891) and “Jude the Obscure” (1895) were all successful and earnt Hardy an extensive renown.
Today, and in the contemporary period, Hardy touched upon a plethora of themes and social constructs. In fact, his literature would go on to transcend the ages and is both still love and studied today for its uncanny combination of craft and historical relevance. So join me, therefore, as I take a swan-dive into the life of the author, Thomas Hardy.
The Early Years of Thomas Hardy
The eggshell of what would become a defining literary canon began its journey nestling in a small hamlet in the parish of Stinsford. There, in the town, which was to the east of Dorchester in Dorset, he was raised by his mother, Jemima (1813-1904), and his father, Thomas (1811-1892).
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These parochial seed-bearers had a varied occupation. Thomas, essentially the bread-winner, was a stonemason and local builder. Yet on his mother’s side came greater powers. Jemima was well-read and she educated the young Thomas until he ventured to his first school in Brockhampton at the age of eight. During these years at early school, Hardy’s intellectual abilities at first became apparent. The young child learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential in a number of fields.
From henceforth, however, he would lack the necessary financial backing to take his studies further. With both of his parents being unable to provide the necessary capital, Hardy’s studies came to an end at the meagre age of sixteen.
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Facing a benighted predicament, he followed on to enter employment. Instead of the like such as exams and debating, he rather joined as an apprentice with a man called James Hicks, who was an architect local to Hardy. Together, whilst Hardy was enlisted, it is recorded that the collective worked, for instance, on constructing a new church in Athelhampton, which was nearby to them at Brockhampton.
However what next seems to be the case is that Hardy would have more financial prosperity and employment security. Precisely, Hardy continued his career as an architect. To do so, he initially enrolled as a student at King’s College London. He later joined an architecture firm headed by Arthur Blomfield and worked on a number of buildings and churches near and in the city of London. He would even win prizes as an architect, including those from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association.
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Yet the widely acclaimed man was, according to sources, never fully at home in London. He longed for the southern countryside – its rolling hills, endless skies and lack of pollution – and also decried the poverty he saw in inner-city.
It was also a socialist calling. Finding first a sense of social inferiority embedded in a class struggle during his time in London, Hardy would go on to embrace a collective of socialist writers and thinkers. These included John Stuart Mill and his writings and others such as Charles Fourier and Auguste Comte. Five lackluster years of wandering and stagnation later, renouncing the city, Hardy decided to move back to Dorset having been concerned about his health. There, he settled in Weymouth and thereabouts occupied himself with his writing career.
Published Author
Thomas Hardy’s corpus is extensive. Releasing novel after novel, his career spanned three long decades of literary class. It began in 1867. It began with something that, in fact, proved unsuccessful. This was a work which he called “The Poor Man And The Lady”. It was an entity that he decided to leave discarded after the advice of a friend, who told him it was too politically controversial and might damage the young author’s reputation.
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He therefore found different endeavors, precisely a shifting in pursuit towards more commercial material. What followed were two novels, which he published anonymously. These were “Desperate Remedies” (1871) and “Under The Greenwood Tree” (1872).
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“Desperate Remedies” or acrimoniously known as Hardy’s first published work, was emotively dark and sinister, containing themes of bigamy, murder, illegitimacy, blackmail and impersonation. Some contemporary critics, in fact, called it “quasi-Gothic”. It told the story of a young woman, named Cytherea Gray, who is forced by poverty to accept employment as a maid to an eccentric lady called Miss Aldclyffe. The lady, in fact, is the character that Gray’s father had loved but was unable to marry.
At the same time, Cytherea is in love with a young architect, a man called Edward Springrove. However, through the machinations of the eccentric lady, Aldclyffe, it is uncovered that Edward is already engaged to a woman, however a woman that he does not love. In response to what becomes an urgent need for Cytherea to support her sick brother, she is forced to marry Aeneas Manston, who is Miss Aldclyffe’s illegitimate son (it is said that his first wife perished in a fire).
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However, the story further digresses when it is revealed that Aeneas’ first wife had escaped before the fire and, therefore, still existed. The marriage is consequently annulled immediately. Following this, Aeneas Manston’s first wife, in fact, returns and lives with him. Yet at this point Cytherea, her brother, the local rector and Edward all come to suspect that the woman claiming to be Mrs. Manston is, in fact, an impostor.
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And hereupon arises the darker secrets of the plot. It is thereupon revealed that Aeneas Manston had killed his wife in an argument before she had left the inn. The woman was an impostor. And an impostor precisely used to prevent Manston from being prosecuted with murder. Apparently the argument had been heard (but not seen) by a poacher who was in favor of informing the police, and, as a result, Manston readily needed an alibi. In the climax to the novel, Manston plans a desperate attempt to kidnap Cytherea and flee. He is unfortunately stopped by Edward and later commits suicide in his cell. In romantic ending, Cytherea and Edward marry.
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Advancing further into his life, Thomas Hardy would undergo writing a second novel and publishing anonymously once again, this time entitled “Under the Greenwood Tree” (1872). However, at the same time he became acquainted with Emma Gifford, a lady who would later become his wife. Even his novels would reflect this change in circumstances. Works of literature such as “A Pair of Blue Eyes” (1873) expounded his romantic entreating and specifically his courtship of Miss Gifford.
After the release of one of his most famous novels, “Far From The Madding Crowd” (1874), Hardy had developed enough capital to keep himself sustained as a writer. As a result, a corpus of another 10 novels followed suit. It was a corpus that demarcated him as one of the greatest writers of his age.
Hardy’s final novel came in 1895. It was entitled “Jude the Obscure” (1895). Where much of Hardy’s literary works had been divisive, this final song was met specifically with unprecedented denouement. The Victorian public were infuriated with its treatment of sex, religion and marriage. It also brought trouble on Hardy’s marriage to Emma since it was read as being auto-biographical and, under this guise, highly critical of the institution of marriage. Those at the front of intellectual thought, it seemed, could at times fall down to the wrath of the contemporary public.
But at the heart of Hardy’s writings were a number of interesting themes. Positioned at the forefront of his literary identity was Victorian Realism. The author analyzed the social constraints of Victorian Britain. To him this included marriage, education and religion. He argued that the collection of these constraining factors limited people’s lives and with it their happiness.
Travelling further across the realm of this theme, Hardy’s thoughts are expressed specifically in his 1882 novel, “Two on a Tower”. Here, Hardy idealizes a set of two contrasting social positions, namely “aristocratic and lower class”, “youthful and mature”, “single and married”, “fair and dark”, “religious and agnostic”. Through this mechanism Hardy both attracts the reader to consider the conventions set up by society for the relationships between men and women and, yet further, denounces it through sweeping ironies and tragic-comic misunderstandings. In effect, what he leaves the reader with is a love story that crosses the boundaries of class.
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One other important theme that pervades Hardy’s corpus is, in fact, something that has intrigued writers since Ancient Egyptian times. It comes once again into literature, as the much heralded entity of remorse and wonder, known to man as “fate”. This concept is most commonly manifested in Hardy’s characters. They are often on a journey, encountering crossroads along the way, which is both expressed in Hardy’s works physically and metaphorically. The place and journey exist, but it is emphatic also as a metaphor. The metaphor is a symbol of a point of opportunity and transition, which links back to the idea of “fate” which underpins every decision.
Hardy’s work “Far from the Madding Crowd” is considered the best example of this. It is the most prominent of all of Hardy’s novels in which “chance” plays a major role. For instance, within the narrative, there are several divisive moments. If the character Bathsheba had not sent the valentine or if had Fanny not missed her wedding, the story would have been diverted along into a completely different plot.
Later Years
Hardy came to the later years of his life just as World War I was breaking out across Europe. In fact, in 1914, he was among a number of British authors, such as H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who signed their names to something that was called the “Authors’ Declaration”. This was a petition and an attempt to justify Britain’s involvement in the war, a war that was erupting in Belgium. Specifically, the manifesto declared that Germany’s invasion of Belgium was both illicit and brutal, and, according to the precise of words of the oath, Britain “could not without dishonor have refused to take part in the present war.”
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Yet at the same time, Hady was remembered for his decrying of the terrors of war. At one point he wrote in a letter, “I do not think a world in which such fiendishness is possible to be worth the saving.”
When death came, the Great War was over. Hardy fell ill with pleurisy in December 1927 and later died at Max Gate (his home in Dorchester) just after 9pm on the 11th January 1928. Upon his death certificate, the cause of “cardiac syncope” alongside “old age” were the attributing factors. Befitting the momentous literary titan he was, the funeral took place on a grand scale at Westminster Abbey.
Conclusion
Hardy’s literature would inspire and be admired by a large collection of writers both in the immediate future and later époques. D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf have both expressed their debt to the Victorian writer. Yet, irrespective of his legacy, Hardy’s novels, novellas and poetry uniquely capture the Victorian environment, whether it be the blissfully primitive and primordial countryside or troubles of the urban world. His narratives and plotlines also twist and turn dramatically with the craft of an experienced and accomplished writer. This, among many reasons, is why I hope you’ll join us at zowcha.com in saluting the 19th and 20th Century writer, Thomas Hardy.