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Thomas Hardy Notes (ENGL 210)
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Thomas Hardy Notes (ENGL 210)
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Topic 16: Thomas HardyFebruary 15th, 2023
Introduction
Hardy is best known as a novelist – he has the unique and rare distinction of being a major
author and a major poet – he stopped writing novels quite abruptly after the negative reception
following his last novel.
● Critics and a lot of readers were quite disturbed with the view that the book cast on
humanity. One of the characteristic themes of his writing in both dramas: the ache of
modernism/the modern vice of unrest.
● The individual is awkwardly situated vis-a-vis the universe. There’s lots of pain. Things
just don’t work out for people (no reason for this).
Loss of faith narrative: he was enthusiastically religious in his youth but slowly lost his faith in
God and the ordained universe. He became an architect before dedicating his life to literature.
● Without benign and divine presence, the universe is a place without meaning (he’s
anticipating existentialist philosophy).
● Hardy is still struggling with why things happen and what it means when they do.
● One of the great plot points in his novels in bad luck – things happen at the worst times.
○ It is simply happenstance. At the same time, it also tends to go badly for us.
○ In the philosophy of Hardy, he seems to have it two ways (it’s random – basically
all about chance, but things generally tend to go badly)
Notice the awkwardness of the diction – “if but” on conditionality.
● Hardy wants us to understand language and meaning as beset by struggle.
● “Unbloom” – unnatural.
The Darkling Thrush
Pointedly written on the last day of the 19th century.
● First-person speaker who is out in nature.
It seems to be quite clear, despite the difference in species, that the bird still has access to this
store of joy that he wants but cannot have.
● Death is everywhere here – winter is full of death!
○ Nature seems to carry on and survive only to make him miserable, rather than to
make him happy? (Irony)
○ The bird’s appearance is ironic – it’s aged and is about to die. Yet, it is still
capable of producing beauty and something that celebrates life.
○ Even in the season of death, life persists.
■ Instead of conveying hope to him, the bird reinforces its opposite.
Hope is blessed and capitalized. Even if the bird represents this blessed hope, think about how
limited this hope is.
● Darkness and light are metaphorized here – the sound of the bird is being likened to light
because there’s an aspect of the beacon in the darkness here.
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