Thomas Hardy
- Unpublished Analysis Excerpts
- Van der Watt - The Songs of Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) To Poems by Thomas Hardy
- Carlisle - Gerald Finzi: A performance Analysis of A Young Man's Exhortation and Till Earth Outwears, Two Works for High Voice and
- Denning - A Discussion and Analysis of Songs for the Tenor Voice Composed by Gerald Finzi with Texts by Thomas Hardy
The information on this page is a biographical sketch for Thomas Hardy; offering the reader a basic knowledge of his life and work. There are some suggestions at the bottom of this page for resources and links that should help those looking for additional information.
"No man can read Hardy's poems collected but that his own life, and forgotten moments of it, will come back to him, a flash here and an hour there. Have you a better test for true poetry?" (Ezra Pound quoted by William H. Pritchard, 51) |
Thomas Hardy (III): Born June 2, 1840 in a small parish of Stinsford located in Higher Bockhampton near Dorset districts capital of Dorchester and died on Jan 11, 1928, at Max Gate, of heart disease. Hardy was 87 years old. Under the advice of Sir Sydney Cockerell and Edward Clodd, Florence Hardy agreed to allow Thomas Hardy's heart to be removed and buried with his first wife's body at Stinsford Churchyard. The rest of his remains were cremated and interred in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, both services were held simultaneously. (Wright, 139)
"Though many of Hardy's poems are light, his subjects often trivial incidents and observations, he did have a 'message.' He considered his poetry as a whole to be, in Matthew Arnold's terms, a 'criticism of life.' He spoke scornfully of the arty poetry popular in the 1890's (as in The Yellow Book) as 'the art of saying nothing with mellifluous preciosity.' (Letter to Edmund Gosse, Dec. 12, 1898; copy in the Colby College Library) Depressed by the 'irremediable ills' of indifferent natural law, he would look straight at remediable ills; he would take 'a full look at the Worst,' and set about reform. Besides his emphasis upon loving-kindness and compassion, he attacked a variety of evils. He wrote with pity of the farm boys-the expendable drummer Hodge and the 'mouldering soldier' dead in Burban-sacrifieced for English prestige in the South African war. Though he supported England in World War I, for the Germans were the aggressors, he expressed 'The Pity of It' that 'kin folk kin tongued' should be led to war by dynasts, 'gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are.' Beyond the slaughters he deplored the psychological consequences of violence: the 'dark madness of the late war' and the 'barbarizing of taste in the younger minds, the unabashed cultivation of selfishness in all classes.' ("Apology" for Late Lyrics and Earlier) These post-war phenomena nearly stifled his hope for meliorism. He nearly became (what he was too often called) a pessimist. By no means active in politics, he expressed some basic principles of democracy in many poems, as in 'A Man' and his sympathetic treatment of ordinary village folk. He bitterly satirized social snobbery and the pretentious idle rich, as in ' A Leader of Fashion.' Among lesser objects of scorn, he attacked social conventions and pruderies that stifle self-expression and self-development." (Bailey, 8-9) |
“He is a poet whose work is widely purchased, but seldom read; frequently mentioned, but rarely examined; regarded as masterly, but often denigrated. He is generally admitted to have considerable merit, but there is little agreement as to where it is to be found.” (Marsden, 4) |
Father: Thomas Hardy (II) (1811-1892) was a second generation master stone mason. He was also known to be an excellent musician.
(Wright, 386)
Mother: Jemima [née Hand] Hardy (1813-1904)
Siblings:
- Mary (1841-1915)
- Henry (1851-1928)
- Katherine (1856-1940)
Spouse:
- Emma Lavinia Gifford (1840-1912) Was the youngest of five children born to Emma Farman and solicitor; John Attersol Gifford. Hardy met Emma in March of 1870 when he came to begin planning for the restoration of St. Juliot Church in Cornwall. Emma was staying with her sister, Helen and brother-in-law, Reverend Caddell Holder. Reverend Holder was the rector of St. Juliot Church. Emma greeted Hardy when he came to the door and then guided him around the church as he began his inspection for the restoration. Hardy and Emma were married in 1874. "Hardy later became convinced there was a strain of insanity in the family, an assessment supported by his second wife, Florence Dugdale Hardy."
(Wright, 128)
- "Mrs. Florence Hardy was born Florence Emily Dugdale on January 12, 1879, the daughter of Edward Dugdale, headmaster of a school at Enfield. As a young woman, she was a writer of books for children. In 1904, Mrs. Arthur Henniker, on a visit to Max Gate, brough Miss Dugdale with her. Hardy was working on The Dynasts, and Miss Dugdale volunteered to help in his research. He was pleased to have her do some quasi-secreterial work for him in the British Museum. Ingratitude, he made her presents of books, including inscribed copies of his own works, and contributed poems to introduce some essays in her books for children."
(Bailey, 26-7)
"When Max Gate was in confusion after the death of Emma, who had run the household, Hardy turned to Florence for help. In December, 1912, she came and restored order there, and served (in Hardy's words) as "chucker-out" of many unwanted visitors."
(Bailey, 27)
On February 10, 1914, Hardy met Florence in Enfield, and they were married. The witnesses were Hardy's brother Hanry and Florence's sister Margaret. The bride of thirty-five and the goom of nearly seventy-four went straight to Max Gate for the placid years suggested in Hardy's "A Jog-Trot Pair.""
(Bailey, 27)
Children: No children
Education: In 1848 Hardy began his education at the Bockhampton School in Lower Bockhampton for 1 year. In 1849 Jemima Hardy sent her son to the British School in Dorchester so that he could study Latin as well as learn to play the violin. Hardy was known to play for dances and weddings.
(Wright, 386)
In 1853 Hardy attended a new school established by Isaac Glandfield Last who had also founded Hardy's previous school (British School). Isaac Last named his new school "Commercial Academy." Hardy studied at the Commercial Academy Latin, French and Advanced Mathematics.
(Wright, 386)
Influences: The countryside or pastoral setting was one that agreed with Thomas Hardy III. "Hardy was a frail, sickly child who spent much of his time alone, often convalescing from various childhood illnesses that seemed to affect him more severely than other children. These extended periods of solitude were to produce an adult who was not only quite comfortable in being alone, but in fact, came to enjoy his solitude."
(Carlisle, 14)
Hardy's mother, Jemima, is to be credited with making sure that Hardy received a fine education and one in which the pursuit of literature was stressed. (Carlisle, 14) Hardy's father, introduced his son to "music, architecture and the English countryside." (Carlisle, 15) From this introduction to music, Hardy later learned how to play the violin as a youth. Hardy often accompanied his father who worked as a builder. This is possibly where his interest in architecture grew. Later, Hardy's father was able to gain an apprenticeship for his son once his formal studies were concluded at age sixteen. He spent five years as an apprentice and eventually moved to London to continue his vocation in the architectural field. Hardy often worked on church restoration which would prove fortuitous as he met his first wife while calling on the rector of a church. Hardy, it seems had been assigned by his employer to evaluate St. Juliot where he met his first wife, Emma. From his marriage to Emma, he would eventually write of his love for her in several poems. He liked the peace and quiet of the countryside and felt the city drained the very life and health from him. Because of this he spent as little time as possible in the city. This to the chagrin of his first wife who wanted to have a social life.
Hardy's affinity for the printed word is possibly the strongest influence in his life's work. He reportedly started reading at a very early age. Wright reports Hardy "read a book containing verses of the Cries of London once sung by street vendors as they peddled their wares" (Wright, 134) at the tender age of three. Additional influences on his writing stem from his love of nature and his hatred of conflict. Definitive influences are difficult to make globally but several authors cite specific authors works when analyzing Hardy's output.
Occupation: Hardy began his professional life as an architect articled to John Hicks, an architect in Dorchester. While working as an architect, Hardy continued to study Latin as well as Greek. After receiving some success as an author, he gave up his career as an architect to devote himself fully to his writing.
Style: “To Hardy, landscape is important not only in terms of topography but also because his narrators project their own ideals and prejudices in their reactions to it. In constructing ‘Wessex,’ his imaginary kingdom that represents two-thirds of southern England, including Dorset, he uses an approach both psychological and allegorical. His rural characters often have a thorough knowledge of the geographical features of the landscape, as well as the legends and folkways associated with it. They also, however, play out inner drives and fears in their interaction with its more ominous aspects: uncontrolled flora, inhospitable terrain, and mutations wrought by violent weather.”
(Wright, 179)
“Rosmarie Morgan observes that Hardy’s narrators make significant connections between the landscape and the characters that signify intense emotions he otherwise could not delineate without ‘flouting the obscenity laws.’”
(Wright, 179)
Works:
- Over 900 poems orginally published in several collections: Wessex Poems (1898), Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), The Dynasts (1904-08), Time's Laughingstocks (1909), Satires of Circumstance (1914), Selected Poems (1916), Moments of Vision (1917), Late Lyrics and Earlier (1922), Human Shows (1925), Winter Words (posthomously, 1928)
(Bailey, 17-19)
- 15 novels including: Far from the Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Two on a Tower, Under the Greenwood Tree, and The Woodlanders
- Dramatic works: The Dynasts
Best known for: His novels Jude the Obscure and Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Tess of the d'Urbervilles was the best received during Hardy's life. (Wright, 136) If Hardy had his opinion for what he would like to be remembered for it would be his poetry and The Dynast.
Posthumously published works: Winter Words (1928) and Thomas Hardy's Personal Writings (1979). His personal notebooks, research notes, memoranda, and ideas for various subjects gathered from books and travels dating from 1867 until his death are included in the 1979 publication.
(Wright, 139)
Publishers: Sarah Bird Wright lists 100 different publishers that have published Hardy's work in her book: Thomas Hardy A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work.
(Wright, 375-6)
Religious and Political beliefs: Hardy was raised in a Christian home but later abandoned those beliefs and became agnostic. “The exact date and causes of Hardy’s loss of Faith are uncertain since it fell between 1862 and 1867, the period of his life which is least known. He was working in London, young and obscure; and the only information which has survived is what he, a reticent man, allowed to survive. He had a conventional religious upbringing, describing himself late in life as ‘churchy’, and he matured late.”
(Marsden, 17)
Hardy’s agnostic beliefs were probably strengthened by Leslie Stephen. The two men met in 1873 and according to Kenneth Marsden, “Stephen was not only an agnostic, but a propagandist for agnosticism. . . For tender material like Hardy to be brought into intimate contact with such a man was all that was needed to drive him even farther from his former moorings.”
(Marsden, 17-8)
It seems that one night in particular Hardy was to come to Stephen’s home for a meeting. Upon arrival the two men engaged in conversation but soon Stephen asked Hardy to witness a document. Hardy at first thought perhaps that Stephen was asking him to witness his Will but instead it turned out to be a “deed of renunciatory of holy-orders under the act of 1870. He (Stephen’s) said grimly that he was really a reverend gentleman still, little as he might look it, and that he thought it was as well to cut himself adrift for a calling for which, to say the least, he had always been utterly unfit. The deed was executed with due formality. Our conversation then turned upon theologies decayed and defunct, the origin of things, the constitution of matter, the unreality of time, and kindred subjects. He told me (Hardy) that he had ‘wasted’ much time on systems of religion and metaphysics, and that the new theory of vortex rings had ‘a staggering fascination’ for him (Stephen).”
(Florence Hardy, 139)
As to Hardy's political beliefs he had none directly but rather had a love of nature and thought that man was destroying it with his selfish desires. His largest work The Dynasts is a testament against war and the fallout.
Critical Response: Hardy is quite unique in literary circles in that he enjoyed critical praise during his lifetime for the majority of his works both prose and poetry.
Bailey, James Osler. The Poetry of Thomas Hardy: A Handbook and Commentary. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1970. |
Davie, Donald. Thomas Hardy and British Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. |
Davie, Donald. With the Grain: Essays on Thomas Hardy and Modern British Poetry. Edited and Introduced by Clive Wilmer. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1998. |
Hardy, Florence Emily. The Early Life of Thomas Hardy 1840-1891. New York: Macmillan Co., 1928. |
Hardy, Florence Emily. The Life of Thomas Hardy. London: Studio Editions, 1994. |
Hardy, Thomas. The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy. Edited by James Gibson. London: Macmillan, 1976. |
Howe, Irving. Thomas Hardy. New York: Macmillan, 1967. |
Kay-Robinson, Denys.The Landscape of Thomas Hardy. Exeter, England: Webb & Bower, 1984. |
Marsden, Kenneth. The Poems of Thomas Hardy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. |
Millgate, Michael. Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. |
Orel, Harold. Critical Essays on Thomas Hardy's Poetry. New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1995. |
Pinion, F. B. A Commentary on the Poems of Thomas Hardy. London: Macmillan, 1976. |
Saxelby, F. Outwin. A Thomas Hardy Dictionary: The Characters and Scenes of the Novels and Poems Alphabetically Arranged and Described. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1911. |
Seymour-Smith, Martin. Hardy: A Biography. New York: St. Martin's Press,1994. |
Taylor, Dennis. Hardy’s Metres and Victorian Prosody: With A Metrical Appendix of Hardy’s Stanza Forms. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. |
Taylor, Dennis. Hardy’s Poetry, 1860-1928. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 1989. |
Turner, Paul. The Life of Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998. |
Wright, Sarah Bird. Thomas Hardy A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark Books, 2002. |
Zietlow, Paul. Moments of Vision: The Poetry of Thomas Hardy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974. |
Unpublished Biographical Excerpts
The following biographical excerpt is by Gerhardus Daniël Van der Watt. Dr. Van der Watt extended permission to post this excerpt from his dissertation on October 8th, 2010. His dissertation dated November 1996, is entitled:
The Songs of Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) To Poems by Thomas Hardy
This excerpt comes from Volume I and begins on page one and concludes on page eleven. (Van der Watt, 1-11)
Thomas Hardy III was born on Tuesday, 2 June 1840 and was cast aside by the doctor as dead when the nurse attending rescued him exclaiming, 'Dead! Stop a minute: he's alive enough, sure!' (The Life of Thomas Hardy 1928:18). This event took place in the Hardy homestead (built by Thomas' grandfather around 1800) in Higher Bockhampton, parish of Stinsford, Dorset. It was to the county of Dorset that Hardy would return in 1885 to take up permanent residence at Max Gate just outside Dorchester, a mile or two from his birthplace.
Hardy's origins were humble. His father was a mason and a builder and his mother without social status in the class-conscious, Victorian England. About his father (Thomas Hardy II), he writes in the autobiography, The Life of Thomas Hardy (Vol. I 1928 and Vol. II 1930) which was to appear under the authorship of his second wife, Florence:
To the courtesy of his manners there was much testimony among the local county-ladies with whom he came into contact as a builder . . . He carried no stick or umbrella till past middle-life, and was altogether an open-air liver and a great walker always. He was good, too, when young at horn pipes and jigs, and other folk-dances. (Florence Hardy, 16)
Three significant qualities that would find their way into Thomas Hardy III are evident from this description: a strong attraction to women in general, a love of the countryside and a lasting interest in music. From his mother, Jemima Hardy (nee Hand), he inherited his passion for books and literature. It was also she who made sure that young Tommy had as good an education as she was able to provide.
Establishing the character of the later writer of fourteen novels and eight books of verse, Hardy provides snatches of detail concerning his early childhood, in The Life of Thomas Hardy:
Though healthy he was fragile, and precocious to a degree, being able to read almost before he could walk, and to tune a violin when of quite tender years. He was of ecstatic temperament, extraordinarily sensitive to music and of the endless . . . country dances that his father played of an evening in his early married years, and to which the boy danced a pas seul in the middle of the room, there were three or four that moved the child to tears, though he strenuously tried to hide them. (Florence Hardy, 18)
And a little later he adds an incident which remained with him his entire life and eventually became the germ of the poem "Childhood Among The Ferns" (from Winter Words 1928):
He was lying on his back in the sun, thinking how useless he was, and covered his face with a straw hat. The sun's rays steamed through the interstices of the straw, the lining having disappeared. Reflecting on his experiences of the world so far as he had got it, he came to the conclusion that he did not wish to grow up. Other boys were always thinking of when they would be men; he did not want at all to be a man, or to possess things, but to remain as he was, in the same spot, and to know no more people than he already knew. (Florence Hardy, 19-20)
The characteristics which were to emerge from these early indications are the occasional 'ecstatic temperament', the extraordinary 'sensitivity', and acute awareness of detail and the ability to describe it, a questioning of the purpose of existence, the feeling of security in rural surroundings and a passionate love of nature.
In his assessment of the 'early childhood', Hardy's most recent biographer, Martin Seymour-Smith in his prolific work, Hardy (Bloomsbury 1994) comments on the incident with the straw hat:
It was the very young boy's way of contemplating the meaning of existence, if indeed existence had meaning. He already wanted to know. This became an admittedly 'gloomy', though hardly pointless habit with him. He would never be able to state, unequivocally, that life had no meaning - as would so many writers after him - and he could only ever go as far as to say that he was unaware of a coherent purpose to existence. But he always suspected, as he showed by the persistence with which he pursued the theme of death, that an intrinsic part of any meaning that existence might have would contain the fact of its end. (Seymour-Smith, 18)
Hardy's schooling included the classics (Dumas, Shakespeare, Dryden, Scott) and learning Latin, Greek, French and German. He also gained extensive knowledge of the English Bible and biblical allusion would be a recurring theme in all his writing, prose and poetry. Many a teenage 'romance from a distance' would provide the foundations for the extensive connections and relationships Hardy had with women, not only those that crossed his path but also those he created or imagined. One such example is Lizbie Brown "a game-keeper's pretty daughter, who won Hardy's boyish admiration because of her beautiful bay-red hair" (Florence Hardy, 33). The poem "To Lizbie Brown" which Hardy writes much later, contemplates not only what might have been, but also his own slow awakening and private loss - an altogether delicate poem. An important insight concerning Hardy's view of adolescence is given by Seymour-Smith:
To be a man was in Hardy's estimation a rare achievement. Adolescence sees and feels everything freshly and keenly, and a man may retain those qualities through out his life. (Seymour-Smith, 37)
Of the impressions from his youth to make a strong impact on Hardy are two public hangings he witnesses. The first is that of Martha Brown (9 August 1856) of which Hardy leaves an account in a letter to Lady Pinney, dated 20 January 1926 (two years before his death) quoted from Seymour-Smith:
My sincere thanks for the details . . . about the unhappy woman Martha Brown, who I am ashamed to say I saw hanged, my only excuse being that I was but a youth and had to be in town at the time for other reasons . . . I remember what a fine figure she showed against the sky as she hung in the misty rain, and how the tight black silk gown set off her shape as she wheeled half-round and back. (Seymour-Smith, 33)
The second episode, involving a certain Ceale, is recorded by Hardy himself in The Life of Thomas Hardy:
The whole thing had been so sudden that the glass [brass telescope] fell from Hardy's hands. He seemed alone on the heath with the hanged man, and crept homeward wishing he had not been so curious. (Seymour-Smith, 37)
These two macabre incidents have previously been underrated in terms of the effect they had on Hardy's development at a very impressionable age. Hardy's perpetual return to the themes of death, man's inhumanity to man and the purposelessness of suffering stem from these youthful impressions.
At the age of sixteen, in July 1856, Thomas Hardy joined the architect's office of Mr. John Hicks as an apprentice. Apart from learning the art of church restoration, drawing and planning, the study of Greek and Latin flourished in between whiles. It was during this time that he was befriended by the members of the Moule family, especially the fourth song of Henry Moule (vicar of Fordington), Horace. This friendship ended only with the latter's suicide in 1873. Apart from the appeal Horace's somewhat dramatic character had to the younger man's imagination, it was Horace Moule that constantly encouraged Hardy to write poetry. The first poem from this period to survive, "Domicilium" describes the homestead at Higher bockhampton as it was around 1800.
In 1862 Hardy decided to leave Dorchester for London largely as a result of Horace Moule's curious advice that he should pursue an architectural career. It has been suggested by several biographers that a romantic blunder may well have played a part in his decision to leave. Seymour-Smith sums up:
Although he became physically strong, he was doing too much: morning study, architectural work, drawing and painting, excitedly discussing literature with Hooper Tobert and Horace Moule, playing the fiddle at nights, composing poetry. He was thinking too hard, and was assailed by unwelcome sexual feelings. His decision to leave was sensible. (Seymour-Smith, 59)
In London Hardy soon found a job with Arthur Blomfield as a "Gothic draughtsman who could restore and design churches and rectory houses" (Florence Hardy, 48). Having worked hard for Blomfield and won a silver medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects, Hardy, by 1863, was bored with the monotonous and mechanical drawing, as he called it and recommenced reading a great deal, especially poetry. Before he began to write poetry seriously, he set himself the task of learning how. He bought all the English poets he could lay his hands on as well as Walker's Rhyming Dictionary, to which he made additions of his own (Seymour-Smith, 70). He considered the mission of a poet to be the recording of impressions. The words form Aeschylus (Agamemnon): 'Things are what they are and will be brought to their destined issue' (Seymour-Smith, 78) were to become the creed whereby he would conduct his writings. Hardy would get none of his early poetic experiments into print.
Hardy's notion of God emerges through these early poems (notably "Hap"). Seymour-Smith puts it as follows:
Yet the picture of 'God' in 'Hap' is already distinctly non-Christian - offensive to clergymen of tom's own time and place. Commentators have been keen to establish that Tom acquired his view of God from Darwin [Origin of Species 1859]. . . .But while Tom must have been impressed, his notion of an indifferent (non-benevolent) deity was essentially his own, the result of his temperament, formed around his pre-Darwin understanding of Aeschylus: 'The world does not despise us; it only neglects us,' he wrote in May 1865. (Seymour-Smith, 77)
The complex dichotomy of Hardy's views on Christianity and religion is further highlighted by the short story The Tragedy of Two Ambitions (1888) from which Seymour-Smith summarizes:
Sincere Christianity. . . .is nowhere mocked. It never is in Hardy. Despite his scepticism he was a communicating Christian for the whole of his life, and so might be said to have felt an emotional need of the sacraments even while failing to believe in them intellectually. (Seymour-Smith, 400)
The much quoted diary entry concerning Hardy's search for God for fifty years without finding him often misrepresents the complexity of his beliefs. The quote, in any case, refers to God in an "external personality".
January 29 [1890] I have been looking for God 50 years, and I think that if he had existed I should have discovered him. As an external personality, of course - the only true meaning of the word. (Florence Hardy, 293)
The boredom of his architectural duties and over-exertion of working during the day and studying at night took its toll. By the summer of 1867 Blomfield, noticing Hardy's deteriorating health, suggested that he should "go into the country to regain his vigour" (Florence Hardy, 70). Hardy, secretly, was of the opinion that he would like to remain in the country because he cared more for human emotion than social status. The ageing John Hicks needed an architect in Dorchester and Hardy was employed by him, once again. On 29 April 1867, Hardy makes the following note at the time of his departure from London (quoted from The Life of Thomas Hardy):
Had the teaching of experience grown cumulatively with the age of the world we should have been ere now as great as God. (Florence Hardy, 73)
Back at Bockhampton, Hardy recovered soon enough and his determination to be a writer, if not a poet escalated. He started his first novel, A Poor Man and a Lady, around 1868. Now lost, the novel was tentatively accepted for publication but the reviewer, George Meredith, gave the advice that the novel should indeed not be published and that Hardy should "soften the story or concentrate on a new work" (Seymour-Smith, 91). The latter option was taken, casting poetry aside only temporarily for the sake of earning a living from writing novels. The fourteen novels are a formidable list:
Desperate Remedies (1871)
Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)
A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)
Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
The Hand of Ethelberta (1876)
Return of the Native (1878)
The Trumpet Major ( 1880)
A Laodicean (1881)
Two on a Tower (1882)
The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
The Woodlanders (1887)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)
Jude the Obscure (1895)
The Well-Beloved (1897)
Hardy's romantic involvement with Tryphena Sparks commenced soon after his return to Bockhampton in 1867 and was his second fairly serious romantic relationship, the first being with Eliza Nicholls in London. Much speculation about the second affair remains. The relationship was broken off when Tryphena left to pursue her career as a schoolmistress.
In February 1870, G R Crickmay who had taken over Hicks' firm at the latter's death, asked Hardy to inspect a Gothic church for possible restoration. The church was in a remote part of Cornwall in the parish of St. Juliot and it was here that he met Emma Lavina Gifford. The circumstances of their meeting are worth repeating in Emma's own words from Some Recollections, found after Emma's death in 1912 (quoted from The Life of Thomas Hardy):
At that moment the front door bell rang, and the architect was ushered in. I had to receive him alone, and felt a curious uneasy embarrassment at receiving anyone, especially so necessary a personage as the architect. I was immediately arrested by his familiar appearance, as if I had seen him in a dream - his slightly different accent, his soft voice; also I noticed a blue paper sticking out of his pocket. I was explaining who I was, as I saw that he took me for the parson's daughter or wife, when my sister appeared to my great relief, and he went up to Mr. Holder's with her. . . So I met my husband. (Florence Hardy, 92-3)
An event which deeply upset Thomas Hardy and of which the sense of loss remained with him until the end of his life, was the suicide of his friend and tutor, Horace Moule. Hardy recalls his friend's premature death in a poem "Standing by the Mantelpiece - H.M.M. 1873" in later life.
Emma and Thomas were married in September 1874, in spite of Hardy's "sense despondency about marital relationships" (Seymour-Smith, 113). The Hardys moved around a lot during the next few years, settling in London for a while in 1877 where Hardy became ill and depressed yet again. It was at this point, now that Hardy had sufficient means, having published the successful Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) that they decided to move to Dorchester where Max Gate was built and Hardy lived for the rest of his life.
An attribute of Hardy's personality, his crude, 'peasant-like' humour is evident in many of his novels (notably, Far from the Madding Crowd and The Mayor of Casterbridge) and exhibited in poignant reply to a journalist's question about the 'methods of Authors' (quoted from Seymour-Smith):
Thomas Hardy begs to state. . . that (1) he prefers night for working, but finds daytime advisable as a rule; that (2) he follows no plan as to outline; that (3) he uses no stimulant unless tea can be considered as such; that (4) habit is to remove his boots or slippers as a preliminary to work; that (5) he has no definite hours for writing; that (6) he only occasionally works against his will. (Seymour-Smith, 317)
The Hardys travelled in Europe extensively on various occasions during their married life, their 'Italian Journey' of 1887 being an example. Back home they spent time in London which was part of their summer habit, usually renting a flat or part of a house.
In his notebook of 24 January 1888, Hardy explains his political beliefs, an important aspect in understanding his unconventional ways of thinking (quoted from The Life of Thomas Hardy):
I find my politics are neither Tory nor Radical. I may be called an Intrinsicalist. I am against privilege derived from accident of any kind, and am therefore equally opposed to aristocratic privilege and democratic privilege. (By that I mean the arrogant assumption that the only labour is hand-labour - a worse arrogance than that of the aristocrat, - the taxing of the worth to help the masses of the population who will not help themselves when they might, etc.) Opportunity should be equal for all, but those who will not avail themselves of it should be cared for merely - not be a burden to, nor the ruler over, those who do avail themselves thereof.
(Florence Hardy, 268)
At the time Hardy started working on Tess of the d'Urbervilles in 1888, approaching the age of fifty, his marriage to Emma became gradually more strained. As a result he became interested in other women, notably Rosamund Tomson and later Florence Henniker. This is not to say that his relationship with Emma was unbearable; the attentive letters he wrote to her at this time show exactly the contrary and Hardy was far too sensitive and loyal to contemplate leaving her. A more serious breach would come after the publication of Jude the Obscure (1895), to which Emma reacted vehemently on the grounds of the novel's 'irreligiousness'. Her husband's failure to share her devout Christian sentiment towards the Anglican Church was the single most important factor in their gradual estrangement.
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, having been rejected by two publishers, was then 'softened' for serialization but restored to the original in volume form and it immediately became a best-seller. This success largely freed Tom from further financial worries. The novel created a storm but at the same time increased Hardy's reputation instantly.
Hardy 'pursued' Florence Henniker vigorously between 1892 and 1893 and this resulted in a number of poems, the most telling, "A Broken Appointment". Florence's conventionality and acute awareness of the constraints of society prevented their acquaintance from becoming a love affair as Hardy would have wished. Nevertheless Hardy continued to assist her with her writing and their friendship lasted for the rest of her life. He modelled his short story, An Imaginative Woman, on her conventionality and ridicules his own position in the unfortunate affair. The volume publication of Jude the Obscure (1895) created another storm and deepened the rift between Emma and Thomas. How the couple coped with disagreement between them is unknown. Their public life continued fairly normally. They went on cycling trips and toured to the Continent again. Seymour-Smith sums up:
That Tom was often unhappy about his marriage is undoubted. But, so far as life must be considered as a philosophical. . . proposition he was unhappy about that, too; no-one is surprised to learn that in his 1901 'conversation' with William Archer (whom he trusted) he affirmed that he agreed with Sophocles that 'not to be born is best'. In the circumstances 'pessimist' cannot be too inappropriate a word to describe him, although it cannot cover the cases in a world in which optimism is an increasing surreal duty. But that was his. . .'world-philosophy', not to be confused with his emotional state. Those who seek to show that it was the result of the special unhappiness of his marriage are misguided, unwise and too literal in their approach. (Seymour-Smith, 568-9)
On 17 October 1896, soon after their arrival home from Europe, Hardy writes in The Life of Thomas Hardy:
Poetry. Perhaps I can express more fully in verse ideas and emotions which run counter to the inert crystallized opinion. . .which the vast body of man have vested interests in supporting. To cry out in passionate poem that the Supreme Mover or Movers, the Prime Force or Forces, must be either limited in power, unknowing, or cruel - which is obvious enough, and has been for centuries - will cause them merely a shake of the head; but to put it in argumentative prose will make them sneer, or foam, and set all literary contortionists jumping on me, a harmless agnostic, as if I were a clamorous atheist, which in their crass illiteracy they seem to think is the same thing. . .If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone. (Florence Hardy, 57-8)
"He only had to prepare The Well-Beloved (1897) for volume publication and then he could be finished with prose for good" (Seymour-Smith, 570). In the meantime he had commenced the planning of a large-scale verse drama, against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, The Dynasts, which would eventually be published in three volumes (1904). It was his "first and last attempt to put forth a complete philosophy of life" (Seymour-Smith, 577). The first collection of poems was entitled Wessex Poems (1898) in order to make a connection between his poetry and prose, the latter largely based in his own romanticized Wessex. The complete list of poetry anthologies are:
Wessex Poems (1898)
Poems of the Past and the Present (1901)
Time's Laughingstocks (1909)
Satires of Circumstance (1914)
Moments of Vision (1917)
Late Lyrics and Earlier (1922)
Human Shows (1925)
Winter Words (1928)
There are also a number of editions of Collected Poems, that of 1919, including all poems published to date and then an updated version after each new publication until 1930. The Complete Poems by Thomas Hardy (Gibson 1976) revised the 1930 text and added previously uncollected poems, fragments and independent poems as extracts from The Dynasts. (Gibson 1976:xxxv-vi). The total number of poems published in the 1976 edition reaches a staggering 947.
The road on which Hardy embarks "to express more fully in verse the ideas and emotions" leads him to the heart of the persistent questions of existence: relationships, the nature or God and religion and the meaning of life. About his relationship with Emma, he realised that she "who tormented him from time to time was his true muse" (Seymour-Smith, 610). The scores of love poems he writes to her after her death, bear testimony to this Concerning the nature of God, Hardy speculates at the age of sixty: "There may be a consciousness, infinitely far off, at the other end of the chain of phenomena, always striving to express itself and always baffled and blundering" (Seymour-Smith, 621). And of his religiousness Seymour-Smith says that it "consists largely of his struggle to resist [the] notion of meaninglessness. . . to reject a concomitant humanism without a foundation in the human heart" (Seymour-Smith, 620). Hardy would write to Frederick Lefevre in 1925 a letter in which he pleaded for a "religious spirit" (quoted from Seymour-Smith):
I dream of an alliance between religions freed from dogmas. The religion which ought to be preserved. . . would be created by poetry. . . Poetry, pure literature and religion are the visible points of the most authentic mental and emotional life. (Seymour-Smith, 580)
Thomas Hardy and Florence Dugdale met for the first time at the end of 1905. Their 'affair' developed slowly and to give it some respectability in the public eye (and to try to cope with their secret deceit and enormous guilt) Hardy suggested that she become his secretary; a proposal which only materialized in 1910. They spent the first of many sojourns in Aldeburgh, at the holiday house of Hardy's discreet friend, Edward Clodd, from 13 to 21 August 1909. For roughly a year the affair continued, deceiving Emma completely. Ironically, by the summer of 1910 Florence "became fulsome praiser of Emma's literary work, and an active agent for it, while living for long periods at Max Gate as her-not Tom's-secretary-assistant and companion" (Seymour-Smith, 730). It is unsure whether Emma knew about the affair even while Florence was staying at Max Gate.
Emma's behaviour became at times eccentric as a result of her ailing health and possibly the potent sedative she took and was able to order at will (Seymour-Smith, 753). She died quite suddenly on 27 November 1912 at the age of seventy-two after thirty-eight years of marriage to Thomas Hardy. Florence Dugdale soon moved in to take charge. By early 1914, just over a year after Emma's death, she became the new Mrs. Thomas Hardy. Seymour-Smith explores her motives:
She did it for a complex of reasons: she did not love him, but had sometimes seen to his sexual needs, which she called a responsibility; she was never so happy, as she admitted more than once, than when she had someone to look after; and she might yet, as Mrs. Thomas Hardy, achieve immortality as a writer herself. (Seymour-Smith, 769)
The death of Emma "released a flood of the tenderest poetry Hardy had ever written." (Carlisle, 21). All the strain and strife of the last years was redeemed in this 'flood.' In every book of poems from Moments of Vision (1917) onward, there a re recollections of Emma - their happier times and his regrets about the unhappy times.
Many honours, even though somewhat belated, were bestowed on Hardy including the Order of Merit, a gold medal from the Royal Society of Literature, an Honourary D.Litt. from Cambridge and an Honourary Fellowship of Magdalene College, Oxford.
"The outbreak of the First World War had a devastating effect on Hardy" (Seymour-Smith, 795). Some 'patriotic' poems in Moments of Vision (1917) appear under the sub-heading "Poems of War and Patriotism", the first of which is the famous, "The Men Who Marched Away" (written on 5 September 1914 and published in The Times of 9 September) which gained wide popularity. In a letter to Florence Henniker Hardy writes as the result of a cousin dying on the front (quoted from Seymour-Smith):
My faith in the good that is in humankind - except in isolated individuals, of whom happily there are many - has been rudely shaken of late. (Seymour-Smith, 816)
It was in 1916 that his wife, Florence, started pressing him about a biography that she would write, persuading him on the grounds that biographies would inevitably be written and, that if she were to produce one, they could make sure that it was done properly. It was clear to Hardy, pretty soon, that she was not capable and "he came to enjoy cynically presenting himself through the eyes of somewhat officious third party" (Seymour-Smith, 825).
What remains is the brief infatuation Hardy had for an amateur actress, Gertrude Bugler, who played the role of Tess in a local production and was so perfect that Hardy commended her to the London theatres. Florence was extremely jealous of her without any grounds for Hardy was, after all, an old man merely reacting to a beautiful, young intelligent woman who happened to resemble one of his creations (Seymour-Smith, 846).
Of his last years, Seymour-Smith wrote:
In some ways Tom's life actually turned into those poems, or, more accurately, merged into his steady creation of them. He came to want to turn everything, from his most intimate memories to the death of his dog, into poetry. He worked at them persistently until his very last days. (Seymour-Smith, 848)
Thomas Hardy died on 11 January 1928. His heart was removed and buried in Stinsford's graveyard in Emma's grave and his body was buried in Westminster Abbey.
His faithful friend and frequent companion, Herman Lea, who was Hardy's confidant, said the following of the man after reading The Life of Thomas Hardy of which the second volume appeared in 1930 (quoted from Seymour-Smith):
The reading does not bring back to me the man I knew - I think I may say pretty intimately - for nearly thirty years . . . What I miss most is a certain simplicity which, to me, always seemed an integral part of Hardy's make-up - his whole-hearted interest in the little things of life. . . Hardy possessed a sense of humour both subtle and whimsical: I never knew him to be conventional about any subject - except perhaps with 'his tongue in his cheek' - and he was certainly not orthodox. (Seymour-Smith, 604-6)
the last word belongs to Hardy himself taken from a letter (17 February 1920) written (by Florence on account of a cold) to Joseph McCabe who wished to include him in his Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists (quoted from The Life of Thomas Hardy):
[Hardy] says he thinks he is rather an irrationalist than a rationalist, on account of his inconsistencies. He has, in fact, declared as much in prefaces. . . where he explains his views as being mere impressions that frequently change. Moreover, he thinks he could show that no man is a rationalist, and that human actions are not ruled by reason at all in the last resort. (Florence Hardy, 209-10)
The preceding biographical excerpt was written by Gerhardus Daniël Van der Watt. Dr. Van der Watt extended permission to post this excerpt from his dissertation on October 8th, 2010. His dissertation dated November 1996, is entitled: The Songs of Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) To Poems by Thomas Hardy. The excerpt comes from Volume I and began on page one and concluded on page eleven. (Van der Watt, 1-11)
Unpublished Biographical Excerpts
The following biographical excerpt is by Mark Carlisle. Dr. Carlisle extended permission to post this excerpt from his dissertation on September 7th, 2010. His dissertation dated December 1991, is entitled:
Gerald Finzi: A Performance Analysis of A Young Man's Exhortation and Till Earth Outwears, Two Works for High Voice and Piano to Poems by Thomas Hardy
This excerpt begins on page fourteen and concludes on page twenty-four.
(Carlisle, 14-24)
Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 at Higher Bockhampton, in the parish of Stinsford, a village of approximately three hundred inhabitants near Dorchester, the capital of the Dorset district. This year was important in English history not only for the birth of Hardy, but also for the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert. the rural, pastoral life he knew there as a child was to remain an important and necessary ingredient in his personal adult life as well as his life as a writer. The rugged beauty of his birthplace was often found in both his novels and poetry. He was a frail, sickly child who spent much of his time alone, often convalescing from various childhood illnesses that seemed to affect him more severely than other children. These extended periods of solitude were to produce an adult who was not only quite comfortable in being alone, but in fact, came to enjoy his solitude.
The father of the poet, also named Thomas, was a humble mason and builder; the mother, Jemima, was equally undistinguished and without social standing in Victorian England, a society rigidly divided into social classes. It was evident that Thomas Hardy from the age of ten suffered from a resulting sense of social inferiority. However, his mother, who saw to it that her son received the finest schooling that she could obtain for him, instilled in him an insatiable passion for literature. His early years were spent devouring the contents of countless books, many of which were given to him by his mother's family. His taste in authors was wide and varied, and included Dumas, Shakespeare, Dryden, Ainsworth, and Scott. His education also included years of Latin, Greek, French and German language study that led to a remarkable mastery of the English Bible. This familiarity would later evidence itself in the biblical quotes that abound in his poems and novels, despite the fact that he would ultimately declare himself an agnostic.
The future novelist received from his father not only one of his most enduring interests, that of music, but also a taste for architecture and the English countryside. Thomas's father and grandfather had both been musicians of local renown who frequently played at church services and social functions. It was therefore no surprise that Thomas learned to play the violin at an early age, performing often as a youth, and never outliving his love for music. The poet also came to know the countryside intimately from many trips taken with his father. His father was often engaged to work on building throughout the region, and Thomas accompanied him to these sites more often than not in his early years. His sense of architecture was enhanced by his father, who arranged to have the young man apprenticed to an architect after his formal education was finished at the age of sixteen. Thomas remained in Dorchester for five years, not only learning the craft of church restoration and drafting, but also widening his literary tastes and learning to question the provincial precepts he had earlier accepted with little thought. He joined his employer in London at the age of twenty-one, anxious to embrace new ideas and experiences.
Hardy won several prizes for architectural ideas and articles, using the money from these awards for more books by such authors as Swinburne, Browning, Shelley, and Darwin. His artistic inclinations led him to spend much time at the theater, absorbing and developing a love for the works of Shakespeare that would last over sixty years. He also spent many hours at the National Gallery of Art, acquiring an extensive knowledge of European art. These trips led Hardy to develop a talent for sketching that he would use often in the future in illustrating his own published works. His first literary work was published during these early years in London, but the event was not unusual enough to attract serious attention. This time in Hardy's life was more important for the opportunity to assimilate the political, philosophical, literary, and artistic offerings of London than for any notable publishing endeavors. The time had not yet come when the outpouring of these experiences through his imagination would lead to significant literary successes.
Eventually, Hardy developed an intense passion for poetry; for nearly two years he did not read a single word of prose, but instead discovered the works of dozens of poets that led to a desire to create poems of his own. However, a poor young man living in London and dependent upon an unfulfilling job to support himself was unlikely to be successful in any monetary way. The urban ugliness of London, the rigid class structure, and the seeming futility of his struggles began to take a toll on Hardy. He became gloomy and pessimistic, and began to suffer health problems as well. Seeking a change, the poet returned to Dorchester in 1867 to undertake some church restorations for his firm, a trip that led to important changes in his life. He regained much of his health and eagerness for life after returning home, helped especially by long walks in the countryside. Hardy decided to set aside poetry and chose instead to write a novel, the first of many. Although it was not published, several publishers were nevertheless impressed with his writing style, and encouraged the young author to try again. His second attempt, Desperate Remedies, was published, and met with popular, if not complete critical, success.
The year 1867 also saw the first serious romantic involvement in Hardy's life, that with a young cousin of his, Tryphena Sparks, whom he met while in Puddletown to see a play. They would take countless walks together in future years and be in each other's company frequently, leading many experts to believe that an informal engagement existed between the pair. Tryphena, however, was determined to become a schoolmistress, and eventually left for educational reasons in 1869. Many references to Tryphena appear in Hardy's poems from this period and throughout his life.
In 1870, after Tryphena's departure, Hardy was asked by his former architectural employer to inspect a dilapidated Gothic church at St. Juliot in Cornwall. Hardy agreed to go and make plans for the renovation of the church, as he was now between novels and badly in need of money. He traveled to Cornwall and went directly to the rectory of Reverend Cadell Holder, where he was greeted by the rector's sister-in-law, Miss Emma Lavinia Gifford. Miss Gifford, born the same year as Hardy, was then twenty-nine years old and living at the rectory. She was not only the daughter of a well-educated solicitor and niece of a canon of Worcester Cathedral, but also an accomplished horsewoman, scholar, and musician in her own right. While these attributes placed her in a social class above his own, they were nevertheless in love with each other by the end of the week. It was as a result of this relationship that from this moment the letters "E.L.G." appeared often in Hardy's notebooks, diaries, novels and poems. Emma immediately appeared, with a different name, in a serialized novel published between 1870 and 1873, entitled A Pair of Blue Eyes. The novel, eventually published in three volumes, was a tremendous success, and remained Hardy's favorite until the end of his life.
Emma and Thomas were married in September of 1874, and briefly honeymooned in France. Hardy continued to be a prolific novelist during the next several years, and completely abandoned his career as an architect. The Hardys moved often in the early years of their marriage, but eventually settled in London in 1877, in part to satisfy Emma's need for society, but also to put Thomas in closer proximity to the hub of literary activity. The move proved to be a mistake, as not long afterwards, Hardy became ill and depressed much as he had years before while living in London. At his insistence, the couple moved back to his boyhood home, Dorchester, where they purchased some land and built a home for themselves that they named "Max Gate." This was to remain Thomas Hardy's home for the rest of his life.
Hardy's fame as a novelist grew throughout the following years, as did his financial independence. His success, however, caused ever increasing problems in his marriage, which by 1885 had become severely strained. Some of the problem stemmed from Emma's growing realization that her husband was, at heart, a provincial man who found great pleasure in the simple, pastoral setting where he had spend the majority of his life. She seemed to resent his success, and began to have literary aspirations of her own, She started a series of diaries during this time that would continue until her death, and would cause Thomas great pain thereafter. Her musings about her husband and marriage were frequently unkind, and her writing, in general, evidenced signs of mental illness.
The Hardys traveled a great deal, visiting various European countries several times, which occasionally eased the strain of their marriage. Hardy's continued success as a novelist eventually provided him with the financial freedom to pursue other interests, principally philosophy, metaphysics, and especially poetry, the love of his early years. His relationship with Emma continued to deteriorate, however, causing him to spend more and more time alone, reading and contemplating the deepest questions of mankind. It was during these years that Hardy renounced the traditional faith of his youth and became one of the "first generation atheists," a "figurehead of literary Darwinism." He wrote, "I have been looking for God 50 years, and I think if he had existed I should have discovered him." (Banfield, 275) Hardy became pessimistic about the future of mankind, and was vocal about man's inhumanity to man. This view became increasingly evident in his writing, prompting criticisms that it was morbid, gloomy, unrelievedly pessimistic, immoral, and anarchical. He developed a theme that would dominate his works for the rest of his life: "the need for compassion without sentimentality." (Parker, 11)
The tone of the Hardys' marriage was further damaged by Thomas' expressions of his religious and philosophical views, which often shocked and embarrassed Emma, a staunch Anglican. In 1909, Hardy published a poem entitled, "The End of the Episode:"
Ache deep; but make no moans:
Smile out; but stilly suffer;
The paths of love are rougher
Than thoroughfares of stones. (Weber, 254)
Another autobiographical poem, "The Wound," described the author's pain in this way:
That wound of mine
Of which none knew,
For I'd given no sign
That it pierced me through. (Weber, 255)
No one except Hardy himself knew just how deep and painful were the wounds of his emotional estrangement from Emma, but a set of twelve poems entitled Satires of Circumstance, published in 1911, were the closest Hardy came to giving overt vent to his bitterness. Emma managed to publish a few poems, mainly due to her husband's fame, but her lack of any real success as a poet drove the wedge between them even deeper. Life together had become a misery each bore with increasing difficulty.
On November 27, 1912, Emma Gifford Hardy died of heart-failure at the age of seventy-two after thirty-eight years of marriage. The atmosphere of Max Gate cleared immediately, and Hardy entered into a new phase of his literary life. Paradoxically, Emma's death released a flood of the tenderest poetry Hardy had ever written. All of the bitterness of the past twenty years was erased in several love poems, as Hardy recalled the early years of their life together. In 1914, Hardy published thirty-two poems addressed to or inspired by Emma, and Moments of Vision, published in 1917, added thirty-three more to the list. Twenty-five poems about Emma appeared in 1922 in Late Lyrics and Earlier, and sixteen others were published in Human Shows in 1925. All together, nearly one hundred and twenty poems dealing with Emma were published in those years following her death.
If Hardy's emotional life achieved a peaceful plane after Emma's death, his domestic routine suffered proportionally. His increasing fame and honors led visitors and tourists to descend on Max Gate in ever-increasing numbers. Hardy therefore turned for help to his secretary and research assistant since 1904, Miss Florence Dugdale, a distant relative. Florence had become indispensable to the author by 1914, so Hardy married her-he at the age of 73, she at 35. The fourteen years of their marriage were some of the happiest years of Hardy's life. Florence gave him companionship as well as opportunity for solitude and reflection, and created a household characterized by peace and graciousness. Hardy was able to write and publish one hundred and sixty poems in Moments of Vision in just the three years following their marriage. It was perhaps the soothing, positive influence of Florence that allowed Hardy to see his relationship with Emma in such a fond manner.
Hardy remained very productive and positive, thanks in no small measure to the strength of his relationship with Florence. This strength helped to support his emotional well-being, despite the horror that had been inflicted on Europe by World War I, and the increasing disillusionments of old age. He continued to pour out volumes of poetry, eventually bringing the total number of published poems to 919, many of which were of such significance that he received numerous literary honors during these years. When he died in 1928, his body was buried with great ceremony in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. Among his pallbearers were such renowned literary figures as A. E. Housman, Rudyard Kipling, and George Bernard Shaw. His heart, however, was removed from his body before the funeral, and was buried in the grave of Emma Lavinia Gifford Hardy at Stinsford Church.
THE POETIC STYLE OF THOMAS HARDY
A thorough discussion of Thomas Hardy's poetic style is not possible within the span of a few brief paragraphs, but some remarks concerning the importance, structure, and identifying characteristics of his poems are necessary if Gerald Finzi's attraction to them is to be understood. Poetry was of primary importance to Hardy, for although the bulk of his fame and income derived from his novels, he considered his poems to be of higher quality and more lasting value. He wrote a total of 947 poems over the course of 68 years, most of them less than a page in length. These poems cover a wide variety of subjects, such as nature, war, love, and metaphysical philosophy, and all are deeply emotional and personal. He provided these various insights into his poems: "Let every man make a philosophy for himself out of his own experience"; "The Poet takes note of nothing that he cannot feel emotively"; "My opinion is that a poet should express the emotion of all the ages and the thought of his own." (Buckler, 50)
The structure of many of Hardy's poems is more asymmetrical than one might suppose, given his architectural training, but his verses possess a balance and craftsmanship that can be attributed to his early profession. His poems frequently look unbalanced and disorganized on the page, but when studied, produce rhyme schemes and metrical patterns that are quite often rigidly followed and exceptionally well executed.
Another influence on his poems was the musical background he shared with his father and grandfather. It should be noted that Hardy referred to many of his poems as songs, and many experts have found hymn like metrical forms as well as musical forms and rhythmic figures in his works. The sound of his poetry, as read aloud, was without a doubt very important to him. His works demonstrate an ability to "color" a poetic phrase suggests certain musical settings; together with the rhythmic figures of the words, they combine to create "melodic lines in the poetry." (Vogel, 23)
All of these factors have made Hardy's poems a challenge for most composers, but it has been the restraints imposed by the combination of complex rhythmical structures and the sounds of the words of his poetry that have proven particularly difficult over the years. However, Gerald Finzi found both a personal and structural affinity for Hardy's verses that allowed him to set more of Hardy's poems than any other composer to date.
The preceding biographical excerpt was written by Mark Carlisle. Dr. Carlisle extended permission to post this excerpt from his dissertation on September 7th, 2010. His dissertation dated December 1991, is entitled: Gerald Finzi: A Performance Analysis of A Young Man's Exhortation and Till Earth Outwears, Two Works for High Voice and Piano to Poems by Thomas Hardy. The excerpt began on page fourteen and concluded on page twenty-four. (Carlisle, 14-24)
Unpublished Biographical Excerpts
The following biographical excerpt is by Leslie Alan Denning. Dr. Denning extended permission to post this excerpt from his dissertation on September 8th, 2010. His dissertation dated May 1995, is entitled:
A Discussion and Analysis of Songs for the Tenor Voice Composed by Gerald Finzi with Texts by Thomas Hardy
This excerpt begins on page thirty-three and concludes on page forty-four of the dissertation. (Denning, 33-44)
The Life of Thomas Hardy and Comparisons to Gerald Finzi
The year 1840 marked the birth of Thomas Hardy in Bockhampton, England into a family that fostered deep religious convictions and a love for music. The Hardy family's heritage and traditions played an important part in the writer's early life and certainly influenced his thinking and philosophical outlook throughout his life. Though he came from a long line of stone masons, the young Thomas Hardy was attracted to more scholarly pursuits. He was a frail and sickly youth and, as a result of long periods of illness, enjoyed being alone. His enjoyment of solitude stayed with him most of his life. As a youth he was always mentally precocious but lacked physical maturity. Most of Hardy's education came through private instruction at home. At the age of fourteen a keen desire for learning prompted him to receive French instruction and to begin teaching himself German. He also began a large collection of books which eventually became quite a comprehensive library. (Florence Hardy, 42)
At sixteen years of age, young Thomas Hardy began an apprenticeship in architecture, but his mind turned still more in the direction of books and the field of prose. hardy learned Greek and Latin and spent hours reading Homer, Virgil, and the Greek Testament. In 1860, his architectural studies took a more practical turn and Hardy began actual survey and design work for numerous church renovations. By this time, Thomas Hardy's life was multi-faceted: a self-educating scholar in the mornings, a professional architect by day, and the rustic life of a villager in the evening. Very often his evenings would be occupied playing the fiddle for dances. (Florence Hardy, 40-2)
In 1861, Hardy moved to London to continue his architectural studies and while there he attended evening classes at King's College to round out his rather irregular early education. He was already being recognized a s fine architect, winning several prizes for his design work. It was during this period that he became immersed in the study and writing of poetry. His early writing endeavors were in poetry but he was displeased with most of these works and discarded them. Poetry was his first love and he studied constantly by himself through the year 1867. In that summer, he returned to Dorchester as an assistant to his old instructor in architecture. While in London, Hardy had grown physically weak and longed for the country. (Florence Hardy, 70-1)
1870 proved to be a pivotal year for Hardy. During that time, he was called upon to go to Cornwall to evaluate the St. Juliot Church for restoration. While there, he met Emma Lavinia Gifford, the rector's sister-in-law who became his wife four years later. This experience was the inspiration for When I Set Out For Lyonnesse. At this time, Hardy abandoned architecture and devoted himself to writing. (Weber, 48) The Hardys moved to London in 1877 but soon regretted it; Hardy became bed-ridden and lived as an invalid. After partially regaining his health, he insisted upon returning to Dorchester. He felt he could not physically survive city living, and noticed that it tended to limit his writing. In 1883, he designed and built Max Gate, his home for the rest of his life, near Dorchester. This proved a strain for Mrs. Hardy who enjoyed the social activities of a larger city. Perhaps this also brought the realization that her husband was no different than the men she had known in her youth who held great respect and identification for the past and changed little from it. In reality, as Thomas Hardy grew older elements of his past became more important to him. (Brown, 15-7)
The turn of the century brought frequent periods of travel throughout the continent to the Hardys, as well as financial independence gained from novels and serial writings for magazines. This allowed Hardy to devote more time to poetry and to study philosophy and metaphysics. These studies resulted in his eventual loss of traditional religious faith and an acceptance of agnosticism. He came to believe that the universe was against humanity and that his writings could help the world condition by stopping man's inhumanity towards the world around him. (Brown, 22)
Emma's death in 1912 left Hardy a lonely man filled with mixed emotions about their life together. The couple had shared many happy moments; Emma had often been a source of strength and consolation and was the subject of many of Hardy's poems. There were, however, many periods of tension and occurrences which appeared to be linked to a history of insanity in Emma's family. Hardy's secretary, Florence Emily Dugdale, served as a buffer for unwanted guests at Max Gate and saw to the needs and comfort of the aging writer. In 1934, seventy-four year old Thomas Hardy married Dugdale, then 36, and spent some of the happiest years of his life. Thomas Hardy died at home in 1928. (Brown, 25)
Hardy's desire for knowledge never diminished even in his final years. His literary contributions won many honorary degrees, citations, and a following of younger poets and writers who visited him, seeking as well as providing inspiration. His last years were full of trips to old haunts and new discoveries in the countryside he loved. His writing never ceased, with particular attention being afforded to his poetry. (Brown, 25)
Although the view of Thomas Hardy as a totally pessimistic author has been disputed, it was certainly the view of his contemporaries who often described his work as morbid, gloomy, and immoral. Even though his novel Tess of the d'Urbevilles and his masterpiece Jude the Obscure outraged the press, they sold exceptionally well. In general, Hardy's novels seemed to create a great deal of turmoil and hostility, causing him to give up novel-writing altogether. His strong statements about God and mankind aroused a vehement response and established him as a figurehead for literary change at the end of the nineteenth century and a provocative voice of his time. (Banfield, 275)
At the end of his life, Hardy remarked that he wished to be remembered as a poet who wrote some prose. Indeed, seldom has the prolific output of his poems been equaled in literary history. Ironically, it was not until he was almost sixty years old that he gained attention as a poet. He described himself as a poet who was compelled to write novels for the secondary purpose of earning money. Of the nine hundred eighteen titles in Hardy's Collected Poems, eight themes exist: war, philosophy, memorium, nature, love, personal, narrative, and imitative song lyrics. Within each of these categories is a wide variety of poetic emotion as well as variance in tone, color, rhythm, and form. This was intentional as was his desire to convey the spirit of his subject accurately. (Cecil, 62)
Architectural training and a keen sense of form inherited from Hardy's masonry heritage played an important role in developing his sense of balance and symmetry as well as his artistic need for irregularity. He felt that there was a close parallel between poetry and architecture and utilized this craft for the construction of his poems. (Southworth, 250)
Thomas Hardy's inquisitive mind took him in search of a wide variety of intellectual interests including the study of English folklore, medieval legends, magic and the supernatural, philosophy, music, literature, as well as language, art, and of course architecture. These diverse interests manifested within a man of great expertise and refinement, however, his true passion remained with the common man and his struggle with the universe. English history, a concern for man, and a respect for nature were reflected constantly in Hardy's writing. His poetry also reflects creative independence, a strong will, great intellect, and immense imagination. (Cecil, 216-7)
It has been estimated that about one hundred twenty-five of the nearly one thousand Thomas Hardy poems have musical associations. Hardy's love of music was inherited from his father who was a well known West-Country fiddler, who played at local dances and as a member of the village church-band. Though he occasionally referred to classical music, his musical tastes were far more simple. His favorites were old psalm tunes, folk ballads, country dances and parlor songs. Hardy's musical surroundings played an important part in his approach to metric verse. He was in love with sounds and tried to arrange vowel sounds in such a way that their oral emission colored the text. This, combined with intricately woven rhythms, formed built-in melodic lines within his prose. As a source for metric and melodic combinations, he constantly drew upon the influences of folk and church music. Hardy often recognized a poem's appeal for musical settings and went so far as to specify the mode that an interested composer might adopt. (Brown, 150)
More that three hundred songs or choral settings have been written by more than one hundred composers to texts by Thomas Hardy. This is remarkable since many aspects of Hardy's poetry make it difficult to use in this manner. His poems offer intricate rhyme schemes with a wide range of form and meter, often employing formal stanza patterns misleadingly to destroy their inherit symmetry. Often his thought cadence within a line or flow from one line into another or from stanza to stanza. Another problem is his use of language; he uses few spare words but precise observations full of antique phrases. Many lines contain double rhymes or inversions of grammar. (Brown, 150-3) For a composer perhaps the most disturbing characteristics of Hardy's poems are his pessimistic philosophies and the ambiguous manner of writing which delivers layers of meaning and allusion. Though not usually allowing much variety, such poetry and song text do stand the text of years of examination and listening. However, they often defy the listener's need for immediate gratification. A Hardy poem's intercomplexity cannot be unraveled completely during the process of an ongoing song. Conceivably, these greatest obstacles to Hardy's poetry may have actually been the factors which greatly attracted Gerald Finzi. In fact, Finzi's sense of identity with Hardy was such that often certain lines form a Hardy poem automatically elicited a musical response. (Cecil, 95)
Finzi and Hardy never met each other because Finzi was an intensely shy and retiring man and rarely corresponded. Mrs. Finzi indicated that her husband went to an estate sale of Hardy's things in Dorchester, hoping that he might be able to buy something, but prices were too high. Neither Finzi or Hardy were cosmopolitan in their orientation; rather, both men preferred their rustic agrarian life where they were free to roam the countryside. Each of them maintained an affectionate concern for the past: a situation which may have been fostered by the fact that both were almost completely self-educated and had an insatiable appetite for reading and studying, thus becoming acquainted with all facets of history and literature, each of which is largely concerned with the past. Both men manifested a desire for solitude, in varying degrees of intensity throughout their entire lives, but this was particularly intense prior to the relatively late marriages of each; Hardy was thirty-four and Finzi thirty-two years of age when first married. (Banfield, 275)
A parallel concern for nature and man seems to have existed within these two men. Hardy continually used the two subjects as thematic material in his poems. His treatment of nature and its various moods and hues was formed through a deep personal understanding and affection gained during long periods of communing with nature as he traversed his favorite lanes and trails. hardy's great love for all living things would not allow him to bring harm to anything. Finzi's concern for nature is evidenced in his extensive work in the apple orchard he maintained, and his consistent preference for the country atmosphere. His approach to life was such that he could not think of bringing harm to a man or a thing of nature much like Hardy. Both men possessed a deeply felt sense of human responsibility. Thomas Hardy and Gerald Finzi were deep and profound thinkers, and through long periods of solitary seclusion, came to have an intense understanding of their art and themselves. Hardy's many moments of introspective analysis are mirrored in subject matter used in his poetic texts; Finzi's analysis is reflected in his predominately subjective type of music, an area in which he displays his greatest compositional ability. Each man gained a thorough understanding of his art through use of self-studies and analyzing poetic meters, speech nuances and rhythms, melody, forma and phrasing. This is a feature common to both men, as one was a poet who loved and understood music while the other was a musician who loved and understood poetry. (Banfield, 276-80)
Each man's intellectual concern is evidenced by the variety of subject areas his private studies encompassed and the depth of knowledge gained in each area. Large comprehensive libraries collected by both men attest to the intense desire each had for learning. Finzi and Hardy were very much aware of the work being produced by their contemporaries both native and foreign, but neither allowed their styles to be greatly influenced by any one composer or poet respectively. Each maintained a stylistic independence growing out of a thorough knowledge of construction and artistic procedures needed for working in their respective mediums, plus an ability to abstract concepts previously used by other artists. Combining these attributes with great sensitivity and genius of mind resulted in poetry that was unmistakably Hardy's and music that belonged to no one but Finzi. Neither of these men were to endorse expediency as a desirable route for their endeavors; both spent long years perfecting the tools of their trade. Hardy, the architect and son of a stone mason, had an inherited discipline which demanded craftsmanship of him. The experiences of Finzi resulted in an immaculate concept of detail that would not permit him to force a single note in a composition, rather he would work out many possible combinations so that when he returned to the piece at a later time, he would have several solutions form which to choose. As stated earlier, it often took many years for him to complete a single composition. Consequently, he had many works progressing in various stages of completion at the same time.
In 1949, Finzi commented to another friend that there were perhaps another one hundred poems of Hardy which attracted him, but he supposed he would go to his grave with most of them unset. In his copy of The Collected Poems of Thomas Hardy he has lightly crossed through those he has set and marked those he would like to set. There are many more marked than crossed-through as completed. Finzi also stated that he felt an extreme kinship with Hardy's mental makeup. Between the two men, three shared subjects stand out: the futility of war, the pressure of passing years, and the world's natural beauty and indifference to man. Perhaps to these should be added the accident of chance in a man's life as both men were agnostics. Finzi grew up as a second generation agnostic much mellower than Hardy. hardy brutally rejected Christianity while Finzi was more nostalgic. While unable to accept the Christian myth, he was nevertheless wishful that its truth and hope might be generated within him. The two men led very different lives. Hardy was active and restless with a powerful imaginative mind. His personal unhappiness, the outcome of his marriage to Emma, caused him to dwell on dark questionings and self-contradictory philosophies. After an unhappy childhood, Finzi dedicated himself to the achievement of unassuming personal fulfillment in composition; he married happily and composed quietly in rural seclusion for the remainder of his life. Under Finzi's facade of constant cheerfulness and vitality lay a fundamental sense of isolation similar to Hardy's sense of fatalism.
Perhaps if Finzi had been a less timid man, he might have met his Idol, Thomas Hardy. His association with Hardy is a commitment similar to that seen in the great Lieder and Melodie composed in the Romantic era. Howard Bliss presented the composer with an autograph copy of Hardy's We Field-Women bought at the selling of Hardy's library in 1938. This became a reassured possession of Finzi's which remained with him until the end of his life. (Banfield, 283)
The preceding biographical excerpt was written by Leslie Alan Denning. Dr. Denning extended permission to post this excerpt from his dissertation on September 8th, 2010. His dissertation dated May 1995, is entitled: A Discussion and Analysis of Songs for the Tenor Voice Composed by Gerald Finzi with Texts by Thomas Hardy. The excerpt began on page thirty-three and concluded on page forty-four of the dissertation. (Denning, 33-44)