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The following study introduces Thomas Hardy and investigates through his personal

life in order to find a clue for better interpretation of his poetry. At the end I will discuss and

analyze a poem as an example and will sum up about his poetry in the conclusion.

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Thomas Hardy (1840 1928) the naturalist author of Victorian era, was born in the

village of Higher Bockhampton, near Dorset, England, the oldest of the four children (two

boys and two girls) of Thomas and Jemima Hardy. His father was a stonemason and his

mother was well-read who educated him until he started his school at age 8 and studied

language and literature. Reaching 16, Hardy interrupted his formal education when he

became apprenticed to John Hicks, a local architect who specialized in restoring old

churches. After that, in 1862 he moved to London to study at Kings College. Although he

won some prizes during the next five years, he decided to leave architecture when he returned

to Dorset and dedicated his life to the world of literature; poetry, novel and short story.

In 1870, according to Gibson, when he was on an architectural mission to restore a

church in Cornwall, Hardy met Emma Lavinia Gifford, whom he fell in love with and

married four years later. They lived near London until 1876, when they settled in Dorset.

Although much of the evidence has been destroyed, according to Encarta

Encyclopedia, it seems that Thomas and Emma, after an initial period of happiness, had a

marriage marred by bitterness and resentment. In the classic biography of Hardy, Millgate

affirms that they became estranged from each other; however accordingly, they lived,


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visited, and entertained together. They shared in the particular, day-to-day business of

maintaining a household and a social life (287).

Unfortunately in 1912, Emma died and her sudden death never left Hardys mind.

Despite his second marriage with the devoted secretary Florence Dugale, who was about 40

years younger than him, Hardy remained preoccupied with Emmas death and tried to

overcome his remorse by creating in poetry what he had failed to achieve in marriage. This

is a key to understand Hardys poetry, because most of them are addressed to Emma or

reflect the loss of a beloved he experienced in 1912. A recurring theme in Thomas Hardys

writings is the sadness of romantic love, which matrimony changes from bliss into misery

(Encarta Encyclopedia).

In January 1928, Hardy died of heart disease. His funeral was on January 16 th at

Westminster Abbey, and it proved a controversial occasion because Hardy and his family and

friends had wished for his body to be interred at Stinsford in the same grave as his first wife,

Emma. However, his executor, Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, insisted that he be placed in the

abbey's famous Poets' Corner. A compromise was reached whereby his heart was buried at

Stinsford with Emma, and his ashes in Poets' Corner.

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Although Hardy wrote in different genres, but he is well-known for his novels; among

them are: A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) and the pessimist novel of Far from the Madding

Crowd (1874) which was the first of Wessex novels, The Return of the Native (1878), The

Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) and the last Wessex novel,

Jude the Obscure (1895). Almost all of them narrate the story of a helpless protagonist who is

caught in the web of a rigid, conservative social system (Witalec).


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According to Witalec, early criticism on Hardy was mixed and controversial,

especially regarding his two last novels. Debate was on the morality in Hardys novels and

the explicit sexuality which was in his works. Jude the Obscure , often referred to as Jude the

Obscene was heavily criticized for its apparent attack on the institution of marriage. Some

booksellers sold the novel in brown paper bags, and the Bishop of Wakefield is reputed to

have burnt a copy. Anyhow, most criticisms and reviews were focused on his well-known

novels at that time. It was in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that scholars

began to pay attention to his poetry, the genre neglected for several decades by critics

(Witalec). They dedicated several journals to Thomas Hardy.

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Hardy had a pessimist view on life and love, was watchful about relationships and

interested in psychology of behaviors. His meticulous description of events and characters is

not limited to humans, and even nature and animals play a role in the setting of what he

narrates and are related to the theme. His explicit use of sexual images and the plot of his

novels distinguish his modern style of writing. His dramatic techniques make his plays

different and his unconventional view of love, the regret and loss which is implied in his

poems, differentiate his poetry from his contemporaries.

Hardy himself preferred poetry and wrote verse throughout his life. But it was in 1989

that published the first collection of poems, Wessex Poems , written over 30 years. His

pessimist view, which was in contrast with beauty of nature and optimism of Victorians, was

against the public taste of his time. He published about 13 volumes of poetry, but they

werent studied and applauded before recent years. He wrote in variety of genres, from epic

drama (ex. The Dynasts ) to cheerful ballads (ex. The Children and Sir Nameless ).


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In an overall review of his poetry, as Moore did, one can put Hardys poetry in three

categories:

' War Poems, which were written at the times of the second Boer War of 1899-1902

and the Great War of 1914-1918. They include diversity of moods and themes, and

cannot be considered in favor of a same propaganda. Some like Channel Firing , are

written in a pessimist view and condemn mans warlike stupidity, others like In Time

of The Breaking of Nations are triumphantly optimistic about future.

' Poems about Emma, are mostly written to reduce the guilt Hardy felt inside for his

neglect of Emma. They explore the relationship which was started by happiness and

promises of prosperity, but ended in bitterness and heavyheartedness. The Going , is a

good example in which the persona asks several questions, and cannot find an answer

for them. It starts with this stanza:

Why did you give no hint that night

That quickly after the morrow's dawn,

And calmly, as if indifferent quite,

You would close your term here, up and be gone

Where I could not follow

With wing of swallow

To gain one glimpse of you ever anon! (318)

' Next category would be philosophical and personal poems, which are again full of

references to his personal life and Emma. For example in Shut Out That Moon , he

pessimistically explores the idea of time and change, and talks of the past happy


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experiences they had once. To an Unborn Pauper Child is another one, discussing the

future of a child soon be born into poverty. And in The Oxen , he refers to a

superstition about Christmas.

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To complete this study, I want to analyze a rarely discussed poem by Hardy, If Its

Ever Spring Again in the followings.

The poem, or as Hardy called it the 'song' If It's Ever Spring Again deals with spring

and summer; two bright and shiny seasons which normally warm the nature and people by

the energy and hope they spread around. Hardy depicts spring with many positive qualities,

when happiness is all around. He talks of not common characters, like moor-cock and moor-

hen, which according to Morgan, the editor and publisher of the annual Hardy Review, are

shy, undemonstrative creatures rarely drawn from their coverture under the river-bank to

gladden the heart of spring to emphasize this supreme enthusiasm. As a result of this

depiction, the prominent imagery in this poem is the visual imagery; which suddenly puts us

in the middle of the nature.

At first, Hardy reminds himself a day in spring, when he (the persona) was able to

stand next to the beloved with arms around her and enjoy the beauty of spring. He feels

prospered and thinks of spring as a complete season, as well as himself. Then in stanza two,

he leaps to another memory in a summer day, with again the perfection of setting and the

inner sense of fulfillment, when the day crop is at the prime, bees achime and cuckoos

are singing in rhyme. But it is not all. Richards explains that Hardy was interested in nature,

and for him nature was equal to beauty, but also clarifies that he was more interested in


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strangeness than conventional beauty (190). It is as if the beauty of nature is not the ultimate

goal of his poetry.

Narrators effort to create the cheerful setting of spring and secure sense of golden

summer are just to intensify the profound meaning which is implied in the poem. The ifs

and evers convey a sense of regret. Thinking of past days, the narrator cannot understand

the lack which is now in his life. And the poem ends on a note, as if he lives in the past and

doesnt dare to face the future. In this sense, the whole poem seems not a delightful praise of

spring, but an envy of the past. Thats Mellers view who considers this poem a song of

nostalgia. Taking birds and bees, according to Cortus, the Vice President of The Thomas

Hardy Association, as collectively a trite euphemism for sex, two cuckoos can be a

metaphor of lovers (which includes the narrator), and his doubt in line 14, about their singing

As they used to or seemed to be together, demonstrates the pessimist atmosphere which

is settled in the mind, as well as the heart of this narrator that even cannot trust his beloved,

and the past. In this case, the whole poem presents a continual abstract dreaming, disclosing

the dimness melancholy that the narrator feels inside. It can suggest that the narration of past

and this memory is not reliable, due to the obsession of narrator to his relationship, and the

traumatic lost he has in his life.

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Talking about Hardys poetry, Blackburn asserts that the magnetism of his poems is

built around a complex of love and loss, memory and guilt, pain and self-pity, beauty and

regret intermingled with something of delight (12). In this poem, he uses images of spring

and summer and refers to nature to express the emotions and create the setting, so that he

compares two conditions of past and present. The primary setting and the visual imagery play


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a strong role, metaphorically, to the oppositions, and intensifies the sense of regret. This

technique is effective in a way to create the atmosphere and express the sadness this persona

feels in his present life.


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WW oorr k k ss CC iitt eedd

Blackburn, John. Hardy to Heaney. Hong Kong: Oliver & Boyd, 1986.

Cortus, Betty. "If It's Ever Spring Again TTHA Poem of the Month for March

2008". TTHA-POTM. February 1, 2009 .

Gibson James. Chosen Poems of Thomas Hardy. London: Macmillan Education Ltd, 1975.

Hardy, Thomas. The Works of Thomas Hardy. UK: Wordsworth Editions, 1994.

Mellers, Wilfrid. "Britten's 'Lyrics and Ballads of Thomas Hardy': Sad Tales for

Winter". The Musical Times. Vol. 142, No. 1877. Winter 2001: 27-33.

Millgate, Michael. Thomas Hardy. USA: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Moore, Andrew. "Thomas Hardy's poetry - study guide". English Teaching Online. February

18 th, 2009 .

Morgan, Rosemarie. "If It's Ever Spring Again TTHA Poem of the Month for

March 2008". TTHA-POTM. February 1, 2009 .

Richards, Bernard. English Poetry of the Victorian Period 1830-1890. USA: Longman, 1988.

Witalec, Janet. "Hardy, Thomas: Introduction". Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Vol.

143. Gale Cengage, 2004.

"Thomas Hardy." Microsoft Encarta 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft

Corporation, 2008.


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If It's Ever Spring Again

(Song)

If it's ever spring again,

Spring again,

I shall go where went I when

Down the moor-cock splashed, and hen,

Seeing me not, amid their flounder,

Standing with my arm around her;

If it's ever spring again,

Spring again,

I shall go where went I then.

If it's ever summer-time,

summer-time,

With the hay crop at the prime,

And the cuckoos two in rhyme,

As they used to be, or seemed to,

We shall do as long we've dreamed to,

If it's ever summer-time,

Summer-time,

With the hay, and bees achime (563).

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