THOMAS HARDY. Biography, novels and characteristics
THOMAS HARDY
(1814 – 1928)
Transitional figure between the Victorian novel and Modernist novel, from Desperate Remedies (Victorian) to Jude the Obscure (nearer to Modernism).
One of the main characteristics of his writing is the mixture of plausible human beings and strange and uncommon events, the mixture of real and fantastic without rational explanation, based on superstition.
Recurrent themes in Hardy’s writing are:
Class distinction (Tess is from the lower class whereas Alec belongs to the upper class)
Conflict between old and new ways (country folk represent the old ways and people like Alec represent the new way)
The intrusion of an outsider into a happy and estable rural community (Alec would be the outsider)
Hardy was born in 1840 in a hamlet near Dorchester, a small but bussy community which formed the comercial and social centre of an agriculture region. Railway had not reached Hardy's region by the time he was born, but he was very aware of social class differences. He knew he occupied amiddle position in society, and he spent all his childhood in the country, so it made him familiar with rural signs and sounds, but also with superstitions and beliefs in there, which he exploited in his novels.
Life in country also accustomed his ear to local speech, which he reproduced in his novels.
Hardy was an early reader and he read the great writers like Shakespeare, Johnson, Dryden…
At the age of sixteen, he became the apprentice of an architect and later on, he moved to London to do architectural work. Although in 1867 illness sent him back to Dorchester. He started working for his former employer again and at this time he decided to start writing novels (even though he had already written poetry).
For the next years, he combined his architectural career with his fiction writing.
This first year as a novelist coincided with the start of his relationship with his future wife, Emma. They got engaged in 1870 and shortly after got married.
(1814 – 1928)
Transitional figure between the Victorian novel and Modernist novel, from Desperate Remedies (Victorian) to Jude the Obscure (nearer to Modernism).
One of the main characteristics of his writing is the mixture of plausible human beings and strange and uncommon events, the mixture of real and fantastic without rational explanation, based on superstition.
Recurrent themes in Hardy’s writing are:
Class distinction (Tess is from the lower class whereas Alec belongs to the upper class)
Conflict between old and new ways (country folk represent the old ways and people like Alec represent the new way)
The intrusion of an outsider into a happy and estable rural community (Alec would be the outsider)
Hardy was born in 1840 in a hamlet near Dorchester, a small but bussy community which formed the comercial and social centre of an agriculture region. Railway had not reached Hardy's region by the time he was born, but he was very aware of social class differences. He knew he occupied amiddle position in society, and he spent all his childhood in the country, so it made him familiar with rural signs and sounds, but also with superstitions and beliefs in there, which he exploited in his novels.
Life in country also accustomed his ear to local speech, which he reproduced in his novels.
Hardy was an early reader and he read the great writers like Shakespeare, Johnson, Dryden…
At the age of sixteen, he became the apprentice of an architect and later on, he moved to London to do architectural work. Although in 1867 illness sent him back to Dorchester. He started working for his former employer again and at this time he decided to start writing novels (even though he had already written poetry).
For the next years, he combined his architectural career with his fiction writing.
This first year as a novelist coincided with the start of his relationship with his future wife, Emma. They got engaged in 1870 and shortly after got married.