John Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” and Thomas Hardy’s “The Darkling Thrush,” though written nearly a century apart, share many poetic elements that allow readers to effectively draw a surface parallel between the two poems. Though both of these poems have analogous stylistic elements, a...
Tom Hardy knew he always had the talent inside of him and would go to extra miles to achieve his dreams of becoming an actor. Hardy had his big break in 2001 with the movie Band of Brothers and has remained on top since then....
Thomas Hardy
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In Thomas Hardy’s tendentious Victorian novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Hardy uses a format akin to that of a tragic hero to critique the double standards of Victorian society. His heroine, Tess, challenges Victorian standards by maintaining her innate purity and refusing to be defined...
Intrigue, murder, and suicide — by all accounts, Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure was a complete and terrible shock to the religiously conservative readers of the late nineteenth century, and this is exactly what he intended. These were, after all, the very people he was...
Thomas Hardy wrote “The Shadow on the Stone” after his wife’s death, and the ghost he mentions is his wife’s. The poem focuses on the realities of time and death. The poet’s feelings are complex, which is reflected in the complex rhyme scheme of the...
Introduction Domicilium is a poem portraying Hardy’s idealistic view of nature through his description of his childhood home and the surrounding landscape. The poem is split into two parts separated by a time shift; the first section is on the current state of the cottage...
As the various facets of a diamond reflect light according to the viewing perspective, so humans also possess multi-faceted aspects of personality. Hardy’s Victorian novel presents an interesting character study of Alec Stoke-d’Urberville, the lascivious rake who violates his ‘cousin,’ converts to a fiery preacher,...
In his work, Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy tells the tale of two people hopelessly in love, fighting against both internal and external conflicts to pursue that love and have some semblance of a normal life together. Set in England in the late 19th century,...
‘In my memory / Again and again I see it strangely dark / And vacant of a life but just withdrawn.’ Made-to-order essay as fast as you need it Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences + experts online Get my essay...
In “War” by Jack London and “The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy, the authors explore the negative impact of war and its dehumanizing nature. Although one is a short story and the other a poem, both connect to each other with a common anti-war...
Upon reading Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, one may notice that references to pagan goddesses and ancient religions of the past are strewn throughout the book. These allusions range from the affectionate names of endearment by which Angel Clare refers to Tess, such as...
Hardy’s “The Convergence of the Twain” tells of the events that lead up to the sinking of the Titanic through its collision with an iceberg, while on a deeper meaning, highlighting the tragic consequences of the hubris of mankind. Through opposition and diction, the speaker...
Men have learned to harness nature, but they have yet to transcend it. The laws of nature powerfully affect human behavior, and these laws are often antithetical to those of society. Thus the conscientious human being is constantly in flux—at once pulled by primal and...
Thomas Hardy, in Tess of the D’Urbervilles, takes great pains to relate the characters to their surroundings, especially in the parallelism between Tess’ emotional disposition and her physical environment. It is not surprising, therefore, that the two interpersonal relationships which are the most important to...
In his poem “The Convergence of the Twain,” Thomas Hardy describes the unfortunate, yet truly inevitable, sinking of the supposedly invincible Titanic. Concurrently, the poem depicts humanity’s vain struggle against the steadfast forces of nature. The poem’s structural organization as well as diction and figurative...
Hardy’s novels are grounded in a realist portrayal of a society defined by constant advancement. The preceding Enlightenment era developed a sense of shedding traditional values in pursuit of intellectual evolution, and this only accelerated into the constant striving for progress of the Victorians. “Modernity”...
Courtship is the behaviour in which, normally, the male attempts to persuade the female into a romantic relationship or marriage. In ‘Persuasion’ by Jane Austen, as well as ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ by Thomas Hardy, courtship is displayed in a kaleidoscopic view which thus portrays...
“Hardy summons into us a graphic dimension, and then, apparently without realizing the danger in doing so, he allows another Eustacia to enter his novel. This Eustacia emerges, through a consistent patter of speech and action as a creature unfit for the lonely peaks of...
In Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy primarily showcases man’s inability to elude fate. Society’s constraints highlight the futile nature of attempting to change the course of one’s life, for the inability to transcend one’s social classes mirrors the impossibility of transcending one’s destiny. Similarly,...
Tess of the d’Urbervilles is seen as Hardy’s tragic masterpiece, subtitled “A Pure Woman”, first posted in 1891 after being rejected with the in reality real lying truly beneficial without a doubt useful recommended recommended beneficial aid of two publishers. It is a story of...
In Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native, the heath is essentially treated as a character, albeit an extremely powerful one. Like the other characters, it loves possessively and without regard to the feelings of others. It competes with Ms. Yeobright and Eustacia for Clym’s...
Andrea Dworkin, claimed that, ‘Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge’, this is shown within both novels as the female characters are presented as being controlled within society. Hosseini...
“Although They Were Proud of Their Material Success, the Victorians were often Profoundly Uneasy about the loss of the Rural Community that Industrial Society Experienced.” From Your Reading of Tess of the D’Urbervilles and other Victorian Novels show how you have found this to Be...
John Gardner once said that there are only two types of stories: someone leaving home or a stranger coming into town; The Return of the Native meets both of these in a way. Eustacia wishes to leave, while Clym returns, but seems to be almost...
In Tess of the d’Urbervilles, heredity governs life. Through the narrative voice and the character’s responses, Thomas Hardy explains how Tess’ “slight incautiousness of character inherited from her race” (71) defines her life. More specifically, traits from her parents and her family legacy follow throughout...
In his novel Tess of the d’Ubervilles, as well as much of his poetry, Thomas Hardy expresses his dissatisfaction, weariness, and an overwhelming sense of injustice at the cruelty of our universal Fate disappointment and disillusionment. Hardy argues that the hopes and desires of...
Introduction Both James Joyce’s Eveline and Thomas Hardy’s The Son’s Veto express the negative effects that service has upon an individual’s life. While Joyce uses an intimate obligation, a promise to a dying mother, Hardy’s story addresses a wider cultural restriction that is created by...
Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles provides social commentary on many issues prevalent in Victorian society. In particular, Hardy uses Tess’ submission to her parents, Alec d’Urberville, Angel Clare, and society as a whole to examine the sexual double standard prevalent in Victorian society. Tess...
Death has been a prominent theme across literature, with its countless interpretations showcasing the diverse ways it has influenced different authors. Thomas Hardy’s novel The Mayor of Casterbridge is described by Hardy as “The life and death of a man of character”, and commences as...
Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet who set much of his work in Wessex, his name for the counties of southwestern England.
Works
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Jude the Obscure
Themes
Considered a Victorian realist, Hardy examines the social constraints on the lives of those living in Victorian England, and criticises those beliefs, especially those relating to marriage, education and religion, that limited people's lives and caused unhappiness. Fate or chance is another important theme.
Legacy
Hardy's legacy connects the masterful British writers like Wordsworth and Eliot to the era of Modernism that culminated in the likes of Woolf and that other, more poetic Eliot. Hardy’s most significant work spans some five decades, comprising novels and poetry that today are regarded as classics of the canon.
Quotes
“Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.”
“A strong woman who recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.”
“Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.”
