Good Morning
THIS SEMESTER
Fiction II
Unit IV
Thomas Hardy
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
THIS CLASS
Thomas Hardy
An Introduction
Thomas Hardy
An Introduction
Life
Time
Works
Life
Birth
Education
Career
Marriage
Achievements
Death
The Hardy Birthplace
Marker
The marker is situated just
behind the Higher
Bockhampton thatched
cottage.
Photograph 2002 by Philip
V. Allingham
Birth
Date of Birth: 2nd June 1840
Tuesday, 8.00am
Place of Birth: Stinsford,
Dorchester, Dorset, England
Father: Thomas
Mother: Jemima
Education
Mother educated him till
his age of eight
First school at
Bockhampton at age eight
For several years he
attended a school run by a
Mr Last
Learnt Latin and Greek
there
In 1862 enrolled at King’s
College, London
Career
Architect
Writer
Architect
Joined Hicks, an architect, as an apprentice
Won Prizes from Royal Institute Of British
Architects and the Architectural
Association
Writer
The Poor Man and the Lady his first novel
turned down by publishers
Desperate Remedies his first published
novel
Wrote novels, short stories, poems and
drama
Stopped writing novels after the publication
of Jude the Obscure
Marriage
Marries Emma Gifford in 1874
Emma dies in 1912
Marries Florence Dugdale in 1914
Achievements
Becomes Grand Old Man of English Letters
Won Order of Merit
Won several degrees of honour
Death
On 11th January 1928, Wednesday just after
9.00 p.m. he passed away
His heart was buried at Stinsford
His ashes were buried in Westminster
Abbey
Time
Victorian Age
Victorian Literature
Victorian Writers
Victorian Age
Period between 1832 and 1901
From the Passage of the First Reform Bill to
the Death of Queen Victoria
Early Victorian Age 1832-1848
Mid-Victorian Age 1848-1870
Late Victorian Age 1870-1901
Victorian Literature
Prose or Verse the literature of the age
reflected the pressing issues of the age
such as:
Social
Economic
Religious
Intellectual
Victorian Writers
Poets
Tennyson
Robert Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Christina Rossetti
Matthew Arnold
G. M. Hopkins
Victorian Writers
Essayists
Thomas Carlyle
John Ruskin
Arnold
Walter Pater
Victorian Writers
Novelists
Bronte Sisters
Charles Dickens
William Makepeace Thackeray
Elizabeth Gaskell
George Eliot
George Meredith
Anthony Trollope
Thomas Hardy
Samuel Butler
Works
List of Works
Philosophy of Life
Features of his works
List of Works
Novels
Short Story Collections
Poetry Collections
Dramas
Novels
The Poor Man and the Lady [1867
Unpublished]
Desperate Remedies [1871]
Under the Greenwood Tree [1872]
A Pair of Blue Eyes [1873]
Novels
Far From the Madding Crowd [1874]
The Hand of Ethelberta [1876]
The Return of the Native [1878]
The Trumpet-Major [1880]
A Laodicean [1881]
Novels
Two on a Tower [1882]
The Mayor of Casterbridge [1886]
The Woodlanders [1887]
The Well-Beloved [1892 in serial form,1897
in book form]
Jude the Obscure [1895]
Short Story Collections
Wessex Tales [1888]
A Group of Noble Dames [1891]
Life’s Little Ironies [1894]
Poetry Collections
The Photograph [1890]
Wessex Poems and Other Verses [1898]
Poems of the Past and Present [1901]
The Man He Killed [1902]
Times Laughing Stocks and Other Verses [1909]
The Voice [1912]
Poetry Collections
Satires of Circumstance [1914]
Moments of Vision [1917]
Collected Poems [ 1919]
Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other
Verses [1922]
Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and
Trifles [1925]
Poetry Collections
Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres
[1928]
The Complete Poems [1976]
Selected Poems[1993]
Hardy: Poems [1995]
Thomas Hardy: Selected Poetry and
Nonfictional Prose [1996]
Selected Poems [1998]
Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems
[2001]
Dramas
The Dynasts Part 1[1904]
The Dynasts Part 2 [1906]
The Dynasts Part 3 [1908]
The Famous Tragedy of
the Queen of Cornwall at
Tintagel in Lyonnesse [1923]
Philosophy of Life
Pessimistic view of life
Life is to suffer at the hands of external
forces
“…happiness was but the occasional
episode in a general drama of pain”
Man a mere plaything of an impersonal and
maligned fate
As flies to wanton boys
Are we to the gods,
They kill us for their sport
King Lear Act IV Sc 1 35-37
Features of His Works
Accusing finger at destiny and taking sides with
the protagonist
His plots hinges on Co-incidences and
mischances
Close to nature, rural and country scenes
Characters are mostly ordinary men and women
living close to the soil
Minor rustics offer pithy humour
Wessex finds a prominent place in his works
THE END
COMING NEXT
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
An Introduction
Tess of d’Urbervilles
A Novel by Thomas Hardy
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