Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy

By Kathi Mitchell

Hardy had a pessimistic view of life and his stories showed the difficulty of people who tried to rise above their "station" in life.​

​

​The romantic writers only started the process.

​Popular Victorian author

​

Multiple Choice

Which genre was most popular with the Victorian reader?

• poetry

• song lyrics

• novels and stories

• drama

When "Jude the Obscure" was rejected, Hardy went back to poetry.​

​

​Here he inspired the modernists who would follow him.

​Bleak stories knocked him back to poetry

​

Multiple Choice

Which novel sent Hardy back to poetry?

• Tess of the Dubervilles

• Far From the Madding Crowd

• Jude the Obscure

• The Mayor of Casterbridge

​The son of a stonemason he was educated locally and did not attend university.

​​Stonemason

​

​Working for a local architect who specialized in churches he visited Cornwall on a business trip.

​​Architect

​

​The woman who became his first wife encouraged his writing and he left architecture.

​​Wife

​

Multiple Choice

In what class were writers in Victorian times?

• labor

• middle class

• aristocracy

• could be any of these

​.

​How much does marriage affect a person's view of life?

Marriage was not as fun as Hardy may have hoped it would be. People who knew him and his first wife said she​ thought she had married "beneath her station". His second wife was his secretary who was 39 years younger than he was.

​

Multiple Choice

What does "fatalistic" mean?

• belief that everything is predetermined

• belief that one will die soon

• belief that the world is a bad place, a sad place, a terrible place

• belief that children should be seen and not heard

​Hardy's story invites you into English country life among ordinary people. A special occasion and special circumstances.

​

On a rainy night...

​What do you do when people you love are starving and you don't have any money? Do we have any way of understanding?

​

​Hardy wanted his readers to see what drove people to actions that society abhored.

​Poverty drove people to desperate actions...

​

Multiple Choice

What was the crime that "The Three Strangers" story centered around?

• Stealing bread

• Stealing a sheep

• Manslaughter

• No crime

Multiple Choice

Where did all Hardy's stories take place

• In the country

• In England

• In Ireland

• In Scotland

Another Hardy story that shows the frustration of being the person who follows the rules...​

​

​How do you figure out what's worth obeying?

​The Duchess of Hamptonshire

​

Open Ended

Does this story break Hardy's "rule" of always being set in England?

The recently dead woman asks her loved one, her dearest kin, her enemy, and her little dog the question.​

​

​What answer is she looking for?

​Oh, Are You Digging on my Grave?

​

Multiple Choice

Who was digging on her grave?

• Her loved one

• Her dear kinsman

• Her enemy

• Her little dog

​Birds get a lot of attention from poets. Their ability to fly, their songs, their ubiquitous presence all seem to call for comment. Are birds still a focus of our poetry and lyrics in the twenty-first century?

​

The Darkling Thrush