Thomas hardy (1840 - 1928) Questions and tasks.

I. Pay attention to the pronunciation of the proper and geographical names:

Thomas Hardy ['tPmqs 'hRdI]

Wessex ['weseks] Casterbridge ['kxstqbrIG]

Tess of the D’Urbervilles ['tes qv Tq 'dE:bqvIlz]

Jude [GHd] Jemina [GI'maImq]

Hann [hxn] Dorset ['dLsIt]

John Hicks [GPn hIks] Dorchester ['dLCqstq]

Sir Arthur Blomfield ['sE: 'RTq 'blPmfJld]

George Meredith ['GLG 'merqdIT]

Cornhill ['kLnhJl] Napoleonic [nq"pqVlI'PnIk]

II. Read the text:

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), English poet and his nation’s foremost regional novelist, whose most impressive novels are set in “Wessex”, an imaginary country in southwestern England. They include “The Return of the Native” (1878), “The Mayor of Casterbridge” (1886), “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” (1891), and “Jude the Obscure” (1895).

Early years. Hardy was the son of Thomas Hardy, builder and master mason, and Jemina, born Hann, both were of long - established Dorset families. The writer was the eldest of four children. Though rather delicate in childhood, by the age of 8 he was able to enter a school. The headmaster of the school was a talented Latinist and he aroused and encouraged in Hardy a love of classical writers that made an influence on his work. Leaving school in 1856, Hardy became a pupil of an architect named John Hicks, who practised in Dorchester.

In 1862 he left Dorchester for London and soon obtained a post with a well-known architect, Sir Arthur Blomfield, as a “Gothic” draftman, capable of designing and restoring churches and rectories. He remained with Blomfield until 1867, when health problems made him return to Dorset, where he again worked for Hicks. During his years in London, Hardy had begun seriously to write poetry: some of the poems of this period - for example, “Neutral Tones” - are among his finest and most characteristic works.

During 1867-68 he wrote his first novel “The Poor Man and the Lady”, which was rejected, though with some favourable comment, by 2 publishers, chiefly on the grounds of its being too satirical and socialistic. The novelist George Meredith, one of the publishers, advised him to attempt a novel with a purely artistic purpose and a more complicated plot - advice that he followed too faithfully in his first published novel “Desperate Remedies” (1871). This book had been published anonymously and had been met with a strange feeling. [In 1872 Hardy returned to London to architectural work, having meanwhile written “Under the Greenwood Tree”, which was published in May of that year. It had much humour and sympathetic observation as compared to his later tragic novels. The first of the Wessex novels, it shows how closely connected these stories with the rhythms of the rural year. Hardy’s next novel “A Pair of Blue Eyes” was published serially in 1872-73. Then he began “Far from the Madding Crowd”, first published serially in 1874 and anonymously in “Cornwill Magazine”. It was his first success, and he was encouraged by it to devote himself entirely to writing. It is also the first “typical” Hardy novel, for, although it has humour, its scheme and general tone belong more to tragedy than to comedy.]

Writings of maturity. From 1878 to 1895 is the period of Hardy’s greatest achievement as a novelist. During this time he published “The Return of the Native”, “The Trumpet - Major”, “The Major of Casterbridge”, “The Woodlanders”, “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”, and “Jude the Obscure”. In these books Hardy’s stoical pessimism - based on his conception of the “Immanent Will” (to be developed most plainly in his prose-poetry drama “The Dynasts”) - and his sense of the inevitable tragedy of human life are continually evident.

In 1898 “Wessex Poems”, including a good deal of poetry written earlier, was published. “Poems of the Past and the Present” followed in 1901, and several more volumes appeared during the remainder of his life.

From 1903 to 1908 appeared, in three installments “The Dynasts”, a huge drama of the Napoleonic Wars, written mostly in blank verse, its lighter scenes are in prose, being chiefly concerned with the attitudes of the Wessex peasantry. It is in “The Dynasts” that Hardy’s conception of the Immanent Will, implicit in the tragic novels, is most clearly stated. He thinks, this Will is an indifferent and unconscious force and is the motive power of the universe. The results of its impulses are almost invariably disastrous.

In 1910 Hardy was awarded the Order of Merit. He continued to write poetry almost up to his death. He died in 1928, his ashes were placed in Westminster Abbey, and his heart was buried, as he had wished, in the church near his birthplace.

Hardy remains - owing in some measure to interest stimulated by cinema and television adaptations of his work - one of the most widely read Victorian novelists, and his work has been the occasion of a number of critical essays and books. What might have pleased him more in the general recognition of his genius and importance as a poet.

3. Answer the questions to discuss the text in detail. Use the text for reference.

1. What family did Th. Hardy come from? Was the profession of an

architect a family tradition?

2. How did he begin to write? Were his first works a success?

3. Prove that the period from 1878 to 1895 is the greatest Hardy’s

achievement as a novelist?

3. What is his stoical pessimism based on? How did he understand the Immanent Will?

4. Why has he become one of the most widely read Victorian writers? Which of his works to your mind, are more popular - prosaic or poetic?

IV. Translate in writing the passage in brackets.

5. Speak on the life and creative work of Th. Hardy.