The Life and Works of Thomas Hardy

“Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.” Thomas Hardy believed beyond the physical element of object, their lies a more important symbolic meaning. Thomas Hardy was a renowned transitional poet with a style between classicism and romanticism. He was born in the mid-1800s in Higher Bockhampton, an English village. Hardy’s upbringing contributed greatly to his views on the world around him, in a symbolic manner. His father was a stonemason and a violinist, and his mother encouraged him to follow his passions. Hardy was first married for 38 years to Emma Gifford, who inspired many of his poetic ideas. He later married his secretary Florence Dugdale two years after Emma died. (http://www.universalteacher.org .uk/poetry/hardy.htm#13)

Hardy first trained to be an architect and moved to London to pursue his career choice. After five years, he moved back to his home country in Dorset. ("Thomas Hardy: The Man He Killed.") Thomas Hardy began as a controversial novelist, presenting ideas and beliefs that were counter-cultural. His first two books were not well received. However, Hardy ultimately published numerous novels that became popular literary works: Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge. He received enough royalties from these works to discontinue writing books, and he began to write poetry. From 1898 until his death, Hardy published over a thousand poems that were based his experiences. (http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/poetry/hardy.htm#13)

Thesis: Thomas Hardy’s experiences impacted his writing and now impacts our modern world…. By analyzing three different poems blah blah blah

The Man He Killed

The poem “The Man He Killed” was written in 1902 after the Boer ...

... middle of paper ...

...s increased during the course of the century, offering an alternative—more down-to-earth, less rhetorical—to the more mystical and aristocratic precedent of Yeats.”

Works Cited

"Thomas Hardy: The Man He Killed." BBC News. BBC, June 2008. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetry_ocr/reflections/themanhekilled/revision/1/

Gibson, James. "Thomas Hardy." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, 2001. Web. 30 Mar. 2014 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/thomas-hardy

Hardy, Thomas. "The Man He Killed." Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. Robert DiYanni. 6th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008. 813-814 http://sjdetoma-themanhekilled.blogspot.com/

Moore, Andrew. "Thomas Hardy." Andrew Moore's Resource. Teachit.co.uk, May 2005. Web. 01 Apr. http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/poetry/hardy.htm#13