{"id":5878,"date":"2007-01-09T17:17:30","date_gmt":"2007-01-09T22:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5878"},"modified":"2015-05-27T10:18:02","modified_gmt":"2015-05-27T14:18:02","slug":"hardy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5878","title":{"rendered":"New Biography of Thomas Hardy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Very interesting review by Adam Kirsch of the latest biography of Thomas Hardy<\/a>, Thomas Hardy<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Claire Tomalin.<\/p>\n

Any Hardy fans, or any literature fans, will want to take the time to read that review.<\/p>\n

Quotes that stood out for me:<\/p>\n

Yet, as Hardy grew older, it was failure that increasingly occupied his thoughts and inspired his best writing. Tomalin tries to account for this by suggesting that ?the wounds inflicted by life never quite healed over in Hardy.? But such bland psychologizing misses the essential point: Hardy?s pessimism was not a helpless reaction to traumas but the cast of his sensibility, that indispensable and unaccountable lens through which every artist makes sense of the world. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes. Yes. Stop with the Freudian analysis. Not everything is traced back to childhood. Some things, some human qualities, just ARE.<\/p>\n

Another quote:<\/p>\n

For the rest of his life, then, Hardy set to writing poetry with the grateful fervor of an escaped prisoner; his ?Collected Poems? fill more than eight hundred pages. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I love Hardy’s poetry. Here’s the one he wrote about the sinking of the Titanic:<\/p>\n

The Convergence of the Twain<\/b><\/p>\n

I<\/p>\n

In a solitude of the sea
\nDeep from human vanity,
\nAnd the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.<\/p>\n

II<\/p>\n

Steel chambers, late the pyres
\nOf her salamandrine fires,
\nCold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.<\/p>\n

III<\/p>\n

Over the mirrors meant
\nTo glass the opulent
\nThe sea-worm crawls — grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.<\/p>\n

IV<\/p>\n

Jewels in joy designed
\nTo ravish the sensuous mind
\nLie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.<\/p>\n

V<\/p>\n

Dim moon-eyed fishes near
\nGaze at the gilded gear
\nAnd query: “What does this vaingloriousness down here?”. . .<\/p>\n

VI<\/p>\n

Well: while was fashioning
\nThis creature of cleaving wing,
\nThe Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything<\/p>\n

VII<\/p>\n

Prepared a sinister mate
\nFor her — so gaily great —
\nA Shape of Ice, for the time fat and dissociate.<\/p>\n

VIII<\/p>\n

And as the smart ship grew
\nIn stature, grace, and hue
\nIn shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.<\/p>\n

IX<\/p>\n

Alien they seemed to be:
\nNo mortal eye could see
\nThe intimate welding of their later history.<\/p>\n

X<\/p>\n

Or sign that they were bent
\nBy paths coincident
\nOn being anon twin halves of one August event,<\/p>\n

XI<\/p>\n

Till the Spinner of the Years
\nSaid “Now!” And each one hears,
\nAnd consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.<\/p>\n

Now it’s odd but I think a lot of people still don’t think of Hardy as a poet. They think of him as a novelist. Even though he stopped writing novels completely (that is all explained in the New Yorker<\/i> piece) and devoted himself to poetry.<\/p>\n

Ezra Pound, discerning critic and champion of genius, had this to say about Hardy’s poems:<\/p>\n

“Now there<\/i> is clarity. There<\/i> is the harvest of having written 20 novels first.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fascinating.<\/p>\n

Thomas Hardy created “Wessex” in all of his books – a place based on the places he knew. Even during his lifetime, “Wessex” tourist tours began. People coming out on pilgrimages, looking for the places in the novels. He did not venture forth, he did not write about anything other than the world he knew.<\/p>\n

Hardy said, when criticized for being “provincial”: “A certain provincialism is invaluable. It is the essence of individuality, and is largely made up on that crude enthusiams without which no great thoughts are thought, no great deeds done.”<\/p>\n

One last quote from the article that struck me:<\/p>\n

No matter what the subject, Hardy devoted his poetry to laying out his magnificently sombre, completely disillusioned view of the world. The central fact of that world was the disappearance of God, and with it any reason for believing in providence or justice. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s funny to me that the “establishment” who so vilified him during his heyday – then turned around and canonized him. Even gave him a huge Christian burial, which has to be amusing, since his fury at the church knew no bounds. Ah, hypocrisy. Also “self-delusion” (quote from article). A society has an endless capacity for “self-delusion”. Almost like Ireland now “claiming” James Joyce (as well they should) – but still: Joyce had to FLEE from your country in order to live life as a bohemian artist libertine – because the society was so rigid, close-minded, hypocritical, and backwards. You claim him NOW, NOW when it’s easy. Of course I think Ireland should claim James Joyce – but at least don’t be deluded about it, at least don’t be a jackass about it. Realize that it wasn’t always the case, and perhaps acknowledge the shortcomings of your own nation. Thank you. (I say all of this knowing that James Joyce could never have written Ulysses<\/i> while he was in Ireland. He NEEDED to leave, and he knew it. However, he didn’t start writing books about Trieste or Paris. Oh no. All of his books about Ireland. Sometimes you need to get away, get far enough back, in order to write about a certain locale.)<\/p>\n

I think even now some people don’t GET just how anti-establishment Thomas Hardy was. He’s just a “great novelist”, who wrote “great books”. Yeah. But have you READ those books? They seem vicious and bleak even today! The issues he writes about are STILL issues. Hypocrisy lives in every generation.<\/p>\n

Speaking of poetry, and Hardy’s atheism – here is one of his more famous poems. It’s called “God’s Funeral”. And if you think that stuff like this doesn’t still ruffle feathrers … The words “self-delusion” again come to mind.<\/p>\n

God’s Funeral<\/b>
\nby Thomas Hardy<\/i><\/p>\n

I
\nI saw a slowly-stepping train —
\nLined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar —
\nFollowing in files across a twilit plain
\nA strange and mystic form the foremost bore.<\/p>\n

II
\nAnd by contagious throbs of thought
\nOr latent knowledge that within me lay
\nAnd had already stirred me, I was wrought
\nTo consciousness of sorrow even as they.<\/p>\n

III
\nThe fore-borne shape, to my blurred eyes,
\nAt first seemed man-like, and anon to change
\nTo an amorphous cloud of marvellous size,
\nAt times endowed with wings of glorious range.<\/p>\n

IV
\nAnd this phantasmal variousness
\nEver possessed it as they drew along:
\nYet throughout all it symboled none the less
\nPotency vast and loving-kindness strong.<\/p>\n

V
\nAlmost before I knew I bent
\nTowards the moving columns without a word;
\nThey, growing in bulk and numbers as they went,
\nStruck out sick thoughts that could be overheard: —<\/p>\n

VI
\n‘O man-projected Figure, of late
\nImaged as we, thy knell who shall survive?
\nWhence came it we were tempted to create
\nOne whom we can no longer keep alive?<\/p>\n

VII
\n‘Framing him jealous, fierce, at first,
\nWe gave him justice as the ages rolled,
\nWill to bless those by circumstance accurst,
\nAnd longsuffering, and mercies manifold.<\/p>\n

VIII
\n‘And, tricked by our own early dream
\nAnd need of solace, we grew self-deceived,
\nOur making soon our maker did we deem,
\nAnd what we had imagined we believed,<\/p>\n

IX
\n‘Till, in Time’s stayless stealthy swing,
\nUncompromising rude reality
\nMangled the Monarch of our fashioning,
\nWho quavered, sank; and now has ceased to be.<\/p>\n

X
\n‘So, toward our myth’s oblivion,
\nDarkling, and languid-lipped, we creep and grope
\nSadlier than those who wept in Babylon,
\nWhose Zion was a still abiding hope.<\/p>\n

XI
\n‘How sweet it was in years far hied
\nTo start the wheels of day with trustful prayer,
\nTo lie down liegely at the eventide
\nAnd feel a blest assurance he was there!<\/p>\n

XII
\n‘And who or what shall fill his place?
\nWhither will wanderers turn distracted eyes
\nFor some fixed star to stimulate their pace
\nTowards the goal of their enterprise?’…<\/p>\n

XIII
\nSome in the background then I saw,
\nSweet women, youths, men, all incredulous,
\nWho chimed as one: ‘This is figure is of straw,
\nThis requiem mockery! Still he lives to us!’<\/p>\n

XIV
\nI could not prop their faith: and yet
\nMany I had known: with all I sympathized;
\nAnd though struck speechless, I did not forget
\nThat what was mourned for, I, too, once had prized.<\/p>\n

XV
\nStill, how to bear such loss I deemed
\nThe insistent question for each animate mind,
\nAnd gazing, to my growing sight there seemed
\nA pale yet positive gleam low down behind,<\/p>\n

XVI
\nWhereof, to lift the general night,
\nA certain few who stood aloof had said,
\n‘See you upon the horizon that small light —
\nSwelling somewhat?’ Each mourner shook his head.<\/p>\n

XVII
\nAnd they composed a crowd of whom
\nSome were right good, and many nigh the best….
\nThus dazed and puzzled ‘twixt the gleam and gloom
\nMechanically I followed with the rest.<\/p>\n

\nWow. This is powerful stuff.<\/p>\n

I’ve never read a biography of Hardy – perhaps I should. I want to know more about his marriage. Like – what was THAT about??<\/p>\n

Robert Louis Stevenson is just one of the many MANY people who visited the Hardys and had a visceral response to that wife. He wrote:<\/p>\n

[He was] a pale, gentle, frightened little man, that one felt an instinctive tenderness for, with a wife — ugly is no word for it! — who said, “Whatever shall we do?” I had never heard a human being say it before.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ha!<\/p>\n

Here’s a link to the New Yorker piece again<\/a>. It’s made me want to re-read Jude the Obscure<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Very interesting review by Adam Kirsch of the latest biography of Thomas Hardy, Thomas Hardy, by Claire Tomalin. Any Hardy fans, or any literature fans, will want to take the time to read that review. Quotes that stood out for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[165],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5878"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103163,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5878\/revisions\/103163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}