On The Pessimism Of Thomas Hardy-A Study Of His .Lyric Poetry

Thomas Hardy's life spanned two centuries, which provided limitless materials for his literary creation. Beginning as a poet and ending as a poet, Hardy never stopped writing poetry. Just as he put it, he embraced poetry in order to express more freely the sentiments for which, as a novelist, he was condemned. He has composed over 1,000 poems including an epic-drama, which established Hardy, not instantly but in the long run, as one of the greatest poets of the nineteenth century. Hardy wrote poetry for over 60 years, his earliest known poem finished in 1860 and his last dated in early 1928. He devoted 25 of these years to novel writing, but kept his hand in as a poet. Hardy's full-time poetic career lasted longer than that of many other Victorians. He wrote poems in more metrical forms than any other major English poets and invented over 600 stanza forms. It is said that if Hardy had not been so prominent as a novelist, his stature as a poet would have come clear earlier. He continued to define himself primarily as a poet. And poetry is the most expressive among all his literary achievements. The condensed expression that it affords was so much consonant to his natural way of thinking and feeling.Hardy's poetry neither sets nor follows a period style, nor does it undergo any drastic change of manner or theme from tradition. Some of his best poems are deeply personal, even confessional: it is about religious fidelity and loss of faith; about loving and losing; about agnosticism and Gnosticism; about pessimism and optimism; about mistakes and perplexities lived through and hauntingly recalled; about sober joy he took in registering the world of Wessex in all its weathers and moods, and in all the variety of its human and natural occupants.Hardy's pessimism, which possesses a duality, serves as a darkling thread going through most of his lyric poems. To be exact, when embracing pessimism Hardy instilled some hope in his poetry. From the perspective of social, philosophical, scientific, religious and marital influence, this dissertation mainly aims to analyze the reasons, manifestations and the duality of Hardy's pessimism, taking 10 of his lyrics as examples. The study is arranged in 4 chapters, the last of which is a conclusion mainly to the effect that pessimism pervading Hardy's lyrics shows his fidelity to his true feelings, his sense of responsibility toward his time, his probings and questionings of reality, including cosmic reality, but not ironical determinism, which a few critics have made them out to be. Needless to say, Hardy is one of the greatest realistic novelists and poets of his era...