INTRODUCTION
Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet.
A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in
his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth.[1] He was highly critical of much
in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those
from his native South West England.
While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first
collection was not published until 1898. Initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of such
novels as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the
d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was
acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his
death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin.
Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social
circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on
the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of
Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south
central England. Two of his novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd,
were listed in the top 50 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.
The English author Thomas Hardy set all of his major novels in the south and southwest of
England. He named the area "Wessex" after the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom that existed in
this part of that country prior to the unification of England by Athelstan. Although the places that
appear in his novels actually exist, in many cases he gave the place a fictional name.[1] For
example, Hardy's home town of Dorchester is called Casterbridge in his books, notably in The
Mayor of Casterbridge.[2][3] In an 1895 preface to the novel Far From the Madding Crowd he
described Wessex as "a merely realistic dream country".
The actual definition of "Hardy's Wessex" varied widely throughout Hardy's career, and was not
definitively settled until after he retired from writing novels. When he created the concept of a
fictional Wessex, it consisted merely of the small area of Dorset in which Hardy grew up; by the
time he wrote Jude the Obscure, the boundaries had extended to include all
of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire, much of Berkshire, and some of Oxfordshire,
with its most north-easterly point being Oxford (renamed "Christminster" in the
novel). Cornwall was also referred to but named "Off Wessex". Similarly, the nature and
significance of ideas of "Wessex" were developed over a long series of novels through a lengthy
period of time. The idea of Wessex plays an important artistic role in Hardy's works (particularly
his later novels), assisting the presentation of themes of progress, primitivism, sexuality, religion,
nature and naturalism; however, this is complicated by the economic role Wessex played in
Hardy's career. Considering himself primarily to be a poet, Hardy wrote novels mostly to earn
money. Books that could be marketed under the Hardy brand of "Wessex novels" were
particularly lucrative, which gave rise to a tendency to sentimentalized, picturesque, populist
descriptions of Wessex – which, as a glance through most tourist gift shops in the south-west
will reveal, remain popular with consumers today.
Belonging to the rural working class, he was keenly interested in depicting the life of the
peasantry and advocating their beliefs and values. When he went out of his chosen region to deal
with the civilized and sophisticated life of cities, his writing lost its natural gusto, and became
artificial and labored. As David Lindley points out, "Hardy was the first English novelist to write
about the countryside and its inhabitants in a serious fashion, and obviously he drew constantly
on the inspiration offered him by the people of the country in which he was born and spent most
of his life." Hardy's novels contain a detailed description of the scenes and places of interest in
Dorset shire (Wessex). S. Diana Neill remarks "No other novelist can render the sights and
smells of the countryside with such evocative sensuousness." The vicissitudes in the life of his
characters are described as occurring against the background of scenes located in the
[Link] AND OBJECTIVES
To examine the theme of Wessex Novels of Thomas Hardy.
To assess the depiction of life of the peasantry in Thomas Hardy’s Novel.
To