The works of the English novelist, poet, and dramatist Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) unite the Victorian and modern eras. They reveal him to be a kind and gentle man, terribly aware of the pain human beings suffer in their struggle for life. Thomas Hardy...

In the later years of his long life, Thomas Hardy was probably the most famous English man of letters of his time, his reputation extending throughout the world. He is now generally regarded as both a major late-Victorian novelist and a major...

A writer who expressed himself prolifically and successfully in both prose and verse, Thomas Hardy hoped to be remembered for his poetry. Toward the end of his life he remarked that his sole literary ambition had been to "have some poem or poems in a...

The University of Illinois swept aside the last vestiges of Chief Illiniwek on Tuesday, voting to retire the mascot's name, regalia and image.The school will continue to call its sports teams the Fighting Illini under the resolution. Chancellor Richard Herman is to decide how and...

We treasure and enjoy some novelists because they offer us a world, and let us feel we can enter it like original inhabitants. It’s a going home, even if we’ve never been there before. I’ve heard of Americans so intoxicated by the novels of Thomas...

We treasure and enjoy some novelists because they offer us a world, and let us feel we can enter it like original inhabitants. It’s a going home, even if we’ve never been there before. I’ve heard of Americans so intoxicated by the novels of Thomas...

Alan Bennett’s The History Boys is all the good things you’ve surely heard about it. I’ve seen Nicholas Hytner’s acclaimed National Theatre production twice now and doubled my pleasure. Mr. Bennett has written a wonderfully engaging play about an English obsession—schooldays. It sparkles with wit...

In the essay that follows, Mitchell explores the ways in which sensation novels—particularly George Meredith's Rhoda Fleming and Thomas Hardy's Desperate Remedies—reflect and react to changing roles for women in the Victorian period.

In the following essay, Taylor discusses how Thomas Gray was a key influence in Hardy's aesthetics and thoughts on the public culture, and how Gray's influence convinced Hardy that his highest vocation was not as a novelist, but as a poet.

In the following essay, Riquelme deconstructs a number of Hardy's poems in an attempt to define what makes them “modern.”

Discusses English novelist Thomas Hardy's philosophy of life as determined by a review of his work. Gives special reference to the Hardy novel, Return of the Native. Notes that many of Hardy's characters exhibit a generally pessimistic attitude toward life.

Thomas Hardy wrote both "I Found Her Out There" and "The Haunter" about Emma, his beloved, deceased wife. Hardy wrote the former poem with a wild quality, in an attempt to calm his intense emotions at Emma's departure. He wrote the latter poem with a softer, more feminine quality, to reassure himself that Emma has forgiven him for having neglecting her in life.

Examines how author Thomas Hardy demonstrates sympathy for women in his novels and literature. Provides biographical detail on his life. Provides documenting evidence from his work.