Thomas Hardy
Rasheed Juan
SJCJC
January 27th, 2014
Literature in English: American Poetry
Hardy’s Poetry Presents the World as Terrible
According to one of the Thomas Hardy’s autobiography, he presents a picture of himself as a sensitive young man who attended church regularly and believed in a personal God who ruled the universe. Then when Hardy went to London in his early twenties and discovered such intellectual ferment as caused by Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species by Means and Natural Selection” (1859), Hardy then lost his faith and never recovered it. Hardy then began to see the world without any ruler or God. He started to think this is why the world is so wretched and terrible because there is no sovereign ruler that could prevent bad episodes from occurring and causing the people of the world to suffer. Thomas Hardy as a poem writer then presented the world as terrible, with the messages that he entailed. After a read into each of his poems during that era, it does appear that the verses expressed the world to be very depressing and utterly unsettling; these poems include “Hap”, “To an Unborn Pauper Child”, “The Man He Killed” and “God’s Education”.
The poem “Hap” is a negative poem in tone where Hardy examines how easily joy is taken from his life and the randomness of its elimination, this is suggesting a chaos of pain and suffering. The pessimist tone begins from the start of the poem where Hardy mentions “if but some vengeful god would call to me,”(V-L1) notice the lack of a capital “G” hinting the lack of faith in a greater being. We also discover that the poet’s life is composed of suffering, sorrow and love’s loss. Hardy uses direct speech to create the personality of this suggested “god” who claims “know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy”(V-L3) and “thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”(V-L4) The exclamation mark reinforces the enjoyment this god is receiving from the power he wields. Hardy
SJCJC
January 27th, 2014
Literature in English: American Poetry
Hardy’s Poetry Presents the World as Terrible
According to one of the Thomas Hardy’s autobiography, he presents a picture of himself as a sensitive young man who attended church regularly and believed in a personal God who ruled the universe. Then when Hardy went to London in his early twenties and discovered such intellectual ferment as caused by Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species by Means and Natural Selection” (1859), Hardy then lost his faith and never recovered it. Hardy then began to see the world without any ruler or God. He started to think this is why the world is so wretched and terrible because there is no sovereign ruler that could prevent bad episodes from occurring and causing the people of the world to suffer. Thomas Hardy as a poem writer then presented the world as terrible, with the messages that he entailed. After a read into each of his poems during that era, it does appear that the verses expressed the world to be very depressing and utterly unsettling; these poems include “Hap”, “To an Unborn Pauper Child”, “The Man He Killed” and “God’s Education”.
The poem “Hap” is a negative poem in tone where Hardy examines how easily joy is taken from his life and the randomness of its elimination, this is suggesting a chaos of pain and suffering. The pessimist tone begins from the start of the poem where Hardy mentions “if but some vengeful god would call to me,”(V-L1) notice the lack of a capital “G” hinting the lack of faith in a greater being. We also discover that the poet’s life is composed of suffering, sorrow and love’s loss. Hardy uses direct speech to create the personality of this suggested “god” who claims “know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy”(V-L3) and “thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”(V-L4) The exclamation mark reinforces the enjoyment this god is receiving from the power he wields. Hardy