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Hardy resented charges of pessimism (see, e.g. the Apology to Late Lyrics, and the Introductory Note to Winter Words). Would you affirm or exonerate Hardy from the contemporary charges of pessimism against him? And how exactly would you do this?

The pessimist complains about the wind, The optimist expects it to change, And the realist adjusts the sails.

William Arthur Ward, Nashville, Tennessee, Friday, August 1, 18621

Both in his lifetime and since, numerous critics have declared that Hardy is a pessimist, including people who actually knew him, like the lawyer and American Civil Liberties Union leading member, Clarence Darrow. This was an attribute Hardy himself was aware of; he flippantly remarked to Vere Collins in 1921:

Why are people always talking about pessimism? adding I suppose pessimism is an easy word to say and remember. Its only a passing fashion.2

Hardy would have no doubt have been disappointed to learn that his legacy would still be associated with this term. Some contemporary critics, including Kenworthy, Abbe, and Rumen, take the attribution of pessimism for granted as a critical
1 2

Nick Wright, Barnes, (Authorhouse, 2010), p.61 G.W. Sherman. The Pessimism of Thomas Hardy (Fairleigh Dickenson University Press, 1976), p.23

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commonplace. This is an extraordinary claim, considering the prolific nature of Hardys second career, when, focusing on poetry, he wrote nearly a thousand poems3. Hardy has been described as a realist novelist4 . This paper will argue that he should also be considered a realist poet. By examining Hardys views on philosophy and religion, and analysing the prosody and language of his poems, I will seek to exonerate Hardy from the charge of pessimism and the denotation of a pessimistic poet.

Hardy comments on the reception of Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925):

My last volume of poems was pronounced wholly gloomy and pessimistic by reviewers even by some of the more able class...what I have stated on such occasions is that no harmonious philosophy is attempted in these pages or in any bygone pages of mine, for that matter.5

This philosophy of Hardys may not be harmonious in much of his poetry, but the degree is not as depressing as some critics have argued, such as Ralph Goodale, who claims extraordinary insight in Hardys pessimism based on the evidence:

The Thomas Hardy Society. Poems. Accessed March 18 2012 <http://www.hardysociety.org/index.php/hardy/poems> 4 Thomas Hardy. Michael Millgate (ed.). The Life and Works of Thomas Hardy. (The Macmillian Press,1985), p.415 5 Thomas Hardy.Tim Armstrong (ed.). Selected Poems (Pearson Education, 2009)

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Hardy knew Schopenhauers doctrines, however, as shown in a reference in a letter to the Academy in 19026

Goodale proposes that Schopenhauer influenced his work (despite Hardy protesting the opposite), and gives, for example The Dynasts(1904-6) to back up his case. One of the entries in the OED for pessimism reads as follows:

3. The name given to the doctrine of Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and other earlier and later philosophers, that this world is the worst possible, or that everything naturally tends to evil: opp. to OPTIMISM. (=Ger. Pessimismus (Schopenhauer, 1819)7

If this is what Goodale and others believe they find in Hardys poetry, then they are doing him a gross injustice. Hardys poetry went against the contemporary consensus of beliefs when published. The accusation of pessimism is largely derived from those who disagree with him on ideological grounds. Another proponent of this analysing of Hardy through the Schopenhauer perspective is Helen Garwood. Garwood claims in her thesis that a convincing case can be made for Hardys saddened mood with regard to nature:

A simple feeling of gloom in nature analogous to the gloom of man is, after all, of trivial importance beside the sense of a lack of order in the outside world...In a poem called "Nature's Questioning" the

Ralph Goodale. Schopenhauer and Pessimism in Nineteenth Century English Literature. (PMLA, Vol. 47. No.1 (March 1932), Modern Language Association) p.252 7 Oxford English Dictionary. Second Edition. XI. Ow-Poisant (Oxford University Press, 1989), p.622

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various products of nature, pool, field and so forth are represented as having lost their first joy in being created, and as inquiring the reason for their existence. The burden of their complaint is that they are left to hazard and not to law.8

Natures Questioning from Wessex Poems (1898), is one of Hardys challenges to the orthodox with specific attention to the creation and the workings of the universe:

When I look forth at dawning, pool, Field, flock and lonely tree, All seem to gaze at me Like chastened children sitting silent in a school;

Their faces dulled, constrained, and worn, As though the masters way Through the long teaching day Had cowed them till their early zest was overborne.9

These passages are reminiscent of The Schoolboy from Blakes Songs of Experience (1794); the buds are nippd...tender plants are strippd10 . The emphasis of nurture being at odds with nature through the perspective of a child is evident in both poems. Blakes schoolboy wants to play in the summer weather and savour his innocence. Hardys sympathies lie with the schoolchildren in exactly the same way in

Helen Garwood. Thomas Hardy. An Illustration of the Philosophy of Schopenhauer. (The John C. Wilson Company, 1911), p.28-9 9 Thomas Hardy. Tim Armstrong (ed.). Selected Poems (Pearson Education, 2009), P.58 10 William Blake. The Selected Poems of William Blake. (Wordsworth, 2000), p. 88

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the in line 4 of Natures Questioning. The sibilance in this line phonetically stresses the silence these schoolchildren are made to endure. This is directly after the alliterative c, a harsher, cutting sound. The enactment of chiding is immediately followed by a hushing noise (caused by the sibilance), which produces an audible juxtaposition. This hushing connotes imagery of an authoritive teacher shushing his students. The monosyllabic enclosed rhyme scheme symbolises the restricted and restrained feeling of man being a part of nature, created in a causal system which cannot be escaped from. The final stanza of the poem may appear pessimistic at first glance by some of the negative language used, but the view that Earths old glooms and pains/ Are still the same and Life and Death are neighbours nigh, is Hardys realistic belief. This is not an evil perspective of the world. The worst possible scenario, as suggested by the Schopenhauer doctrine; this is almost a statement of fact from an atheistic standpoint. The worlds problems will continue as they always have. There will be an indifferent God looking on when life is in balance by natures whim:

The Universe, microcosm and macrocosm, is indifferent to agonies and ecstasies of individual human lives: that seems to be the burden of what is called Hardys pessimism; and it is an idea powerfully conveyed by his genius for visualizationconveyed and at the same time made tolerable and indeed pleasurable, because of the solemnity of the effects created.11

11

David Lodge. Thomas Hardy and the Cinemagraphic Form (Novel. A Forum on Fiction. Vol.7. No. 3. Spring 1974), p.254

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Hardy has a reverence for nature, as explored in many of his poems, including those examined later in this essay, The Darkling Thrush (1901) and Beeny Cliff (1914).

The Convergence of the Twain (1915), one of Hardys most famous poems, is often held up as a quintessential example of a pessimistic text. G.W Sherman says this:

One may make a compact little syllogism of Hardys pessimism from his novel Return of the Native and his poems Hap and The Convergence of the Twain[...]12

Although Sherman claims this is not enough to understand the entirety of Hardys pessimism, that one must read him in his age13, the case should be made that Twain should not even be in a critics arsenal to portray his work as pessimistic. This poem was written for a charity event, to raise money for the victims affected by the tragedy of the sinking of the Titanic. Hardy is careful about the prosody used in The Convergence of the Twain. The tercet structure stresses the binary of nature and man meeting at a point of convergence. Each line of the stanza ends similar to the last, like the intersection of these three points have become the same in the collision. Every stanza has the rough shape of an ocean liner, but all are slightly different from one another. The perception gives this manmade object an organic perspective; even the height of mans achievements is subject to the power of nature. There are certainly dark and challenging themes within The Convergence of the Twain, however, there are beautifully crafted lines that describe dramatic realism and biting satirical observation. The repetitive mocking of gods is possibly the
12 13

G.W. Sherman. The Pessimism of Thomas Hardy (Fairleigh Dickenson University Press, 1976), p.9 Sherman. p.10

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primary reason why the label of pessimistic has become stuck to this poem. The critics are attempting to work in a traditional Christian framework. Hardys god has different names: Pride of Life, The Imminent Will, and (a Shellyan reference), Spinner of the Years. Hardys god might be called nature in some circles. In todays terminology this entity may be described as an Einsteinian God. Sherman is right in one respect, Hardy must be read in the context of his age, but not for the reasons Sherman advocates. Albert Einsteins Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 changed the landscape of science. Hardy and Einstein did not believe in personal gods and historians have debated whether they were atheists or deists. Hardy was described in the Cambridge Magazine as the celebrated Atheist14 and a sort of 18th Century Deist15 by John Crowe Ransom (even though Ransom acknowledges Hardy never explicitly mentions this word). With knowledge and a particular reverence of Percy Bysshe Shelly, who wrote A Refutation of Deism (1814), Hardy may have rejected this label from Ransom:

Christian theology, chiefly the idea of Providence, Redemption, and Life after death, was overthrown for Hardy when, in his early twenties, he was introduced to contemporary scientific thought...For Hardy, the universe was not wielded by Gods Love as it was for Dante and Shelley; it was neutral or indifferent.16

The god(s) in Convergence of the Twain actively commanding Now!, explicitly reveals Hardys view; that this is mere capriciousness if there is an omnipotent deity.

14 15

Claire Tomalin. Thomas Hardy. The Time-Torn Man. (Viking, 2006), p. 330. John Crowe Ransom. Thomas Hardys Poems, and the Religious Difficulties of a Naturalist. (The Kenyon Review, Vol. 22. No2. Spring, 1960, Kenyon College), p.10 16 F.B. Pinion. A Hardy Companion (The MacMillan Press, 1976), pp.169-70

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This god shares many characteristics to the first person narrator in Hap (1916). The previous stanzas have outlined that this nature is a causal system and this voice commanding Now! is redundant. This is an inconsequential instruction because the effect would take place anyway. By association, Hardy is challenging the religious orthodoxy of the time. This is therefore the crux within the pervading Christian theology; his work will be viewed as pessimistic and so must the man himself through this lens.

The religious dogma was not the only influential part of the belief system of the populous at the turn of the twentieth century. The Christian faith was not the only institution being challenged; other social changes were beginning to take place, some of which were documented by Hardy. Hardys occasional poem The Darkling Thrush (1901) is an attempt to mark the transition between two centuries. The poem can certainly be said to begin in a pessimistic tone; the ending, however, is optimistic. The hymnal verse form is an expression of the two centuries juxtaposed. The abab rhyme scheme in the first two stanzas, which are the two centuries gloomily jostling with each other, change into a state of optimism in the final stanzas with the cdcd structure. The wintry imagery in the first stanza provides the reader with practical information regarding the time of year but also via pathetic fallacy, evokes ideas of desolation and bleak despair. The personification of Frost and the kenning spectre-gray in line 2 evoke a haunting, ghostly feeling. These metaphors lay the foundation for the poets dismay at the current landscape. The concerns of industrialisation and the changing of technologies are explicitly expressed. The last line about being unaware of where the hope lies is optimism, an act of faith which expects good to happen. Hardy saw a sign of positive prospects without knowing

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what specifically the future holds, which the thrush may know the secret to. Some critics have not interpreted this poem this way, for example, Rafsanjani believe his this ending actually adds to the pessimistic tone of the poem because the poet is bemused by the fluttering thrushs song amid the barrenness and openness that encircles him17. Such accusations, Hardy attempted to address a year later after completing The Darkling Thrush and on New Years Day, 1902, wrote:

Pessimism (or rather what is called such)...is the only view of life in which one can never be disappointed. Having reckoned what to do in the worst possible circumstances, when better arise, as they may, life becomes childs play.18

A decade later and Hardy evidently was disappointed when his wife Emma died in 1912. Hardy wrote the sequence Poems of 1912-13 in the wake of this sudden trauma. Hardy found during his reflection many facts about himself and gained a deeper understanding of his marriage. Ultimately this laid the foundation for personal reasons and in 1914 he married his secretary Florence. After Emmas death Hardy had discovered his wifes diaries. These writings contained many disparaging thoughts about his behaviour but took a pragmatic stance:

17

Hashmi Rafsanhani. The Pursuit of Spirituality in The Darkling Thrush accessed 26 May 2012 < http://www.scribd.com/doc/60246727/The-Pursuit-of-Spirituality-in-the-Darkling-Thrush-HashmiRafsanjani> 18 Joanna Cullen Brown. A Journey Into Thomas Hardys Poetry. (W.H Allen & Co. 1990), p.225-6

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Sensibly enough, he decided they were largely the product of a mind subject to delusions and refused to allow them to spoil his renewed vision of her as the love of his life.19

Hardy used the medium of poetry to realise and come to terms with his wifes illness and feelings towards him. The poet revisited the places he and his wife had thought significant. This is typical of Hardys rational mind: to step back and look at the bigger picture. Beeny Cliff, near Boscastle in Cornwall, was one of the couples favourite sites when they were young. Welford attempts to reinforce the idea that these poems and Beeny Cliff (1914) in particular, show a negative outlook of Hardys grief:

In the fourth stanza the emphasis is on the possibility of sweet things being said again on the clifftop, but the question is answered in the negative in the fifth stanza, with the realisation that Emma neither knows nor cares for Beeny Cliff in her present spiritual state.

Beeny Cliff is therefore a pessimistic poem in that the past cannot be recaptured here.20

This idea again depends on the belief system of the reader and the perspective they take in reading the final stanza: Welford is quote mining the penultimate line of the

19 20

Claire Tomalin. Thomas Hardy. The Time-Torn Man. (Viking, 2006), p.313 John Welford, Poetry Analysis: Beeny Cliff by Thomas Hardy accessed 18 May 2012 < http://www.helium.com/items/2275580-analysis-of-beeny-cliff-by-thomas-hardy?page=2>

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poem. This critic neglects to account for the beginning of the stanza; the entire passage is a actually a question:

V What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore, The woman now is elsewhere whom the ambling pony bore, And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.21

Hardys retrospection on the times they had together has morphed into selfreflective fantasy. The last stanza appears pessimistic to some, primarily because of the last line emphasising that there will be no more sharing of laughter between Hardy and his wife Emma. Readers cannot help but to interpret poetry their own way and make their own conclusions. For example, if they have a certain belief system, such as Christianity. Therefore Welland may interpret Beeny Cliff as a pessimistic poem for him, personally speaking, but Hardy would have most likely rejected the idea. The poets own belief was that a person lived after death only in the memories and thoughts of other people.22 Hardy is glad that this happened in his life and is able relive this experience through reminiscing. In attempting to make sense of his feelings, Hardy almost makes light of them. This is evident because of the rhyme scheme, a tercet. This mimics Dantes Divine Comedy (1321), an epic poem with a satirical tone. being an allegorical meaning of the soul finding God. Shire makes the case in her essay specifically commenting on
21 22

Thomas Hardy. Tim Armstrong (ed.). Selected Poems (Pearson Education, 2009), p.165 F.B. Pinion. A Hardy Companion (The MacMillan Press, 1976), p.170

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the poems of this period: This is the move of the sceptical realist writing satires of circumstance.23 The critical reception is often an attaching a label to their ideological monster of non belief in a deity and are almost wilfully ignorant.

...this pessimism is less some ponderously metaphysical habit of mind than astonishing realism of a mind, which, by the end of its imaginative trek, has seen coldly through the major ideological institutions of its society.24

Pinion states that in Hardys later poetry, the need to express this perspective of the world in what was (by todays standards), a repressed Christian nation which still hung onto the tenets of superstition and conservatism:

[...]since the middle class have always found pessimism somewhat unnerving, its critics have struggled to contain Hardy as a gauche autodidact, the purveyor of a homespun, crackerbarrel wisdom who had grown too big for his literary boots.25

Devoutly religious critics are still attempting to undermine Hardys literary prowess with ad hominem attacks. Despite the alleged depressing quality in his wisdom, there remained an amazing inventiveness in his poetry, right up until near the time of his death. Each poem in his collections has a different approach: a different

23

Tim Dolin. (ed.), Peter Widdowson (ed.) Thomas Hardy and Contemporary Literary Studies. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Linda M. Shires. Hardys Poems of 1912-13. p.152 24 John Goode, Terry Eagleton (ed.) Thomas Hardy. The Offensive Truth. (Basil Blackwell, 1988), p.vi 25 Goode, Eagleton (ed.) p. vi

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structure, rhyme scheme, shape and collection of literary devices. Sir Arthur Blomfield addressed the writer directly:

Hardy, there can hardly have been anybody in the world with less ambition than you.26

Hardy attempted to explore language by constant experimentation. He was adverse to defining artists and their work via simple reductions. Hardy replied to the editor of the New York Times in a letter on July 5 1914:

In answer to your question of which is the best short poem I have read in the English language I can only say that I fail to see how there can be a best poem, long or short; that is, one best in all circumstances.27

These circumstances are what defines any persons interpretation and reaction to both creating and understanding any form of art. Hardy was conscious how, in the bleak times in his life, had poured his emotions into his work:

[...] his picture of mans powerlessness against the malign workings of fate gave him his reputation for pessimism, a charge he rejected, seeing himself as a realist with an eye for the ironic element, in life, as he aged, he laughed with friends, enjoyed the company of younger poets and other admirers, and gave his time generously to
26

Thomas Hardy. Michael Millgate (ed.). The Life and Works of Thomas Hardy. (The Macmillian Press,1985), p.415 27 Thomas Hardy. Harold Orel (ed.). Thomas Hardy. Personal Writings. (Macmillan, 1967), p.148

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visitors, who found him spruce, lively, cheerful and vigorous, and took away an impression of simplicity. He saw the funny side of old age and remained a human being, not the great man.28

Some of these later poems, such as Drinking Song (1928) and The Aged Newspaper Soliloquizes (1926) are jovial lyrics which cannot be described as pessimistic, for even the most cynical critics. The pessimism in Thomas Hardys poetry is a misunderstanding created out of the religious, philosophical, and class bias of some of his readers. Hardy was a realist who in his way adjusting the sails within his work, both in his pragmatism his subject matter and an inventiveness to never let his poetry become predictable or boring. In this way, he can be dubbed a realist poet and not a pessimistic one. Hardy was conveying his version of reality and not with a predisposition for seeking the negative or positive in composing his poetical works.

28

Claire Tomalin. Thomas Hardy. The Time-Torn Man. (Viking, 2006), picture caption 33.

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