Thomas Hardy : The Guarded Life

by Ralph Pite

• ISBN13: 9780300123371
• ISBN10: 030012337X
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2007-04-28
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

Internationally renowned as the author ofFar From the Madding Crowd,Tess of the D'Urbervilles,Jude the Obscure, Wessex Poems and Other Verses, andWinter Words, Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) nonetheless remains an elusive and enigmatic figure. His own diligent efforts to guard his privacymaking bonfires of his papers, ghost-writing his own biography to be published after his deathhave obscured many aspects of the author's personal life. This book, the first major biography of Hardy in decades, draws on new and extensive archival research to present a more complex picture of Hardy than has been possible to date. Author Ralph Pite investigates the validity of long-accepted views of the author: Was his early life devoted to his preparation for becoming a writer? Did his first wife, Emma, trick him into an unwanted marriage? Was his poetry far dearer to his heart than the novels? And was Florence, his second wife, as conflicted and passionate as caricatures have suggested? Pite examines the relationships and contexts that shaped Hardy mostthe women in his life, his friends and mentors, social and family pressures, career structures of his day, the Devonshire landscapeand offers new insight into the man who, until now, was hidden behind an opaque public image he helped to create.

Author Biography

Ralph Pite is professor of English at Cardiff University, Wales. His previous books include The Circle of Our Vision: Dante’s Presence in English Romantic Poetry, and Hardy’s Geography: Wessex and the Regional Novel.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vii
Maps	p. vii
Introduction - Higher Bockhampton	p. 1
A railway bore him through	p. 11
One who lived and died where he was born	p. 25
She who upheld me and I	p. 46
'The playground of TH's childhood'	p. 61
His kindred they, his sweetheart I	p. 74
One who walks west, a city-clerk	p. 92
If but some vengeful god would call to me	p. 108
Red roses and smug nuns	p. 124
Believed-in things	p. 136
Rising and falling with the tide	p. 149
With magic in my eyes	p. 166
That there should have come a change	p. 186
Wasted were two souls in their prime	p. 210
Lifelong to be I thought it	p. 228
Some hid dread afoot	p. 244
No such bower will be known	p. 258
Taking the universe seriously	p. 270
Life-loyalties	p. 287
If the true artist ever weeps	p. 304
That we had all resigned for love's dear ends	p. 321
No balm for all your sorrow	p. 342
The day goeth away	p. 356
Few persons are more martial than I	p. 377
We kissed at the barrier	p. 394
The mind goes back to the early times	p. 409
The sustaining power of poetry	p. 422
No mean power in the contemporary world	p. 438
Wistlessness	p. 450
Conclusion: Max Gate	p. 465
Notes	p. 477
Further Reading	p. 501
Index	p. 507
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