poem specific contexts (Hardy)

Drummer Hodge (Boer war general)

During the Boer war (1899-1902) faith in imperialism was being challenged and many were appalled by the terrible loss of life caused by modern methods of warfare. British put Boer families in concentration camps, where over 20 000 died.

Drummer Hodge (Boer war Hardy’s response)

The gratuitous violence of the wars led Hardy to proclaim that 'all the Churches in Europe should frankly admit the utter failure of theology and put their heads together to form a new religion which should at least have some faint connection with morality.'

An August midnight (Nietzsches)

Hardy reflected Nietzsche’s antagonised cry that ‘God is dead”… man is alone in this universe, no better, and no worse than other creatures. However instead if this belief leading to cynicism, it lead Hardy to develop a deep empathy for other humans, an interest in nature, and a love of being alive.

The voice, The going, At Castle Boreal (women and fiction)

Hardy only understood the women he created in fiction, ironically reflected in his poems of 1912 to 1913 which recall his early days with his wife whose loss he now mourns.

The voice (conventions of elegies)

The voice goes against the convention of elegies (the greek derived word for lament of the dead) which end with reconciliation. ‘The voice’ is the bleakest in the Emma sequence as it marks a return to despair.

In time of breaking of nations (growing up in Dorset)

Dorset- opened his mind to wider issues due to his power of observation sensitive to change, alteration, decay and growth. Dorset, the basis of much of his work, provided Hardy with living evidence for the view that nothing is static or certain.

In time of breaking of nations (Agricultural decline)

Mechanization was cost effective but increased rural unemployment and destroyed village tradition. In 1801 65% of the population lived or worked in the countryside. By the end of the century the figure reversed.

The oxen (the origin of species )

This shattered religious beliefs worldwide. The apparent 'randomness' of Darwin's theory of natural selection made it difficult to believe in God as a designer.

The oxen (Hardy’s loss of religious belief)

Learning about the theory of evolution in Darwin “the Origin of Species”,and perhaps most significantly, the injustice of life. His loss of faith reflected his horror at the sight of humanities intense suffering . However, despite this, Claire Tomalin notes that he “cherished the memory of belief”

The darkling thrush (end of century)

Fin de siècle = end of victorian era (original title was ‘by the century’s deathbead’)

Middle class society became obsessed with progress, denying older beliefs, values and customs. There was an ideological crisis simmering. Hardy felt that this intensified human vulnerability to the destructiveness of time.

Claire Tomalin critic

“time torn man”

What did Hardy say following a Wagner concert

that he liked to see the inside of a brain at work

Professer at Yale critic

Hardy had the ‘willingness to gaze into the abyss of a deterministic universe’