THOMAS HARDY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 17 January 1928, Page 2

THOMAS HARDY

HIS PLACE IN LITERATURE

ADDRESS BY MR J. W, SHAW

TO TEACHERS' SUMMER 6GH€OL

An appreciation of tlie works of the iate Thomas Hardy, together with an indication of his outlook on life and howit affected his position in Victorian England formed the subject matter of an address delivered by Mr J. W. Shaw to the Teachers' Summer School this morning. The President (Mr F. Milner) said that the death of Hardy had made it doubly appropriate at such an educational gathering that some special mention of his work should be made, and in consequence Mr Shaw had been asked to address the students accordinffly. To-day, said Mr Shaw, Thomas Hardy was being laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, and although many people tinworthy of the honour reposed there, wherever there was a sound knowledge and appreciation of good literature the authorities' action in placing Hardy s remains with those of England s lllustrimis dead would be applauded. Thomas Hardy, who stopped writing novels 30 years'ago, enjoyed the uncornmoh distinction of becoming a classic while he lived. He was the last of the "reat literary giants of the Victorian era. A Dorsetshire man, he did more than anyone elso tq make that part of England famous. Hardy was originally an architect, and the speaker considered that the qualities which made Hardy take up architecture and his work at that profession showed later in the structure of his,hovels and in the particular form which;he'adopted for his verse; Hardy was a'Victoriah. Ho belonged to the age which produced Dickens, Browning,-. Tennyson, Thackeray and others. He was a Victorian who fought certain principles of Victorianimi. It was the custom nowadays to belittle the Victorian period, but the speaker felt gome contempt for the swarm of small minds who spent their time in adverse criticism of one of the greatest periods in bur"history. We owed to Victorians the foundations oh which our present world was- built. The period was remarkable for great advances in science. It was a time of great mental curiosity and tremendous literary power. The attitude adopted by many to-day was to make a mock of all Victorian poetry, but the surest way to appreciate modern verse was to see it in its proper setting and not to think that wisdom first came to

the world about the year 1910. The Victorian mind, however, was not such a lovely thing, and it was obvious that the Victorians believed there were never such-people as themselves. The jingoistic patriotism that permeated many of Kipling's poems was general, and "the Victorians believed that they were the chosea people to rule the world and that the British Empire held its sovereignty because .it was their Empire.' It was a period of great smug cpmplacency. So sure of itself did Victorian England become that it began to raise.' its little conventions and social standards to the "level of unalterable law. Very definite dogmas were laid down and '*Mrs Grundy'' came into existence. She frowned upon this and frowned upon that, and shoved "many more or less unpleasant phases of human activity into the background in the belief that if they were hidden then all was.well. There was in England a great recurrence of that prudential morality that had been found'at the lower end of all ifthicftl standards. They believed that Gbd had caused the righteous to prosper and conversely, that the prosperous were .therefore righteous. That was a very harmful and ugly thing. Into such an atmosphere Hardy came. He reacted much as a modern intelligent man would react to- those social conditions, but being a Victorian and therefore built oh a bigger scale than , the modern man he was able to fight

the Victorian age with the strength of the Victorian age. Hardy disbelieved in reverence and had the scientific outlook that once special reverence was devoted lo a thing then that thing was removed from the field of criticism. Hardy believed that the unpleasantness which Mrs Grundy had conveniently pushed into the background should be dragged into the light of day and in fighting Along the lines of this belief he frequently dragged in things quite unnecessarily in order to bundle Mrs Grundy right off the map. In his enthusiasm he went further than was necessary. He was determined to thrust prudential morality and self complacency out of existence altogether. .He determined to strike a blow which would be stronger or weaker according to his ability, and thus were written his two great novels, "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" and "Jude the Obscure," which aroused Victorian England to a pitch of fury and even disgust—amazed disgust which to some extent lingered to the present day. George Eliot was the great champion of cause and effect in human existence. She believed that character was the effect of choice and that destiny was the result of character. Thus good and -had actions must -sooner or later meet itheir respective rewards. Hardy could not see that the good prospered often enough for a definite law to be formulated and he made mere chance the determining factor in character and in life. That greatly angered the' Victorians. Neither could .Hardy understand the tremendous problems of human life along the glib lines of Victorian ideas. He could not conclude that there was a

benevolent deity behind the scenes continually working towards good and in a contrast to Browning's optimism he seemed to .be aware rather of a malignant spirit of fate cruelly jesting with men, taking for its amusement the poor puppets of human beings and crushing them. That was an emotional attitude, that was expressed in his great novels. That Was, perhaps, tho depth of pessimism but Hardv could not accept the. facile optimism of other writers. In additional to his great novels, "The Heir of Casterbridge", "The WeiBeloved" and the. two outstanding works mentioned above Hardy had earlier witten several verv beautiful studies o English countrv"life.'Hardy interpreted the Wessex country and those who want - ed to meet him at his best should read "Far From the Madding Crowd, "Under the Gre.ewood Tree' and the Woodlandors". They are extremely delightful, and show a great beauty and love of nature. . . . the revelling oi an Englishman in the beautiful English countryside. But when lie wrote. less of the D'Urbervilles" and dude the Obscure" he shocked England. The Victorian era rose up in wrath and the disgusted Hardy laid his pen aside and never wrote a novel gain. From that .time onwards (30, years ago Hardy directed his attention towards verse. He was orgmally an architect and so his novels showed a magnificent sense of design. .... • a massive construction that formed a marked contrast with the flimsy pieces of decoration which make up the novel to-day. What Hardy would pass over m a paragraph would make the substance of a hook for the modern writer, the great Victorians all seemed to try to write themselves out and did not strive to keep something back for a later hook. Hardv's massive structural style was ab-

solutely suited to his purpose for he had massive things to say. Hardy's novels were not read to pass an idle moment. There was sinew and bone in them and the reader had to exeroise the best in himself to gain a full appreciation of what he was reading. Hardy showed too, a magnificent sense-of character and the reader of his books found himself living with vital sincere people. He was able to visualise character. Hardy's poetry, some of the best of it' written only last year, was rough hewn and had none of the airy grace's and embellishments that marked modem verse. Indeed, there was in many respects the same massiveness that characterised his novels. There was none of Shelley's ethereal lightness and none of Tennyson's exquisite treatment, but his poetry appealed to the best part of the reader, the thinking part. In addition to .his Wessex poems 'arid others there was that tremendous epic drama "The Dynasts," which Mr Shaw' thought would eventually be considered as one of tho greatest achieveihehts of English literature. It had to be borne in inind, however, that all great art had to create the faculty by which it was appreciated. The tremendous achievement and growth of the English novel followed such names as Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Scott, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and Emily Bronte, Thackeray Dickens and those two great late Victorians, George Meredith and Thomas Hardy. There was no doubt that Hardy would stand with this great company. As a conclusion, Mr Shaw read some of Hardy's poems. "Whatever harshness of view, whatever bitterness there was in his character," added Mr Shaw, "his later poems show that a great kindliness had come over him." He wished that many of the simple things he had been taught as a boy were true. He was a new Hardy such as one would have never conceived from reading his novels.