Thomas Hardy is recognized as a great poet; a great novelist; a story-teller of super excellence. Like Dickens he was a social chronicler of his times. He studied architecture in King’s College, Cambridge and became the Topper in M.Tech. Hardy wrote poems all through his life but got recognition as a poet only in the fag end of his life because the themes of most of his poems were far ahead of his time. He wrote more than one thousand poems. More than 1000 poems in eight volumes were published during his life time while many more got published posthumously.

1. THOMASHARDY,OM
Presenter:
Indranil Sarkar

2. THOMASHARDY,OM

4. • Thomas Hardy is recognized as a great poet; a great novelist; a story-teller
of super excellence. Like Dickens he was a social chronicler of his times.
• He studied architecture in King’s College, Cambridge and became the
Topper in M.Tech.
• Hardy wrote poems all through his life but got recognition as a poet only in
the fag end of his life because the themes of most of his poems were far
ahead of his time. He wrote more than one thousand poems. More than
1000 poems in eight volumes were published during his life time while many
more got published posthumously.

5. THOMASHARDY,OM
Hardy’s success came with his novels which he started writing
much to his dislike and at the insistence of his iconic wife Emma
Hogarth just for earning his livelihood. He created the dreamland
‘Wessex’. He portrayed the rural England and its gossip-monger,
poverty stricken and innocent due to ignorance in its best.
• He wrote a total of 9(nine) novels.
• Hardy was an unorthodox short-story teller. He wrote a total of 53
short stories. His concept varied from the traditional definition of a
short story. He told his tales like medieval story tellers. He
compared a story teller with ‘An Ancient Mariner.

6. THOMASHARDY,OM
• He wrote altogether 53 stories presenting the pen-picture of Victorian
rural England with its poverty, simplicity borne out of ignorance,
supernaturalism etc. His was a sad vision of life. That is why until 2000,
he was called a ‘Pessimist’.
• But, postmodern critics think him otherwise. They prefer calling him a
‘Meliorist’ instead. Meliriorism is a concept that states that the world
(life) can be made better by constant optimistic efforts against the
adversities. And man possess that strength.

7. • Hardy’ wrote a drama named ‘The Dynasts’ also. The Dynasts, is
“neither a poem, nor a play, nor even a story. It is a shooting-
script.” ‘The Dynasts’ presents Hardy’s idea of “evolutionary
meliriorism,” Though the play has gone into oblivion, its
philosophy survived and has become a vital life-concept today.
• And surprisingly, a close reading of all Hardy writings provide
testimony to this theory.

8. • What is a short story?
Tagore defined short story in the following Bengali words:
Chhota pran, chhota byatha chhota chhota duhkha katha Nitantai sahaj
saral Sahasra bismrti raxi pratyaha yetechhe bhasi Tari du-chariti axrujal.
Nahi barnanar chhata ghatanar ghanaghata Nahi tattva nahi upadex
Antare atrpti rabe sabga kari mane habe Shes hayeo haila na ses.
Translation: (Simple events of life, happy or sad, Some sad strings from
the train of forgetfulness, Not fraught with heavy descriptions, Not
crowded with events, No advice, no philosophy Only the feeling that the
story is not yet over Although there is no more to read.)
It is considered as the best defn. of a short story in any language.

9. THOMASHARDY,OM
In Europe, Edgar Allan Poe is considered as the
inventor of short stories. Beside Poe, Anton
Chekov, Somerset Maugham, Guy de Maupassant
are the other three great story tellers.

10. THOMASHARDY

13. THOMASHARDY• Hardy’s Tales:-
Thomas Hardy wrote a total of fifty-three short stories, collecting
thirty-seven in four volumes:
i.Wessex Tales (six short stories written between 1879 and 1888);
ii. A Group of Noble Dames (ten short stories written between 1878
and 1890);
iii. Life's Little Ironies (nine short stories written between 1882 and
1893);
iv. A Changed Man (twelve short stories written between 1881 and
1900).
Writing primarily for an appreciation of narrative, Hardy wrote simply
because he loved to tell short stories.

14. THOMASHARDY
Although Hardy is called one of the greatest short story writers, his concept differed
from orthodox definitions of Allen Poe, Anton Chekov or Rabindranath Tagore-the other
distinguished story tellers.
His was essentially a pastoral voice, narrating his stories like tellers of medieval folk
tales.
Hardy compares story telling to Samuel Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
A story must be exceptional enough to justify its telling.
He wrote “We tale-tellers are all Ancient Mariners, and none of us is warranted in
stopping Wedding Guests (in other words, the hurrying public) unless he has something
more unusual to relate than the ordinary experience of every average man and
woman“.(Millgate 268).
Hardy explains the actual substance of the story is what creates a powerful narrative.
All Hardy stories had real occurrences.
Hardy collected the stories from old newspaper cuts and from the mouth of some aged
idle gossipers in the roadside inns.
However, most of the stories, he heard from the mouth of his father.

15. Wessex-a fictionalized dreamland of Hardy

16. THOMASHARDY
Wessex meant "kingdom of the West Saxons“.
Wessex i,e, "kingdom of the West Saxons") was an
Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the south of Great Britain,
from 519 until England was unifiedby Æthelstan in the
early 10th century.
It was founded by Cerdic and Cynric in 495. Wessex
became a Christian kingdom after Cenwalh was
baptised and was expanded under his rule.
As a result of the Mercian conquest of the northern
portion of its early territories in Gloucestershire and
Oxfordshire (present day Oxbridge), the Thames and
the Avon formed the northern boundary of Wessex,
while its heartland lay in Hampshire, Wiltshire,
Berkshire, Dorsetshire and Somerset.
The system of shires which was later to form the basis
of local administration throughout Great Britain
originated in Wessex, and had been established by the
mid-8th century.

17. THOMAS HARDY
• Hardy’s Wessex:-The English author Thomas Hardy set all of
his major novels in the south and southwest of England. He
named the area "Wessex" after the medieval Anglo-Saxon
kingdom that existed in this part of that country prior to the
unification of England by Æthelstan. Although the places that
appear in his novels actually exist, in many cases he gave the
place a fictional name.For example, Hardy's home town of
Dorchester is called Casterbridge in his books, notably in The
Mayor of Casterbridge.In an 1895 preface to the novel Far
From the Madding Crowd he described Wessex as "a merely
realistic dream country".

18. THOMAS HARDY
Hardy's resurrection of the name "Wessex" is largely
responsible for the popular modern use of the term to
describe the south-west region of England (with the exception
of Cornwall and arguably Devon); today, a panoply of
organisations take their name from Hardy to describe their
relationship to the area.[5] Hardy's conception of Wessex as a
separate, cohesive geographical and political identity has
proved powerful, despite the fact it was originally created
purely as an artistic conceit, and has spawned a lucrative
tourist trade, and even a devolutionist Wessex Regionalist
Party.

19. Wessex-a fictionalized dreamland of Hardy