Title: Week X: Thomas Hardy – “Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?”, “The Darkling Thrush”, “Hap,”
Subject:
Date:
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💡 Key Points:
- Main Ideas
- Key words
- Questions that connect points
- Important points
Write it after the class
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✏️ Notes:
Main lecture notes
- Biography: Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in Dorset. His early experiences with rural life and oral culture significantly influenced his later works. He moved to London at 22 and worked as a technical draftsman. He was a free mason for some time. Financial difficulties in the mid-1860s led him to become a pastor in the Anglican Church.
- Literary Career: Hardy's first novels were followed by "Under the Greenwood Tree," which established his unique voice. "Far from the Madding Crowd," published in 1874, was his first novel set in the fictional Wessex region. "The Return of the Native" (1878) gained him many admirers. His last major works were "Tess" (1891) and "Jude the Obscure" (1895).
- Legacy: Hardy is renowned for his novels set in the fictional Wessex region in southwest England. He is considered an important novelist of the 19th century and a significant poet of the 20th century. He passed away in 1928 in Dorset.
- Hardy is not pessimist he is an isolationist
- Black humor
- World has chances and coincidences
- Neither benevolent nor malevolent
- Immoral or amoral irresponsible
- Blind Faith or fate?
- He finished his job with Tess
- Agnosticism: God may or may not exist we cannot know that
- Deism: There is God but no religions.
- Spinoza's philosophy. Determinism is the view that humans and their actions are determined by the laws of nature rather than having true free will. This philosophical perspective suggests that everything is governed by natural laws and causation. (cause and effect)
- Fatalism: Independent of your will.
- Suffering is inevitable. Themes: The cruel unrelenting passage of time, chances and coincidences, randomness in universe deriving from agnosticism, Times laughingstocks of life. Naturalism, existentialism
- Supersitions
- Ghosts and echoes from the past
- Node toward to modernism. Proto-modernism
- Anti-Romantic
Hap
- If…. shows the uncertainty
- Searching for a logos that cannot locate
- Your suffering is my ecstasy if God would say that.
- How God’s joy arrives as slaining
- Language of negation, and inventing new words; unblooms, unturns.
- Mere losses governing in our lives
- Cross casualties
- purblind Doomsters how blind
- God is passive and uncaring and indifferent, universe is working with chances and cause sufferings. Only one thing is certain which is suffering
- Where is Hardy’s logos? Transcendental logos cannot be founded. He did not capitalize God.
- So he is lost
The Darkling Thrush
- What is romantic about this?
- This poem marks the transition to the new age.
- Gate? another realm
- He is not enjoying the solitude
- He did close the door to romantic
- Romantics were a little hopeful but this is hopeless
- hard and dry
- Compare to Keats’ nightingale?
- existential isolationist
Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave
- Gate
- Black Humor and amount of pessimism
- Irony of Circumstance
- Physical and Transcendental life
- no listener woman thinking on her own
- problematical subject and object
- Rue: planted on graves, it means grief and sorrow
Write it during the class
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📎 Summary:
A brief summary and conclusion about the notes/lecture
Thomas Hardy: Themes and Philosophy
Thomas Hardy is a transitional figure between Victorian literature and Modernism, characterized by his exploration of existential isolation, the cruelty of time, and the randomness of life. While often labeled a pessimist, Hardy is better understood as an isolationist who depicts a universe governed by chance and natural laws rather than divine benevolence. His philosophical outlook encompasses agnosticism, deism, and elements of Spinoza’s determinism, suggesting that human lives are shaped by impersonal forces and causation.
Key themes in Hardy's work include:
- The indifference of the universe.
- The inevitability of suffering.
- The unrelenting passage of time.
- Isolation and existential contemplation.
- A rejection of Romantic ideals of hope and transcendence.
Hardy’s use of black humor, irony, and his proto-modernist skepticism mark him as a forerunner to modern literary movements.
Analysis of Key Poems
“Hap”
- Themes: The uncertainty of faith, randomness of suffering, and the search for meaning.
- Imagery and Language:
- Philosophical Outlook:
- Tone: Reflective and resigned, with a sense of quiet despair.
“The Darkling Thrush”
- Themes: Transition, isolation, and the passage of time.
- Imagery and Symbolism:
- Comparison to Romanticism:
- Tone: Melancholic and contemplative, with an undercurrent of disillusionment.
“Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave”
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