In his book Fatalism in the Works of Thomas Hardy, Albert Elliot defines nature as `a conscious agent, usually for evil' as manifested in many of Hardy's novels (Elliot 85). This is no more intensely so than in The Woodlanders. As in so many of Hardy's works, the novel illustrates the struggle between nature and the endeavors of man - so much so that it at times seems that nature is a force at work in direct opposition to the happiness of the men and women that people the novel. In The Woodlanders, it is not so much the characters who control their own destinies and subsequent happiness, but the greater forces at work in the universe, which in The Woodlanders, manifest specifically as nature. In other words, characters in the novel are at the mercy of external circumstances, rather than of actions originating from self-defeating internal motives and thought-processes. Elliot has written in detail about the function and manifestation of fatalism in Hardy's novels and its particular relation to nature. Elliot argues for the idea of Nature as an instrument of Fate. I don't intend to double up on what has already been written in this area, and it is not my intention to discuss Hardy's conception of Fatalism. However, I will seek to look more closely at the ways nature manifests itself in The Woodlanders. For the purposes of this essay, nature will be uncapitalized, and stands for the natural world, in particular the woodland itself. I will discuss how nature acts as `a conscious agent, usually for evil' in the novel, and look at how it appears to negatively interfere with, and control the destinies of, those characters who inhabit the woodland.
From the outset the novel is defined by its title, immediately inferring the woo...
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Elliot, Albert Pettigrew. Fatalism in the Works of Thomas Hardy. New York: Russell and Russell, 1966.
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Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was one of the great writers of the Late Victorian era. One of his great works out of the many that he produced was his poem Hap, which he wrote in 1866, but did not publish until 1898 in his collection of poems called Wessex Poems. This poem seems to typify the sense of alienation that he and other writers were experiencing at the time, as they "saw their times as marked by accelerating social and technological change and by the burden of a worldwide empire" (Longman p. 2165). The poem also reveals Hardy's own "abiding sense of a universe ruled by a blind or hostile fate, a world whose landscapes are etched with traces of the fleeting stories of their inhabitants" (Longman p. 2254).
Morgentaler, Goldie. “Meditating on the Low: A Darwinian Reading of Great Expectations.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 38.4 (Autumn 1998): 707-721.
Abrams, M.H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993.
One of the most interesting aspects of Victorian era literature reflects the conflict between religion and the fast gathering movement aptly dubbed the enlightenment. Primarily known for its prude, repressed, social and family structure beneath the surface of the Victorian illusion many conflicting, perhaps even radical, ideas were simmering and fast reaching a boiling point within in the public circle. In fact writers such as Thomas Hardy and Gerald Manly Hopkins reflect this very struggle between the cold front of former human understanding and the rising warm front know only as the enlightenment. As a result we as readers are treated to a spectacular display of fireworks within both authors poetry as the two ideas: poetics of soul and savior, and the poetics of naturalism struggle and brutality, meet and mix in the authors minds creating a lightning storm for us to enjoy.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Christ Carol T., Catherine Robson, and Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. Print.
Hardy originated from a working class family. The son of a master mason, Hardy was slightly above that of his agricultural peers. Hardy’s examination of transition between classes is usually similar to that of D.H. Lawrence, that if you step outside your circle you will die. The ambitious lives of the characters within Hardy’s novels like Jude and Tess usually end fatally; as they attempt to break away from the constraints of their class, thus, depicting Hardy’s view upon the transition between classes. Hardy valued lower class morals and traditions, it is apparent through reading Tess that her struggles are evidently permeated through the social sufferings of the working class. A central theme running throughout Hardy’s novels is the decline of old families. It is said Hardy himself traced the Dorset Hardy’s lineage and found once they were of great i...
Clarke, R. (n.d.). The Poetry of Thomas Hardy. rlwclarke. Retrieved February 1, 2014, from http://www.rlwclarke.net/Courses/LITS2002/2008-2009/12AHardy'sPoetry.pdf
Thomas Hardy was a famous author and poet he lived from 1840 to 1928. During his long life of 88 years he wrote fifteen novels and one thousand poems. He lived for the majority of his life near Dorchester. Hardy got many ideas for his stories while he was growing up. An example of this was that he knew of a lady who had had her blood turned by a convict’s corpse and he used this in the story ‘The Withered Arm’. The existence of witches and witchcraft was accepted in his lifetime and it was not unusual for several people to be killed for crimes of witchcraft every year.