Thomas Hardy englishcourse托马斯哈代英语.pptVIP

Thomas Hardy(1840-1928) If asked to state his profession, without hesitation Hardy would have declared himself a poet rather than a novelist. He began to write poetry in the late 1850s, in his early teens, and continued until his death at the age of eighty-seven. Early Years Thomas Hardy was born in Upper Bockhampton in Dorset, in the west of England. His father was a successful mason and offered his son a good education. His mother fostered in him a love of literature, at school he learned to read Latin, while at home he taught himself Greek. When he was sixteen he finished his formal education. As his father was a master mason, the son’s first ambition was to design buildings. At sixteen he was apprenticed to an ecclesiastical architect, John Hicks. His employer enjoyed the classics, and allowed his employees time to read. At the same time, he was encouraged in his literary interests by a Cambridge scholar, Horace Moule, who became Hardy’s friend and mentor. He introduced him to the Greek classics in the original, literary criticism and progressive theology. However a career in this profession did not present itself as a practical possibility. Having finished his apprenticeship, he left for London in 1862 and became assistant to an architect, Arthur Bloomfield. Hardy was determined to become a great poet and he began writing in earnest in his spare time. He sent his verses to literary magazines throughout the capital but none were accepted. In 1867, bored by his work and disappointed by his lack of success as a poet, he moved back to Dorset. The Novelist With an attitude that he had little to lose, Hardy attempted his first novel in the summer of 1867, The Poor Man and the Lady, and in doing so set himself on the road of being one of the most well-loved of all Victorian novelists. Like his verse, he wrote novels from an unselfconscious view of reality. Although this first novel was not accepted for publication, his second one, Desperate Remedies, was publish