Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was born in the south west of England, in Dorset; an environment which could almost be seen as a character for the role it played in all his novels. For a time, Hardy lived in London but never felt at home there because of his humble origins and his acute consciousness of class divisions. As he experienced social inferiority he became interested in social reforms and liberal free thinking.
Hardy met his wife in 1870 and married her in 1874 when he had already started writing. Their relationship was ambiguous since they didn’t seem to get on well with each other; she always reminded him of her superior social status and they separated after the publication of Jude the Obscure in 1896 after twenty years, because she was afraid of the image the novel might give of their marriage. Nevertheless Hardy regretted the unhappiness he had caused her and wrote poems dedicated to her. She was a feminist who supported women’s suffrage.
As a whole, Thomas Hardy published fifteen novels between 1871 (Desperate Remedies) and 1896 (Jude The Obscure) which were soon highly successful. Yet he was severely criticized because of their stated pessimism. Indeed most of his novels feature weak characters, mostly women, with a tragic fate, who struggle with their passions and social circumstances. However Hardy was also capable of biting humour and admirable descriptions of settings as accurate as a painter would do. He rendered the climate, the beauty and the harshness of the English nature of his time; thus, he may be classified as a naturalist. His female protagonists were caught in a vice and became the victims of social conventions which Hardy contributed to fight in doing so.
His aim was partly achieved as his last novel provoked passionate reactions since it dealt with religion, morality and marriage. It was adapted to the theatre on Broadway and in films in 1913 and 1924. It was later adapted for the cinema by Roman Polanski in 1979 and more recently by Michael Winterbottom in 1996.
Acute : développé, aigu
Free thinking : la libre pensée
To remind : rappeler
Stated : affiché
Weak : faible
Fate : le destin
Biting humour : humour grinçant
A setting : un cadre
Harshness : la rigueur, dureté
Achieved : réalisé, atteint
