Hardy's Melancholy and Sadness:
The melancholy, which is characteristic feature of Hardy's fiction, continues to pervade his poetry. “Funny man, Browning,” Hardy is reported to have said once,” all that optimism! He must have put it into please the public. He can't have believed it.” Hardy was temperamentally incapable of seeing any justification for optimism . His poems reveal the miseries and sufferings of human life. Hardy's pessimism need not be attributed to any particular circumstance or circumstances, not even to the unhappiness of his married life. His personal experiences were such as to provide a basis for him to feel both happy and unhappy. Merely the failure of his married life could not have made him so pessimistic. As his pessimism was temperamental and inborn, his poems could not have escaped its influence. The result is that his poetry is the poetry of sadness.
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| Melancholy and Sadness in Thomas Hardy's poetry |
The Atmosphere of Sadness in His Poetry:
Hardy's topmost elegiac poems are three: In Tenebris I, In Tenebris II and In Tenebris III. These three poems are truly enveloped in darkness. They all express a state of extreme depression. Tenebris I is one of Hardy's most pessimistic poems. The poet has depicted a state of utter hopelessness and despair. Winter in England is always associated with hardship and distress. Here we have a wintry scene which reflects also the poet's state of mind. The flowers fade away in winter. The birds freeze to death in winter. The leaves of trees turn greyish brown. Tempests blow furiously , causing much havoc . But the poet is not much affected by these depressing phenomena because he is no longer capable of feeling any pain or grief. Having already experienced all kinds of sorrows, and having already lost all his friends, he has become immune to all scenes of desolation and all painful occurrences. Even the thought of death does not frighten him anymore. A state of desolation and the absence of complete hope could not have been more effectively described than has been done in this poem.
Philosophy of Sadness:
There is famous poem entitled Hap in which Hardy says that human suffering is not due to the malicious designs of a ' vengeful god ' but due to sheer chance. He holds ‘Crass Causality’ responsible for obstructing the joys and also the sorrows of mankind. In the poem entitled Nature's Questioning, Hardy expresses the view that the objects of Nature and all living beings have been created by a power which may be described as a ' Vast Imbecility’. This power had the capacity to create living beings but not the capacity to protect and defend its creatures. Perhaps human beings and other living creatures are the products of a machine which is not even aware of their sufferings. In the poem, The Convergence of the Twain, Hardy speaks of the Immanent Will which is always at work, stirring and urging everything, and he speaks about the ‘Spinner of the years ' who brings about such occurrences as the collision of a great luxury - liner and an iceberg .
Hardy's Meditating upon His Departure:
In the poem entitled Afterwards, the poet meditates upon what might happen after he has departed from the world . He tries to guess what people would then say about him. He does not expect to live long. He is obviously concerned here with what people will think of him when he is dead. Very subtly he suggests that they should then remember him as a lover of mankind and animals and natural scenes and sights. He comes out as a defender of birds, bees and cattle. Though he is not afraid of death, he wants to be remembered by his neighbours as one of their well - wishers. The poem, clearly, expresses the poet's sense of keen observation of the life around him, of Egdon - Heath and its surroundings.
The Poem Mourning the Death:
The poem Drummer Hodge relates to the death of an English soldier in the course of the Boer War (1899-1902). Obviously, the poet mourns the death of the Drummer, a poor and miserable man and feels pity for him. The person killed is given the name Hodge by Hardy; while the word ‘drummer’ in the title of the poem refers to the fact that Hodge played on the drums in an army band. Hardy's interest in the sad fate of this drummer was aroused when Hardy came to know that the dead man was a native of a village near Casterbridge in Wessex. It is the death of Hodge which this poem laments. Drummer Hodge fell in the battlefield and was buried without even having been put into a coffin. He was an Englishman who, having been killed in the Boer War had to be buried in the African soil. The stars of foreign skies would be shining over Hodge's grave. Hodge did not even know why the war was being fought. From his home in Wessex he was sent to Africa to fight, and there was killed and buried. Hardy was evidently opposed to war and all the bloodshed which it involves. The poignancy of the death of one single soldier could not have been more effectively been conveyed to us than has been done by Hardy through this poem. And yet Hardy finds some consolation also. In the midst of his grief he consoles himself and his English readers with the thought that Hodge would live forever in that piece of land where his dead body was buried.
Hardy's Melancholic Attitude for the Unborn Pauper Child:
The poem To an Unborn Pauper Child is inspired by the poet's love for the unborn whose appearance in the world will not, in any way, mitigate general misery and sorrow. Hardy is compassionate towards the child and advises it not to get born because he has seen too much of it and is quite confirmed about its ‘travails and teens’. The expressions like ‘hid Heart’, ‘Wilt thou take life so?’ and ‘dear’ are indicative of the sympathetic attitude of the poet towards the unborn pauper child. Speaking to the unborn child of a pauper woman, Hardy says that death in the womb would be the best end to its life because this world is full of hardships, misfortunes, and sufferings which the child would have to endure in case it comes into this world alive. The poet would like to protect the child against all those misfortunes and sufferings in case the child does enter this world alive. But he is in no position to offer any protection. However, he expresses the wish that the child should be blessed with good health, with the love of the people in the midst of whom he would live, and all kinds of joy.
Hardy's Lamentation for Want of Kindness:
In the poem entitled A Broken Appointment, the woman's failure to have kept her appointment, with a man, who was in love with her, clearly showed that she did not love him. But what the lover here deplores is not so much the fact that she did not love him as the fact that she did not have in her heart even that sympathy or kindness which might have enabled her to conquer her distaste for his company or her disinclination to meet him . What the poet means to say is that, if the woman could not have come to meet him because of her inability to love him, she could at least have come out of her sympathy or kindness towards him. Such sympathy or kindness is described by the poet as ‘high compassion’. The poet is of the opinion that a woman's kindness towards a lover whom she does not love is an act of divine compassion. If a woman's company can soothe the troubled heart of a lover, she should certainly come and give him her company out of a feeling of pity for him.
