Thomas Hardy left behind an outstanding body of work. Hardy devoted the last three decades of his life to writing poetry. However Hardy is better known as a novelist.
Thomas Hardy was born on 2nd June 1840, in Stinsford. His father was a builder. Hardy received training in architecture at Dorchester. In 1862, he gained admission to King’s College, London.
Though Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life, his first book of verse titled ‘Wessex Poems’ was published only in 1898. Hardy wrote lyrics, ballads, satire, dramatic monologues, and dialogue. ‘Drummer Hodge’ and ‘The Man He Killed’ are his important war poems. These poems revolve around the Boer Wars and World War I.
‘Far from the Madding Crowd’, ‘The Mayor of Caster bridge’, ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’, and ‘Jude the Obscure’ were Hardy’s great novels.
Following the death of his wife in 1912, a grief stricken Hardy, wrote his famous ‘The Poems of 1912-13’. ‘The Poems of 1912-13’ were published as part of ‘Satires of Circumstance’, in1914. Hardy passed away in 1928.Younger poets regarded Hardy as a mentor. After his death, Thomas Hardy’s poems won praise from poets like Ezra Pound, and W.H. Auden.