The Life of Thomas Hardy
passion and form, that he has become perhaps the outstanding literary figure of his time. Few people will now quarrel with this assertion as an extravagance.
One significant indication of its validity is the truth of the converse of our first observation, namely, that the Hardy-country has colored Hardy’s work. For it is equally true that Hardy’s work has indelibly colored his country, for all succeeding times and peoples. He has made a new thing of the district. He has not merely changed its name from Dorsetshire to "Wessex"; he has changed its very character, even for its inhabitants. He has made it known to many who would never have been aware of its existence otherwise. Finally, he has made it the medium by which the whole subjective world of his readers has been transfigured.
Parallelisms between Hardy and the Greeks have already been pointed out many times. Here is a new one: Agamemnon is more real today than Alcibiades; mythical Ilium more real than political Corinth. In the same way, Casterbridge and Henchard are already more real to us than Dorchester and its Mayor, whoever he may happen to be.
A "Life of Thomas Hardy," in order to fulfill its function of explaining how the man and his influence are what they are, must find facts to account, among others, for these two things: first, for Hardy’s strange effect on the country; second, for the sway exerted over the world of letters by this man-made realm.
It will be necessary, then, to realize and to present Hardy in his true setting, to transcribe accurately the impression that he produces personally, to add to this an
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