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- Title
"THEY KNOW EARTH-SECRETS": THOMAS HARDY'S TORTURED VOCATION.
- Authors
Platten, Stephen
- Abstract
Thomas Hardy is often read as a quintessential example of the classical Victorian agnostic, or more likely atheist. To counter such a view, this article cites evidence from Hardy's poetry and prose as well as his life experience and influences, including the Dorset dialect poet William Barnes, Henry Moule, a son of the rectory and a great friend of Hardy's in his youth, and, Arthur Shirley the incumbent of Stinsford when Hardy was a boy. The culture, mores, and philosophical climate of his time challenged Hardy's faith in God and persuaded him of a more ethically focused religion, sometimes dubbed "evolutionary meliorism." This article argues that Hardy's continual movement in and out of religious faith with a sense of religious vocation directed his literary creativity. We encounter Hardy's continued fascination, indeed almost obsession, with religion in his literary work and in his introductory essays to collections of poetry. He refers to the (Roman) Catholic Modernists and to the true nature of the Church of England's vocation as a "national church." The creativity produced by this vocational tension and religious uncertainty bears fruit in Hardy's understanding of how religious thought and belief are carried through key controlling images. In this way, Hardy effectively pre-empts some of the creative work of Austin Farrer, the twentieth-century Anglican theologian and philosopher of religion. In sum, Thomas Hardy's literary achievement cannot be understood outside of his tortured religious belief and the tensions it created in his intellectual output.
- Subjects
HARDY, Thomas, 1840-1928; ATHEISTS; MELIORISM (Philosophy); CHURCH of England; THEOLOGIANS
- Publication
Religion & Literature, 2013, Vol 45, Issue 3, p59
- ISSN
0888-3769
- Publication type
Article