Thomas Hardy's Poetry. The Instrumentality and Central Role of Time in Hardy's Lyrical Oeuvre and World view

Master's Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Leipzig (Anglistics), language: English, abstract: The centrality of the entity of time in its various incarnations and occurrences is amongst the most prominent of Thomas Hardy's themes. The variety of Hardy's output, in structure, rhyme, metre, and ideas render a concise and complete account of any subject or motif impractical. Nonetheless, the ubiquity and varied application of temporal concepts and notions allow for a categorisation of different occurrences of these temporal images and a consequent thorough analysis in terms of their connections and deviations, in order to be able to isolate overarching ideologies and their interplay within Hardy's lyrics. The three main frameworks for these uses of time discussed are the historical past, natural imagery, and Hardy's own concept of Evolutionary Meliorism. All these categories have overlapping and adjacent connotations. In order to frame the subjects in a clear and focussed way, their respective chapters all include analyses of two individual poems regarding their corresponding motif, while the discovered implications and insights are collated with previous scholarly assertions on Hardy's poetry. The Poems discussed within this thesis include: The Last Chrysanthemum, The Roman Road, Rome: On the Palatine, The Darkling Thrush, To Outer Nature and The Lacking Sense.