Thomas Hardy-the Poet by Claire and Briana

Thomas Hardy, a Victorian realist born in 1840, considered himself a poet all of his life even though his first collection wasn't published until 1898. In the meantime he gained famed as a novelist, one of his famous novels being Return of the Native. Hardy claimed poetry as his "first love", and when his novel Jude the Obscure was harshly criticized, he decided to give up on novels completely and focus on poetry. Turning his full attention to poetry, the rural county of Dorset was influential on him in that he was able to fully immerse himself in the culture there and in turn, embellished his writing. Most of his poems consisted of the themes of "disappointment in love and life, and mankind's long struggle against indifference to human suffering," which is especially seen in his poem Neutral Tones.  However, other themes ranged from discussion of war, to animal cruelty hatred, (and even) to writing poetry. Even though at first his poems weren't as accepted as his novels, people soon came around to Hardy's poems and he is now regarded as one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century.




Source:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy