HARDY, THOMAS. - English novelist and poet, b. at Upper Bockhampton on 2 June 1850 and d. at Dorchester on 11 Jan. 1928. The practice of architecture, to which he devoted himself in his youth, left its mark on his work, both by suggesting themes, situations, and images, and, above all, by assisting him in the classical construction of his plots and prose style. The setting of the events in his novels is the counties of the ancient Kingdom of Wessex, particularly Dorset.
H.'s thought is imbued with positivism: an unconscious will, immanent in the world, manifests itself tragically in the fabric of nature and of obscure human life.
He wrote: novels (Desperate remedies, 1871; The mayor of Casterbridge, 1884-85; Tess of the d'Urbervilles, 1891; Jude the Obscure, 1895; A changed man, 1913); poetry (Collected poems, 1919; his earliest lyrics date from 1865); the drama The dynasts, an epic drama of the war with Napoleon... (1931).