Thomas Hardy

Hardy's works take place in Wessex (named after the Anglo-Saxon kingdom which existed in the area). One of his distinctive achievements is to have captured the cultural atmosphere of rural Wessex in the golden epoch that existed just before the coming of the railways and the agricultural and industrial revolutions that were to change the English countryside for ever. His works are often deeply pessimistic and full of bitter irony, in sharp contrast to the prevalent Victorian optimism.

A January Night (1879)

The rain smites more and more,

The east wind snarls and sneezes;

Through the joints of the quivering door

The water wheezes.

The tip of each ivy-shoot

Writhes on its neighbour's face;

There is some hid dread afoot

That we cannot trace.

Is it the spirit astray

Of the man at the house below

Whose coffin they took in to-day?

We do not know.

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