4. Hardy And Belief

• Read Origin Of Species by Darwin in 1859. Led to a fascination with the evolutionary tree metaphor and the concept of how much time had to pass in order for human life to evolve. Presents life as unbearably short in his poetry.
• Immanent Will - only guarantee for the human individual is emotional loss.
• Archaeology, geology, and palaeontology gained recognition in the late 19th century.
• Obsessed with the idea of decline - his family came from the Le Hardys who came to Dorset in the 15th century and experienced a rapid decline from their noble status.
• Interested in Darwin's 'blood theory' that parents genetically transmit their characteristics to their children. May have been influenced by Huxley's view that nature is non-ethical.
• Hardy claimed that he was not 'churchy.' His relationship to the Christian religion and tradition was complex and ambiguous. Striking discrepancy between hid deep attachment to Christianity as tradition and his inability to accept it as a faith. Despite this, he was a devout reader of the Bible.
• Hardy can be considered a pre-existentialist, rather than a fatalist or pessimist. Concerned with the universal existential dilemmas and current social problems. Conveys man as a puppet of fate by his own choice, only able to be free through self-awareness, love, and human responsibility.