Exploring Thomas Hardy’s Grief Through His Poetry
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The psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross first introduced the idea of five stages of grief to the world in 1969 with the publication of her book, On Death and Dying (“Elisabeth Kübler-Ross”). This revolutionary theory has allowed many literary researchers and biographers, such as Claire Tomalin, to take a closer look at the subjects of their study. For example, as Tomalin explores in her most recent book, a biography on Thomas Hardy, depression and grief are often difficult to pinpoint and explain, especially in one’s own life. Hardy, according to Tomalin, struggled intensely with depression, telling a friend in a letter, “As to despondency I have known the very depths of it—you would be quite shocked if I were to tell you how many weeks and months in bygone years I have gone to bed wishing never to see daylight again” (209). Although Hardy wrote hundreds of poems spanning his lifetime, five poems are representative of Hardy’s experience with the five stages of grief. Each of these poems illustrates a specific stage, including denial, depression, anger, bargaining, and acceptance.Even though Hardy does not claim to be the speaker in these poems, they are obviously autobiographical. Hardy’s life and poetry testify to his extended period of grief in which he not only realized his disillusionment with love, but also his estrangement from the world. Thomas Hardy’s poem, “Her Dilemma,” provides a portal into the earlier years of his life, the slow decaying of innocence, and the beginning of his struggle with denial. Born in June of 1840, Thomas Hardy led a rather quiet life in his youth and younger years. Troubled by illness and weakness, Hardy did not attend school until age eight. However, his illnesses did not prevent him from waking early every morning for the better part of his youth to read classics such as the Renaissance poets and Homer. When Hardy turned fifteen, he began to apprentice as an architect in his hometown. The steady work allowed Hardy to write without worrying constantly about financial stability. Working at several architectural firms, Hardy eventually ended up in Dorchester, where in 1870, he first met Emma Gifford (Black 1). This time period sets the mood for the first poem that reveals his five stages of grief—“Her Dilemma.” This poem presents Hardy’s struggle with the first stage of denial, in which he refuses the restrictions of love and its boundaries in general. Little is actually recorded of Hardy’s love life during the period previous to Emma, which presents the question of why Hardy is even in denial at this stage of his life in the first place? Claire Tomalin offers an explanation, using the time period in which Hardy lived in London as the reason. Hardy stayed in London from 1862 to 1867, enriching him with the most highly influential intellectual years of his life. According to Tomalin, “Hardy fell more in love with poetry than with any of the girls he met in London and gave more attention to it” (73). It seems Tomalin’s argument rings true—perhaps the culture romanced Hardy more than any women of London could. Hardy’s “Her Dilemma” certainly offers disillusionment with the common accepted notions of love—which mirrors the heavy influence of an ahead-of-its time London culture. During the years of youth, especially during Hardy’s era, there was an extreme amount of pressure to find a mate and to have a family. This pressure ignited the first step in Hardy’s
aegis 2008
Stacie Walulik
