The Ranging Vision

Abstract

To say that Hardy’s style is not responsible for the steady growth of interest in his work would be specious; it can no more be dissociated from his imaginative thinking than form can be separated from expression in sculpture. His literary longevity owes much to his thoughtfulness and verbal economy, more to a creative gift which is often poetic, but most to his vision of life. Many of Hardy’s poems are based on his own emotional experiences, and most of his stories are set in very circumscribed areas. Yet one does not think of him as egotistical or provincial. As an artist he often shows the rare faculty of combining imaginative experience relative to the individual (himself included) with an unwavering sense of man’s place in space and time. Such a vision imparts grandeur to the local and relatively insignificant; it can make his Wessex world transcend topographical limits, and endow human action with universal significance.