Thomas Hardy's novel "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" is a powerful critique of the sexual morals of Victorian England. The story is set in the impoverished rural landscape of Wessex, where the young and innocent Tess Durbeyfield is manipulated by Alec d'Urberville, the son of a wealthy widow, into compromising her virtue. The novel challenges...More
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.
While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life, initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians)...More
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.
While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life, initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin.\
Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England.
Hardy examines the social constraints on the lives of those living in Victorian England, and criticises those beliefs, especially those relating to marriage, education and religion, that limited people's lives and caused unhappiness.
Book Summary
Thomas Hardy's novel "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" is a powerful critique of the sexual morals of Victorian England. The story is set in the impoverished rural landscape of Wessex, where the young and innocent Tess Durbeyfield is manipulated by Alec d'Urberville, the son of a wealthy widow, into compromising her virtue. The novel challenges traditional gender roles and presents Tess as a fighter for her rights and those of others. After giving birth to an illegitimate child and losing it, Tess falls in love with Angel Clare, a gentleman farmer who rejects her due to her past. Hardy's writing explores the "ache of modernism" and the separation of humanity from nature. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" is a haunting portrayal of a woman's struggle against social and moral constraints in a rapidly changing world.
Thomas Hardy 
