Thomas Hardy's Optimism: Hope and Joy in Hardy's Poetry

What do the works of Thomas Hardy offer us apart from tragedy? This book intends to answer that question, providing a groundbreaking reading of Hardy’s poetry that reveals a hitherto critically neglected optimism. In doing so it seeks to challenge the dominant view of Hardy’s work as pessimistic. It aims to demonstrate that Hardy’s poetry contains a surprising amount of hope and joy which, when examined critically, reveals to us a new and brighter view of his philosophy. Hardy’s poetry is n...