Music in the Works of Thomas Hardy

Heather A.Dugan Class of 1997
Kara M. Long Class of 1997
Gettysburg College

Music played a role of marked importance in the life of Thomas Hardy. Hardy was surrounded by a family and a community in which music enhanced everything from church services to social gatherings at the local alehouse. His family was full of active musicians; his father and grandfather were instrumentalists in local church bands, his uncle was a violin player, and his mother often sang traditional ballads. Like many village musicians, Hardy had the ability to read music and play the violin. Although he owned a written collection of music, Hardy, like other villagers, focused on an oral musical tradition. Hardy could play several hundred songs on the violin, and was exposed to countless others at family, village, and church gatherings. This music, and the rural tradition out of which it grew, were foundations on which Hardy built a literary identity.

Through the incorporation of music into his works, Hardy strove to preserve the musical traditions of his familiar rural settings. In his prose, Hardy used music as a means to evoke emotional responses from his characters. The introduction of music into a lush, fertile nature, such as that described in chapter XIX of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, resulted in a heightened sensuality of the character. As Tess walked through the outskirts of the garden, the music of Angel's harp intensified both her physical and emotional states. In chapter VI of Far From the Madding Crowd, Gabriel Oak sought respite from his sorrow through "the sound of the well-known notes [that] cheered his own heart." By playing his flute in the malthouse, Gabriel shared his joy in music with the townspeople.

Hardy incorporated a traditional piece of rural life into his novels using folk songs and church music. He presented folk music in Tess of the d'Urbervilles as a symbolic link between Tess's past and her present circumstances. Tess is reminded of a lullaby sung to her as a child as she is trying on her wedding gown. At that point she realizes the significance of the familiar tune with the current events in her life. In Under the Greenwood Tree, Hardy relied on traditional church hymns to develop the Christmas caroling scene with the Mellstock Church Choir. The tradition of caroling in these rural societies exemplifies the role of church music in the lives of the rustic people.

Hardy extensively used music in both the structural composition and thematic development of his poetry. He created poetic themes based on the familiar rural scenes often depicted in folk songs. Echoes of the rhythm and meter of these folk songs are found in Hardy's written lines of poetry. The poem, "When I set out for Lyonnesse," for example, contains a cadence similar to the rhythms found in these folk songs. Hardy also borrowed specific lines from folk songs which he incorporated into the titles and stanzas of his poetry.

The influence of church music is also found throughout Hardy's poetry. A familiarity with church hymns enabled him to compose poetry with hymn-like meters and rhythmic patterns, perhaps taken from one of his favorite books, Psalms and Hymns, 1858. The incorporation of church music into his poetry brought an important part of Hardy's rural background into his literature. Hardy's inclusion of music in his literary works revealed his passion for this art, and its role in the lives of his characters. Of his passion, Hardy wrote in The Life and Works of Thomas Hardy, "this sensitiveness to melody. . . though he was no skilled musician, remained with him through life." Hardy's "sensitiveness" has been immortalized through his consistent use of music in his collection of poetry and prose.

Bibliography

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The Mellstock Band and Choir. Under the Greenwood Tree, CD. The Musical Heritage Society, 1986.

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