Ferment (1863-1870)
an interest in Horace, whose lyrical odes were certainly models for many of his early poems, it being doubtful whether his erudition had extended so far as to include a reading of the Æolic dialect of the Sapphic fragments or of Alcæus.
The smattering of French picked up from his governess was improved upon by his study in the evening classes at King's College. His knowledge of the language does not seem to have led him to investigate the literature of France very carefully, however. Except for a few scattered expressions, the quotation of the French source of his poem The Peasant's Confession, and a popular Parisian ditty sung by Clym in The Return of the Native, no Gallic influence is traceable in his work. His interpretation of "the French character" he presented in what he termed the "romantic" figures of Francis Troy in Far from the Madding Crowd, of Damon Wildeve in The Return of the Native, and of Felice Charmond in The Woodlanders. His German was picked up while he was engaged upon the writing of fiction, as is shown by the increasing number of allusions to the literature of that language in the later novels. Goethe alone of the poets seems to have attracted him, although the idealistic philosophers greatly fascinated him towards the end of the fiction-episode in his career.
The entire field of English lyrical poetry was familiar ground to him. His third novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes, contains chapter-mottoes drawn from more or less familiar poems ranging from the Earl of Surrey to Tennyson. In his last published novel, The Well-Beloved, the sections are headed by lyrics from Crashaw, Wyatt, and
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