The Novelist (1870-1898)
Most of us still regard Hardy merely as a novelist and nothing more, and hence consider the books that he wrote between 1870 and 1895 as his chief claim to distinction. Hardy himself has always disagreed with this probably premature judgment. He himself regarded these twenty-five years as a mere preparation for the tasks which he really wished eventually to accomplish.
The way was now cleared. He was known as a successful, vital writer. His livelihood was assured; he was "fixed"—alas, too "fixed," perhaps, in the popular mind.
At any rate, he now approached another turning-point in his career. He contemplated the final abandonment of prose and the utter dedication of his powers to the service of the poetic muse. It would be idle to deny that the writing of the Wessex novels had not fitted him eminently for his subsequent rhyming. In 1869 his equipment had been broad, but sketchy; by 1897 his knowledge and appreciation of most of those artistic adjuncts which make the effective poet had ripened, deepened and increased immeasurably in intensity.
When we consider the art of music, a subject of the highest importance for the modern poet, we find Hardy paying eloquent tributes to its power and soul-stirring beauty. Testimony that he did not rank music among the least of the arts, in spite of what has sometimes been said about the "unmusical" quality of his verse, is not wanting in his prose writings, although it will be seen that he gave more attention to certain kinds of rural and folk-music than to the more highly developed art-music of the cultural centres.
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