Far from the Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 -11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet of the natural-ist movement, although in several poems ne displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literatüre, such as his fasci-nation with the supematural. While he regarded himself primarily as a poet who composed novels mainly for financial gain, during his lifetime he was much better known for his novels, such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Maddirig Crowd, which earned him a reputation as a great novelist. The bulk of his fictional works, initially published as serials in magazines, were set in the semi-fictional land of Wessex (based on the Dorchester region where he grew up) and explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circum-stances. Hardy's poetry, first published in his fifties, has come to be as well-regarded as his novels and has had a significant influence över modern English poetry, especially afterThe Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s cited Hardy as a majör figüre.