Thomas Hardy Notes on Hap - 2802 Words

Author: Thomas Hardy First Published: 1898 Type of Poem: Sonnet Genres: Poetry, Sonnet Subjects: Suffering, Despair, God, Pain, Good and evil, Gods or goddesses, Fate or fatalism, Life, philosophy of, Life and death, Time, Joy or sorrow, Luck or misfortune The Poem Thomas Hardy has structured â€Å"Hap† to meet all the requirements of the form of an English sonnet: Its fourteen lines are written in iambic pentameter, the rhyme scheme abab, cdcd, efef, gg is complied with, and the three quatrains are followed by a rhymed couplet to conclude the poem. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Hap - Thomas Hardy *If you need to find something quickly, I suggest you hit CTRL + F and type in what you are†¦show more content†¦The idea however is quite challenging. It reminds me of a young philosopher who is questioning why bad things happen to good people. Surely it is chance, but what Hardy is hinting towards is what if it is a bad thing only because we THINK it is a bad thing? It is almost circular. I do not know much about Hardy but what I do know is that he tried really hard to believe in god but in the end, he came out completely agnostic. This poem shows that struggle. ------------------------------------------------- â€Å"Hap† is a poem by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) that he wrote in 1866, while working as a trainee architect, and for which he could not find a publisher. It did not reach the general public until 1898 when Hardy included it in his first collection, which was entitled â€Å"Wessex Poems†, which only appeared after he had concluded his career as a highly successful novelist. The poem is a sonnet, although it is presented as three stanzas in that the traditional octave is split into two stanzas each of four lines and the sestet is a stanza on its own. The rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEFFE, which is a variant on the Shakespearean form, although the clean break between octave and sestet is more associated with the Petrarchan sonnet form. The poem can be seen as Hardy’s reaction to the basic thinking that underlies Darwin’s â€Å"The Origin of Species† which had been published in 1859. Hardy understood Darwin to imply that the mechanism that drove naturalShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Hardy s The Best Hope Ever Sown 872 Words   |  4 PagesIn the third stanza, Hardy states: â€Å"But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain / And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?† Immediately in this stanza, he realizes that there is no point to human pain and suffering, because he can t find evidence that humans pain has meaning to God. He dismisses the idea brought about by the first two stanzas, and admits his faith in meaning is crushed. He’s lost his hope that he’s held onto for so long, and there’s no â€Å"joy† left. He comments that his hopeRead MoreThomas Hardy Poems16083 Words   |  65 PagesHAP IF but some vengeful god would call to me From up the sky, and laugh: Thou suffering thing, Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, That thy love s loss is my hate s profiting! Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die, Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited; Half-eased, too, that a Powerfuller than I Had willed and meted me the tears I shed. But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain, And why unblooms the best hope ever sown? --Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain, And