Thomas Hardy Group

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ideal
ideal
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College - Freshman

Explain Thomas Hardy's "Hap."

 

 

 

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Posted by ideal on Saturday October 10, 2009 at 3:06 AM and tagged with " chance, "hap, atheistic, casualty, fate, god, thomas hardy, time.

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  1. lit24
    lit24 Teacher
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    eNotes Editor

    Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) wrote the sonnet "Hap" in the year 1898. The word 'hap' means 'that which happens by chance.' The poem reflects faithfully his pessimistic, fatalistic and atheistic philosophy of life.

    In the first eight lines - the octave- Hardy asserts that he would die in righteous anger at his unmerited sufferings and pain, if only a sadistic and all powerful god would mock at him by gleefully saying that his  undeserved suffering which has been willed by god is his ecstasy:

    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!"

    The volta or the 'turn'  which indicates the complete non-existence a god is indicated at the beginning  of the sestet (the next six lines) by "But not so." Hardy asserts that in his "pilgrimage" of life he has met with both sorrow and joy and that it is not god who is responsible for this but the "purblind doomsters" "Casualty" [chance, accident]  and "Time."  "Doomsters" are the court officers who announced the judgement to the accused prisoners in the magistrate's court.

    Hardy's conclusion is that it is not god who determines the joy and sorrow in  a person's life but "casualty" or chance which is completely neutral and dictates that all events   in a person's life whether joyful or sorrowful take place indiscriminately at no fixed or expected time. "Dicing time" refers to the fact that events in a person's life take place unexpectedly and purely by chance like the throw of a dice.

    Hardy foregrounds the importance of "Casualty" and "Time" and the insignificance of "god" by capitalizing 'casualty' and 'time' and not by capitalizing "god" which is the usual practice.

     

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    Posted by lit24 on Saturday October 10, 2009 at 6:16 AM