When authors refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not accidental. Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.
Literary and Philosophical References
Hardy knows his classics, and he's not afraid to show it:
- Clarke's Homer (1.4.12)
- Hesiod (1.6.4)
- Thucydides (1.6.4)
- Shakespeare (2.1.16)
- Gibbon (2.3.28)
- "Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven […]" – Poe, "The Raven" (2.6.18)
- "Above the youth's inspired and flashing eyes […]" – Heine (2.6.45)
- "I have understanding as well as you […]" – Job xii.3 (2.6.59)
- "O ghastly glories of saints, dead limbs of gibbeted Gods!" – Swinburne, Hymn to Proserpine (4.1.57)
- Don Quixote (4.1.68)
- "Where Duncliffe is the traveller's mark […]" – William Barnes (4.4.14)
- "The soldier saints who, row on row/Burn upward each to his point of bliss." - Browning, The Statue and the Bust (4.5.16)
- "There was a Being whom my spirit oft/Met on its visioned wanderings aloft" – Shelley (4.5.113)
- The Agamemnon (6.2.71)
- Antigone (6.9.30)
Historical References
- Here's a list he drops…you know, for fun: Newman, Pusey, Ward, Keble (2.4.45)