BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH: AN ANALYSIS OF THE POETRY OF THOMAS

HARDY’S I LOOKED UP FROM MY WRITING

___________________

A Compendium of Literary Criticism

Presented to the Education Program
St. Mary’s College of Tagum, Inc.
Tagum City

____________________

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Degree of Bachelor of Secondary Education
Major in English

by

MARY GRACE O. CERO

February 2021
I LOOKED UP FROM MY WRITING
By Thomas Hardy

I looked up from my writing,

And gave a start to see,
As if rapt in my inditing,
The moon's full gaze on me.

Her meditative misty head

Was spectral in its air,
And I involuntarily said,
'What are you doing there?'

'Oh, I've been scanning pond and hole

And waterway hereabout
For the body of one with a sunken soul
Who has put his life-light out.

'Did you hear his frenzied tattle?

It was sorrow for his son
Who is slain in brutish battle,
Though he has injured none.

'And now I am curious to look

Into the blinkered mind
Of one who wants to write a book
In a world of such a kind.'

Her temper overwrought me,

And I edged to shun her view,
For I felt assured she thought me
One who should drown him too.
 INTRODUCTION

This literary piece of Thomas Hardy entitled “I Looked Up from My Writing”

encompasses how he grapples to rationalize the dreary, distressingly inequitable complexity of

the society at battlefield with the craft of writing. In 1917, Hardy writes this poem during the

World War I at the height of the Great War.

It occurred at the end of even a concentration wherein the he started writing a broad

array of war poem, a few other magnanimous and cheerful, a few other miserable, but nothing

as personality and conscience as the one in this.

Hardy’s poem seems to persuade the readers in a way of speaking them directly. Wherein

it reflects on how Thomas has been writing in the first place amidst of why his conscience think

that he wrote it.

In terms of its structure of the poem it uses ABAB, CDCD pattern whereas in this piece

like most in Hardy's repertoire, one such piece remarks on the nature of war. A poetry

originated in the early around 1916 together with a quantity of several other poems upon that

particular topic.

Hardy isn't the one who has been trying to get every last good chuckle, because to

converse. Notwithstanding his shame, he captured it, tracked it, demonized himself, and ended

up with a poetry. The poetry is magnificent, and if we are to presume Hardy, which could only

end up making someone to extra accountable.

Nevertheless, he wrote a relevant number of war poems and poets like Siegfried Sassoon

and Rupert Brooke (he wrote about the Boer War, too). The poem we choose today, taken

from Poems of War and Patriotism in 1917 (World War I Bridges, 2021).

 THOMAS HARDY BIOGRAPHY

Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840, near Dorchester in Dorset. His father was a

stonemason and a violinist, and his mother enjoyed reading and music. Between his parents,

Hardy gained all the interests that later appeared in his novels: a love for architecture, literature

and music, and an interest in the lifestyles of the country folk.

At the age of eight, Hardy attended school. However, most of his education came from

books. He learned French, German and Latin by teaching himself. When he was 16, he was

apprenticed to a local architect, John Hicks.

In 1862, Hardy went to London to work with architect Arthur Blomfield, and immersed

himself in the cultural scene. Hardy began writing poetry that idealized rural life, but could not

find a publisher. Hardy left London in 1867. He also entered into a temporary engagement with

Tryphena Sparks, a 16-yearold relative.

Not finding an audience for his poetry, novelist George Meredith advised Hardy to write

a novel. Hardy wrote The Poor Man and the Lady, but publishers rejected it and he destroyed

the manuscript.

His first popular novel was Under the Greenwood Tree (1872). At first, Hardy wrote

anonymously, but as his popularity increased he used his own name. Like Dickens, Hardy's

novels were published in serial form in magazines.

The novel Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) was so popular that the profits enabled

Hardy to give up architecture and marry Emma Gifford. Although the marriage was not happy,

Hardy grieved her sudden death in 1912.

 More novels followed in quick succession: The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor

of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the

Obscure (1895). Hardy’s novels became progressively bleaker, reflecting his pessimism at

nature’s cruelty and the tragedy of human life. “The business of the poet and the novelist,” he

said, “is to show the soreness underlying the grandest things, and the grandeur underlying the

sorriest things.” Hardy challenged many of the sexual, religious, and societal conventions of the

Victorian age. So though his fiction received much praise, many critics and readers found his

works shocking, especially Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure.

The negative reviews of Tess of the D’Urbervilles and the great outcry against Jude the

obscure inspired Hardy to stop writing novels and return to poetry. Before his death, he had

written over 800 poems, many of them published while he was in his 80s. By the last two

decades of his life, Hardy had achieved as much fame as Dickens.

Hardy ultimately found happiness in his personal life. In 1914, he married Florence

Dugdale, a woman in her 30s and almost 40 years younger than him. From 1920 to 1927, Hardy

worked on his autobiography, and after his death, his devoted wife published it in two volumes

under her own name.

Hardy died on January 11, 1928, at the age of 87. His ashes were buried in Poets’ Corner

at Westminster Abbey.
 APPROACH TO BE USED

This literary criticism uses a biographical approach where it analyzes the biography of

the writer in which it shows the relationship of the life of the author and as well as the literary

piece that they have made or their literary works they presented.

Wherein the readers can fully comprehend the message of the author’s poetry and also, it

criticizes how the author’s put his own life experiences into its literary work knowing that this

certain output can awakes anybody’s perspective where they can realize how the author giving

an effort in order to captivates and as well as to make it meaningful.

BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH

A. What aspects of the author’s personal life are relevant to this story?

B. Which of the author’s stated beliefs are reflected in the work?

C. Does the writer challenge or support the values of her contemporaries?

D. What seem to be the author’s major concerns? Do they reflect any of the writer’s

personal

experiences?

E. Do any of the events in the story correspond to events experienced by the author?

F. Do any of the characters in the story correspond to real people?

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

A. What aspects of the author’s personal life are relevant to this story?
  Baldwin (2021) presents in their analysis that she is there at his window because

she wants to know what kind of man can spend his time writing when the world

is experiencing battles such as this. She believes he is willingly wearing blinders,

ignorant of what is truly important. He is deeply upset by this accusation but

plays directly into her opinion of him, hiding from her gaze.

B. Which of the author’s stated beliefs are reflected in the work?

 Hardy depicts glimpses of Existential philosophy in his war poems work, which

actually are indicative of humanitarian and therefore humanistic philosophy. Many

of his war poems reflect existential philosophy where humanitarian values are

prominent that finally confirms the proposition that Hardy was a true humanist

(Tomlin, 2006).

Additionally, according to Baldwin (2021) when the speaker reminiscing his own self

while he thinks that what kind of a man he is, realizing which he initially thought that

perhaps the night sky was still there see what he's attempting to write. This “I looked

up from my writing” involved in his written work, and that he's taking the time to

look it up from his work station. Though the author is not released instructions but it

is easy to conclude that perhaps the author is staring into space and "begins in

seeing" that perhaps the night sky is immediately next to one of him. It was like

having studied the author while attempting that's what he's completing.

C. Does the writer challenge or support the values of her contemporaries?

 Yes, since Thomas Hardy is one of the most extraordinary novelist writer and

through this poem which he made “I looked Up From my Writing” he wants to

convey the readers towards the importance of writing something wherein there’s

someone watching you even you cannot see them but still they are watching you. Just

like in the second stanza of poem:

Her meditative misty head

 Was spectral in its air,

And I involuntarily said,

‘What are you doing there?’

Where he pins point the word she/her to the moon in which it watching him while

writing and also this used as his inspiration or to give values of writing this literary

piece and to give a self-control in which the moon that watching him is a stable one

and through that he realizes that he can’t help the moon but speak it loud to it

towards the night sky of the moon.

D. What seem to be the author’s major concerns? Do they reflect any of the writer’s

personal experiences?

 She states that she out looking for the body of a man who killed himself by drowning.

The man was overwrought with sorrow over the death of his son, an innocent young

man killed in battle. The moon is distraught by this battle and those who willingly

participate in it. Continuing on, the moon addresses the speaker once more. She says

that she is there at his window because she wants to know what kind of man can

spend his time writing when the world is experiencing battles such as this. She

believes he is willingly wearing blinders, ignorant of what is truly important. He is

deeply upset by this accusation but plays directly into her opinion of him, hiding

from her gaze (Baldwin, 2021).

E. Do any of the events in the story correspond to events experienced by the author?

 Among the greatest of Hardy's poems is a lyric titled 'I Looked Up From My Writing'.

It is the final poem of the sequence, and it denounces everything which has preceded

it. The Accuser wins by pointing out the Neronic culpability of anyone writing poetry

in time of war. Or perhaps the poet wins even in the act of condemning himself,

because what he does with that accusation grotesquely, callously, opportunistically,

joyously is turn it into yet another poem (Kendall, 2010).

 F. Do any of the characters in the story correspond to real people?

 Yes, since as I’ve observe nowadays there a lot of people suffering depression in a way

that themselves are drowning or suffering stressed and through that they showed it

their emotions through writing or otherwise, they expressed their feelings through

writing. According to Christopher (2014) upon viewing the moon by chance while

writing at night, Hardy imagines a conversation in which he wonders about why he

writes. He struggles to reconcile the bleak, depressingly unjust nature of the world at

war with the act of writing.

SYNTHESIS

This literary work by Thomas Hardy entitled I looked from my writing is relevant into his

personal life since he experiences and oversee the situation of the World War 1 and this literary

piece encompasses his own ignorance and as well as his irresponsibility. Additionally, in this

written piece by him it presents how drowned he is since he was that man was overwrought with

sorrow over the death of his son, an innocent young man killed in battle. Wherein he realizes

that the moon is distraught by this battle and those who willingly participate in it.

The author’s major concern is being drowned man in his life. Since Thomas Hardy

oversee the World War 1 wherein there are a lot of innocents died and slain themselves in the

battlefield and it is where the battles in our life is not fully clear since it encompasses how the

life of the people there is sacrificing and fighting against the opponent in which Hardy highlights

the ignorance and irresponsibility where this ignorance emphasize the innocent one who died in

the battlefield and the irresponsibility which there’s no man can the innocent one who slain

themselves in the war.

Since in the situation of the World War 1 that oversees by Thomas Hardy where there are

a lot of innocent died and no things can do by Hardy but because of writing, he can explain

everything what he sees and mesmerized in that situation where also in this events correspond
into his experienced where he is sitting in his study table while facing at the moon and having

his night talk towards it and during his mind captures the light that reflects that coming from

the moon he talks by himself while the moon is hanging in the air surround by a gray clouds

where we can see in the third stanza of the poem that the moon have her hopes to discovering

the body of man who killed himself in drowning where it also reflects to the work of Hardy that

involved an innocent one killed in the battlefield.

Therefore, because of something that can really affect their emotions just like some

people always think the challenges in their lives and others that feeling alone and sad otherwise

being an introvert or a person where only staying at their four corners of their room are the one

who listen up their own negative talks, thoughts and also perspective in life. Also, there are some

people that being alone is their comfort zone because they can reminisce and think thoroughly

about some positive insights that they can apply towards themselves.
References

World War I Bridges. (2016, May 11). The poet and the world war: "I Looked Up From My
Writing" by Thomas Hardy. http://www.worldwarone.it/2016/05/the-poet-and-world-
war-i-looked-up-from.html
Millgate, M. (12 February 2021). Thomas Hardy British writer.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Hardy
Baldwin, E. (2021). I Looked Up from My Writing by Thomas Hardy.
https://poemanalysis.com/thomas-hardy/i-looked-up-from-my-
writing/#:~:text=from%20My%20Writing- ,'I%20Looked%20Up%20from%20My
%20Writing'%20by%20Thomas%20Hardy%20is, his%20own%20ignorance%20and
%20irresponsibility.&text=He%20initially%20believe s%20the%20moon,her%20what
%20she%20is%20doing.
Tomlin, C. (2006). Thomas Hardy. https://www.grin.com/document/438031
Kendall, T. (24 September 2010). Thomas Hardy: 'I Looked Up From My Writing'. http://war-
poets.blogspot.com/2010/09/until-geoffrey-hill-started-giving.html
Christopher, R. (9 December 2014). A Poem a Day. http://poetry-
fromthehart.blogspot.com/2014/12/i-looked-up-from-my-writing-thomas-hardy.html