A Final Assessment

Abstract

NVHERE HARDY stands today in the hierarchy of literature is obviously not an easy question to answer. If one asks the Hardy scholars, one hears that Hardy is being more and more recognized for his true worth and that he is emerging as one of the three or four master novelists in English literature. If one asks literary people in general, one is told that Hardy is “interesting” but that he hardly belongs with those who wear the purple. A question directed to the layman brings an enthusiastic response: “Hardy? I’ve always liked his novels. I really ought to read more of them some day.” Literary reputation depends on too many variables and fluctuates too widely for anyone to judge it with assurance on any long term basis. It is like a stock exchange in which a vast number of imponderables, including such crass matters as economics and human ambitions, play a mysterious and incalculable part. At the present time, James, Joyce, and Yeats are leaders, blue-chip commodities with sustained earning power; Shakespeare and Milton are solid investments, like government bonds and utilities; Golding and Salinger are bullish; Faulkner a bit bearish; and Hemingway is selling short.