Failed Self-treatment Of Melancholia

Thomas Hardy is a well-known British novelist and poet at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.In his poetry writing,he inherited the legacy from the romantic tradition,and meanwhile paved the way for the development of modernist poetry.Hardy wrote almost 1000 poems."Poems of 1912-1913",stands out in all his poems and includes 21 elegiac poems after the death of his first wife Emma.There has been profound research on those poems from the viewpoint of life and experience of Thomas Hardy,the textual analysis of the poems,the study on different versions of Emma poems,archetype analysis,evaluation on language expression.Mostly,the studies are around the motif and theme of the poems,but leave less room for the psychological analysis on the author and less focus behind the text.The present author,in her reading of The Emma Poems,notices that,though regarded as elegies,these poems are not like normal elegies,but carry the poet’s complicated emotions,and therefore,she believes that the process of the poet’s writing The Emma Poems is that of his self-treatment.This thesis is to do a close reading of The Emma Poems with the help of psychological theories about melancholia,aiming to reveal the poet’s emotional expression of and his rational attempts to deal with melancholia and draw the conclusion that he fails in self-treatment.The thesis consists of five chapters.What the first chapter discuss is Thomas Hardy and his "Poems of 1912-1913",which summarizes the previous studies on the poems,and illustrates the structure and research focus of this theses.Chapter Two is to reveal Hardy’s emotional expression of melancholia in The Emma Poems.It argues that these poems reflect Hardy’s emotional responses to his wife sudden death.He grieves long over his double loss of love and wife,is unreasonably angry about his wife’s sudden death and feels extremely guilty for having neglected his wife when she was still alive.Chapter Three discusses Hardy’s various rational attempts to deal with melancholia.He vainly searches for past love to find condolence,idealizes his dead wife to make up to her,but also criticizes her to vent his anger,hoping that he can find peace and comfort in the end.Chapter Four evaluates Hardy’s self-treatment and concludes that it fails.The image of Emma in the poems is inconsistent and even contradictory,which indicates that the poet’s attitude and emotions toward Emma are complicated.Much of what he has said about his dead wife and his own feelings are self-deception.Therefore,it can be concluded that his self-treatment of melancholia has failed.The last chapter is Conclusion,which makes a summary of the previous discussions and emphasizes the major arguments.The thesis applies psychological theories to the analysis of The Emma Poems,and reveals Hardy’s departure from traditional elegies.Unlike traditional elegies whose primary purpose is to eulogize the deceased,Hardy5s address the poet’s emotional issues and serve as his attempts at self-treatment.The Emma Poems,which are loaded with self-doubt and complicated feelings,provide a new model for modem elegies.Hardy’s influence on the development of elegies is worthy of critical attention.It is hoped that the thesis may make some contribution to this area of study.