Page:Life of Thomas Hardy - Brennecke.pdf/168



In all these permanent remains of the poet's period of experimentation, one can notice the complete predominance of sense over sound in the choice of words. The language is usually that of natural common speech, used with a freedom from mechanical restraint and with a gift for memorable utterances. The undisturbed and almost uncanny quiet that distinguishes his prose style throughout, even in its tensest moments, is also felt in these poetical efforts, giving an impression of detachment that nearly always heightens rather than diminishes the dramatic effect of the situation treated. The principle of hard and clear utterance, adhered to by most good poets since Robert Browning, was adopted by Hardy very early in his career and retained by him in times of the increasing popularity of the painted phrase. Wherever at all possible, he used the exact word to convey his meaning, and sometimes he manufactured the exact word especially for his momentary purpose, just as Æschylus and Shakespeare had done before him.

The most obvious example of this indulgence in freedom with the standard language, is the curious and unusual use of the prefixes "in" and "un," to signify an absence, and not a reversal of the action, as in "unrecognize" in The Dawn After the Dance. With regard to this practice and to his rather arbitrary occasional manufacture of compounds, showing a general Elizabethan sense of liberty in the treatment of word-forms, it is of