Mystery, grandeur, and sorriness: The sublime in Thomas Hardy's poetry

In his poetry, Thomas Hardy creates his own theory of the sublime based on the theories expounded in the eighteenth century. By questioning the miracles, mysteries, and purpose of nature, hardy creates the terror of unknowing that produces the sublime. Hardy's theory of the duality of nature, of its grandeur and its sorriness, is also a characteristic of his sublime. By uncovering the grandeur and latent beauty in disaster, death, the little things, and the ordinary, Hardy generates the pleasure needed to give sublimity to the negative. His descriptions of the sorriness of the destructive powers of winter, time, and war create terror at the realization of the destruction of grandeur, and transform the simply beautiful into the sublime.