[Hardy-l] Hardy's quote on personal nature of poetry vs. novels

[Rosemarie Morgan]

>Here it is :




>To ARCHIE WHITFIELD
>Page hardy.v7.161
>[Early November 1919]
>
>Dear Sir
>         In reply to your letter I write for Mr Hardy, who is in bed with 
> a chill, to say that he cannot furnish you with any biographical details 
> there being few more than are given in "Who's Who" & similar handbooks. 
> To your inquiry if Jude the Obscure is autobiographical I have to answer 
> that there is not a scrap of personal detail in it, it having the least 
> to do with his own life of all his books. The rumour if it exists was 
> started by idle press men some years ago. Speaking generally there is 
> more autobiography in a hundred lines of Mr Hardy's poetry than in all 
> the novels, though there are of course in the latter isolated incidents 
> which he may have witnessed or experienced. The handbook by Mr Harold 
> Child is as good a guide as any to Mr H's writings --
>
>
>Text MS. (pencil draft in FEH's hand) DCM.  Date The 30 Oct 19 date 
>assigned in LY, 196, was probably taken from the letter to which this replies.
>Whitfield: Archie Stanton Whitfield, literary critic, currently at Lincoln 
>College, Oxford

Best
Rosemarie

>I'm desperately looking for the passage in which Hardy states that there's 
>more about him in a few lines of his verse than in his novels, or 
>something of the sort. If anyone has the exact quote,
Lauren