[Hardy-l] Church-Builder & Chapel-Organist

[Bill Morgan]

Laurence-

 

                A quick check of J. O. Bailey's The Poetry of Thomas Hardy:
A Handbook and Commentary suggests that there are different degrees of
certainty about the sources of the two poems.  "The Church-Builder" seems
pretty firmly linked to three items in Hardy's Facts notebook, all of which
seem to have come from the Dorset County Chronicle, and two of which involve
suicide by hanging within the walls of a church or chapel.  The sources for
"The Chapel-Organist" are less clear, but Bailey seems to think that Hardy
may have heard the story from his Baptist friends when he was working for
Hicks in Dorchester.  Bailey also thinks the chapel in question would have
been the Dorford Baptist church in Dorchester (the original building-now
razed-not the current one at Top-o-Town).

 

Good luck.

 

Bill Morgan

 

I might be mistaken, but didn't Hardy find inspiration for them in some
actual tragedy that he read about in the papers? If so, would somebody know
more about it?




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