The Two Houses - A Study of the House Image in the Past-Orientated Writings of Thomas Hardy and Edward Thomas

Aug 29, 2026

The text examines how the house image operates in the past-oriented writings of Thomas Hardy and Edward Thomas, showing how it links past, present, and even future. It highlights continuity of human life through farmhouse imagery, where generations remain materially inscribed in structures and landscapes. Through close attention to themes such as rural rootedness, functional continuity, and the persistence of memory, the analysis argues that house imagery becomes a convergence point for different views on the inter-relatedness of time.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

The House Image in Hardy and Thomas

Continuity of Human Life Through Houses

The Farmstead as a Locus of Past-Continuance

Rural Rootedness and the Temporal Dimension

Spectatorial Awareness and House Perception

THE TWO HOUSES by MAIRE A.QUINN (A study of the bouse image in the past-orientated writings of Tho-mas Hardy and Edward Thbomas). THE house is one of the most pervasive images used by both Tho-mas Hardy and Edward Thomas in their writings on the past.Ed-ward Thomas remarks in a letter to Gordon Bottomley:'So far thebest things I have done have been about houses.I have quite along series -I discover,tho I did not design it.¹AIthough thisremark refers only to the prevalence of the house image in hisprose his later poetry was to be equally prolific in the use of suchimagery.Hardy has not noted this tendency in his work yet he,too,frequently resorts to the use of house imagery in his poetry.BothThomas Hardy and Edward Thomas share a mutual concern withthe persistence of the past and in the work of both writers the im-age of the house plays a significant role in this regard.It is a nod-al point upon which several of their different views on the inter-relatedness of past and present inevitably converge. Houses are invoked by both Hardy and Thomas,but more espe-cially by Thomas,to indicate that functional continuity of humanlife which bridges the temporal gulf separating the thoughts andmores of different generations.For Edward Thomas functional con-tinuity is represented most powerfully by the farmhouse and mostof the houses in his prose writings,especially,are farmsteads.InLondon he is conscious of 'people living in no ancient way'²butthe farmer's life is fundamentally no different from that of his an-cestors.In The South Country he describes a farmer whose 'fathersmust have been in this land when Wolf Hanger was not a strangename for beeches over the hill'and goes on to comment on thefunctional continuity of farm life that imparts a solidity to all thefarmer's actions: ¹R.G.Thomas(ed),Letters from Edward Thomas to Gordon Bottomley,London,1968,p.194 ²The Heart of England,London,1906,p.7 Life is a dark simple matter for him;three quarters of his livingis done for him by the dead;merely to look at him is to see aman five generations thick,so to speak,and neither nature northe trumpery modern man can disturb a human character of thatdensity.³ A ploughman with his plough and three horses in The Heart of Eng-land is associated with primitive forces'.The plough is said toreveal 'ancient simplicity'and the ploughman's purpose is 'tomake odours fume richly from the ancient altar'.The unchangingrituals of farm life,then,serve as a channel of communicationbetween the remote past,the recent past and the present for Tho-mas and the farmstead presents itself to his view as the locus ofthis functional continuity.Having described a farmhouse with itsalders and walnut tree,its ponds,orchard,grassy plot and elm-lined laneway he goes on to note the material and atmosphericevi-dence of its association with the past:'In the overhanging elmsflicker the straws of the long past harvest,and the spirits of sum-mers and autumns long past cling to grass and ponds and tree.'⁵Another farmstead in The Heart of England is an amalgam of thecontributions of se veral generations,testifying to the fact thatthese 'long dead generations’like their present day counterparts'lived and worked and enjoyed’.The house is 'dark with panellingand heavy furniture of every age since it was built’.One memberof the long dead generations''planted the spreading oak...that ad-ded the knolled pasture and cut the deep,stony lane that leads toit through the brook;another built the fruit wall and bought thecopy of Tristam Shandy that stands with a hundred other books inthe dining-room’.⁶So each past owner of the farmhouse has hisshare in the continuing life of the place and the farmstead there-fore serves as a living witness to the confluence of past and pre-sent.Even a deserted farm'with 'decaying house'and 'doorlessstables'still retains 'something of life'for Thomas and this he al-so attributes in part to the fact that 'the buildings bore upon their ³The South Country

FAQs

What is the main focus of this study?

The study focuses on how the house image is used in the past-orientated writings of Thomas Hardy and Edward Thomas, and how it connects past and present.

How does the farmhouse represent continuity for Edward Thomas?

In the prose and poetry discussed, the farmhouse and farmstead embody functional continuity across generations, where the dead shape the present through enduring practices and material traces.

Why does the analysis treat houses as evidence of many generations?

Because descriptions emphasize how buildings retain marks of former lives, so even decayed or deserted farm structures still “speak” by preserving harmonious continuity of lived experience.

Aug 29, 2026

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