'Heredity' by Thomas Hardy
A Poetry Analysis Dedicated to the Memory of my Grandfather
Hello readers, welcome back to another post. I’ll be analysing Thomas Hardy’s Heredity, a short, punchy poem that is simply stunning.
I’d like to dedicate this poetry analysis to the memory of my loving grandfather, who passed away two days ago. My grandfather was a great lover of literature and of poetry- especially Eastern European. We always had (funny) arguments about Eastern European literature versus British literature, so, in the spirit of good-natured literary bickering, I have chosen a British poem to ‘continue’ our debates. My grandfather always encouraged me in my desire to become a writer, so I thought dedicating a poetry analysis to him would be suitable for a man who loved reading as much as I do.
So in that vein, here’s the poem:
I am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.
The years-heired feature that can
In curve and voice and eye
Despise the human span
Of durance — that is I;
The eternal thing in man,
That heeds no call to die.
-Thomas Hardy, https://allpoetry.com/Heredity
The Analysis
The most obvious theme that Hardy has incorporated in his poem is that of immortality. But immortality is not a concept, it is a presence, a supernatural one that incarnates itself into every family member that ‘descends’ from it. ‘I am the family face/flesh perishes, I live on’, implies a supra-ancestor, a god-like presence that has existed before the family itself came to existence.
The historian in me makes me think of the pagan Germanic gods that Christian Anglo-Saxon kings claimed lineage from. Oftentimes we assume that, when Christianity arrived in Anglo-Saxon England, the old pagan beliefs were dropped and discarded, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. The old gods- Wodan, Thor- weren’t chucked- they transformed. Kings often claimed to be the descendants of Wodan/Odin, in order to verify their kingship. Unlike modern Christianity, in which some hardcore Christians vilify Celtic/Germanic mythology and religions, early medieval Christianity was rather flexible.
Thomas Hardy seems to be drawing on this mystical tradition of including a supernatural proto-ancestor. ‘Despise the human span of durance- that is I’: Heritage, or the face, is an immortal presence, that is transcendental and timeless. By incorporating such a figure into his poem, a narrating non-human entity so interwoven with humanity, Hardy makes us reflect on the concept of death. If ‘trait and trace’ are projected endlessly, if heritage is ‘the eternal thing in man’, can we, as individuals, truly die?
Hardy’s poem carries a strong sense of anti-individualism. Heritage and the family face (or traits, or character, whichever theme you read in the poem), is so strong a character that it leaps ‘from place to place/over oblivion’. A certain defining soul and character is passed on through the generations in a perpetual cycle of incarnation. If the ‘family face’, the heritage, continually expresses itself in persons in a family throughout time, are we really individuals bound to mortality? Or are we not temporal expressions of a certain trait, a defining spirit? Perhaps a family line (and by extension humanity) is more like the world with multiple seasons instead of a network of death-bound individuals. The world expresses itself in seasons: winter brings ice, snow, and rain, and it does not end- it transforms into a different expression: spring, with its blossoming flowers and baby birds.
Hardy’s poem questions our sense of individualism and our concept of mortality. In that sense, he reminds me of the Ukrainian hermit and ‘wise-man’ Andriy Voron, a man who lived till 104 years of age in the Carpathian Mountains. Voron stated (recorded in Many Years, Blessed Years, published by Myroslav Dochynets and translated to English by Carolyn Thomson and Irina Holovachova) ‘we cannot die completely, for we are part of Nature, and Nature is immortal.’
(Funny fact: my grandfather visited Ukraine multiple times, especially Kyiv- and he loved it.)
Hardy may not be writing about humanity as part of Nature, but he is similar to Voron in the sense that he abolishes the concept of mortality and individuality. Voron says we are part and parcel of the earth; Hardy claims that we are expressions of a certain heritage. We have an ‘eternal thing’ in us, that ‘heeds no call to die’.
‘Heritage’ is an essentially hope-giving poem, one whose concepts of divinity and immortality are similar to those of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Andriy Voron. It is a poem about an overarching character, family gods that have incarnated themselves within each individual, chipping away at our established notions of temporality, at our and self-centredness. And that is a beautiful message.
My grandfather and I at Dalkey Harbour, Ireland, enjoying ice cream despite the chilly Irish weather.