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'Jude the Obscure' aroused such a storm of controversy upon its publication in 1895. Thomas Hardy abandoned the art to novel-writing altogether and devoted the rest of his life to poetry. In this story of the passionate, gifted Jude Fawley, baffled in his desire for learning and distinction by his entanglements with the two women in his life-the cunning Arabella and the 'pretty, Liquid-eyed, light footed' Sue Bridehead-Hardy achieved the kind of enigmatic force that we associate with the finest Greek tragedies. All the qualities of Hardy's genius-his intense feeling for nature, his ability to create an entire atmoshpere in a few strokes, and to create an almost unbearably accurate vision of human nakedness in the face of immense processes of the cosmos.
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