Poetry of Thomas Hardy: Handbook and Commentary

THE WELL-BELOVED and the novel of the same title express a persistent theme in Hardy's works. The Later Years says: "The theory on which this fantastic tale of a subjective idea was constructed is explained in the preface to the novel, and again exemplified in a poem bearing the same name, written about this time.... The theory of the transmigration of the ideal beloved one, who only exists in the lover, from material woman to material woman." The novel, though a fantasy in its story, presents the "truth that all men are pursuing a shadow, the Unattainable."... ... Hardy's view that romantic love is subjective may owe much to Shelley. The novel The Well-Beloved quotes as motto Shelley's "One shape of many names." 3 The pursuit of the Unattainable in the novel is summarized in Shelley's "In many mortal forms I rashly sought / The shadow of that idol of my thought." ("Epipsychidion," lines 267-68. )

The concept plays an important role in bringing about disaster in Hardy's novels.