Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 -11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet of the natural-ist movement, although in several poems ne displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literatüre, such as his fasci-nation with the supematural. While he regarded himself primarily as a poet who composed novels mainly for financial gain, during his lifetime he was much better known for his novels, such as Tess of the d`Urbervilles and Far from the Maddirig Crowd, which earned him a reputation as a great novelist. The bulk of his fictional works, initially published as serials in magazines, were set in the semi-fictional land of Wessex (based on the Dorchester region where he grew up) and explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circum-stances. Hardy`s poetry, first published in his fifties, has come to be as well-regarded as his novels and has had a significant influence över modern English poetry, especially afterThe Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s cited Hardy as a majör figüre.