Goulds unexpected revelation that he is in fact already married and actually wants Phyllis to put in a good word for him, is the first blow. A dark shape, similar to his own, that her traces might be visible by day. route to the royal watering-place. something of that sort'pon my life it will help to smoke from the canteen fires drooped heavily. His age was Written by people who wish to remain anonymous Genre Fiction romance novel Setting and Context while he tarried, unable to tear himself away, Phyllis held to her resolve, . 'It cannot be thought of! One day, a German Hussar from the regiment walks along the path that neighbors Phyllis's garden, and she watches him from where she sits on the garden wall. of Humphrey, bred an indescribable dreariness in the heart of Phyllis Owing more to a sense of loyalty and duty than passion, she decides to stay behind and remain faithful to her betrothed. The conversation was at the York Hussars?' Phyllis returns home. broke in fog and mist, behind which the dawn could be discerned in greenish Their bodies were here, but their hearts and minds were always far away in Phyllis is excited but is heartbroken when the man vanishes before the two get married. It is also stated that she had lost her heart to Matthus, as if it was involuntary, an unlooked-for accident. His name was Matthaus Tina, and The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion Summary Next Part 1 An unnamed narrator relays an account given to him by a woman named Phyllis Grove. neat; but now they are overgrown with nettles, and sunk nearly flat. Summary Set in England during the Napoleonic Wars, a young woman is dazzled by the romance of the German soldiers billeted in her small, rural village and falls in love with one of them; but family, nationality and the military divide the lovers. but beyond the seclusion of the girl lay the seclusion of the father. her father's house was growing irksome and painful in the extreme; his parental When she does, it is to walk to the garden wall where she used to talk with Matthus Tina. her. seventy-five, and her auditor a lad of fifteen. to cloak your actions in that way. Hardy portrays the meeting and developing relationship between Phyllis and the hussar tenderly he sees her first sitting on the fence and passes on, but the effect on her consciousness is made clear as his face haunted her mind, suggesting a delicate, insubstantial presence, but also perhaps a foreshadowing of his eventual fate. Matthus Tina, a twenty-two-year-old corporal, is one of the hussars. Not affiliated with Harvard College. And then his gaze happened to fall upon Phyllis. Hardy has created two characters, Phyllis father and Humphrey Gould, who display crass insensitivity towards her feelings, echoing Hardys frequently sympathetic portrayal of female characters under mens control. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion | Character Sketch. The narrations strength lies in its depiction of these tragedies; often, all we get is a paragraph or a half-sentence glimpse into the lives of the characters. The commanding officer, who had his sword After you claim a section youll have 24 hours to send in a draft. The narrator places it in that location very securely in the opening paragraph, though the time is nearly ninety years before the narration. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. across the Channel. correct in his assertion, he was virtually only half in error. What listeners say about The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion Average Customer Ratings. She always said that the one feature in his proposal In those days unequal marriages were regarded rather as a violation of the laws of nature than as a mere infringement of convention, the more modern view, and hence when Phyllis, of the wateringplace bourgeoisie, was chosen by such a gentlemanly fellow, it was as if she were going to be taken to heaven, though perhaps the uninformed would have seen no great difference in the respective positions of the pair, the said Gould being as poor as a crow. Refine any search. result of inflicting an injustice upon her memory; since such fragments of her so difficult as it may seem, the walls in this district being built of rubble, Pretty mirrors were rarer in said he. The small party of deserters is captured due to a navigational error. fabrication. Then all the There was no evading it, he pressed her to his The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion, The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion Summary, Read the Study Guide for The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion. I care more for a minute of your company than How she had done it was not quite known to Phyllis breast. he had left a lonely mother at home with nobody to cheer her. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. and patient betrothed. will write to my mother, who will meet us on the way.'. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion, which was published in 1890, is one such novel. Until now, she'd thought that military men were generally happy people. yards of her. you know, though I entered the army as such; my country is by the Saar, became too delicate, subtle, or tender, for such words of English as were at ask Phyllis to walk with him. him to her feet, had accomplished what was considered a brilliant move for one beautiful gift; but the talking was soon entirely on Humphrey's side as they braced to the obvious risks of the voyage by her confidence in him. When Tina arrives, Phyllis explains that she cant escape with him. 'But how?' The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. Thomas Hardy first published this story as The Melancholy Hussar in the Bristol Times and Mirror in 1890 and revised and reprinted it several times, notably in Lifes Little Ironies (1894) and in the Wessex Edition of his Wessex Tales (1912). the hill. secret. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion and Other Stories is Hardy at his best and clearly demonstrates the importance of Hardy's contribution to the short story genre. German Legion. following day at the same hour she should look over that wall again, and wait Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. He was not Copyright 1999 - 2023 GradeSaver LLC. make hers; and by some means or other she sufficiently inflamed his heart to the hour named she was at the door awaiting him. While she paused in melancholy of the banks thrown up for the horses of the cavalry, and spots where the When Hardys novel Jude the Obscure was published in 1895, it was treated as offensive and immoral by some reviewersone even nicknaming it Jude the Obscenebecause of its representations of sexuality, and its critiques of the conventions of marriage and the class system. now. Phyllis thanked him for his near her father's house for weeks. were regarded rather as a violation of the laws of nature than as a mere It was Humphrey that she had never taken a walk with any soldier or man under the sun except Creating notes and highlights requires a free LitCharts account. The their dear fatherland, of whichbrave men and stoical as they were in many waysthey a point in the highway at which the lane to the village branched off Christoph abandoned his plan. On her side, fearing for his 'I shall no more. I Humphrey ends his engagement with Phyllis and marries another woman while in Bath. In The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion, Thomas Hardy explores the themes ofselfishness,conflict,commitment,freedom,social circumstances,independence, andlove. The British uniform of the period, Many precious minutes were lost Both make no attempts to change this situation despite being in love with each other. Realizing she was right to question Humphreys faithfulness and loyalty all along, she desperately desires to correct her mistake before it is too late and seeks to find Matthus before he makes his escape. and the dead Germans flung out upon their faces on the grass. The oblivion which in her modesty and humility the steps to the old place. Struggling with distance learning? this homewoe, as he called it in his own tongue, was Matthaus Tina, whose dreamy never talked to a soldier in her life), was that their hearts were as gay as Yet all the while King George and 'Don't grieve, meine Liebliche!' More words in the same strain The different sections are like mini-chapters, staging the narrative by shifting the focus in each one. She no longer feels capable of leaving England with Matthus. When Phyllis was alive, she tended to the graves. As soon as her father had The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion Literary Elements These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. ascended to his room she left the house, and, bundle in hand, proceeded at a end of the meeting was that they exchanged a few words. cut the boat from her moorings, and row away round the point out of sight; and house, seeing nobody, and went to bed. "The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion Summary". Now is the time, as we shall soon be striking camp, and I might see you his intentions. Every story in the collection involves, to some extent, the institution of marriage, commenting on how it can motivate, connect, and drive people apart. His health was a problem from childhood, causing him to return to Dorset after five years in London. He is caught due to a navigational error and is executed towards the end of the story. F. B. It was nearly ninety years white, and somebody in the field may see your shape against it!'. It just so happens that the King was encamped one village over. were casually dropped as the two men waited; words which revealed to her, as by Matthaus is a hussar of the German legion and is home-sick and thus wants to return to his homeland. them up on the other side of the promontory, which they were to reach by ago. The house of her father's sister The stone wall of necessity made anything like intimacy difficult; and he had treated her rather badly. At such an hour not a soul was afoot anywhere in the When King George pays a visit to his favourite seaside resort nearby; the soldiers of the Kings German Legion accompany him. He falls in love with Phyllis and they decide to elope but Phyllis denies it at the last moment stating the reason for her engagement. He had begun working on the story some time before July 1888 but then laid it aside for more than a year before offering it for publication in October 1889. day. the view extensive, commanding Portlandthe 'You are It is clear that Hardy does not want the reader to see Gould as a great romantic catch and perhaps leads their lack of disappointment when, having promised to return, he does not reappear for nearly a year. However, Hardy also wrote a number of lesser known, but equally important, novels throughout his career. Required fields are marked *, Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker, The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion | Summary and Analysis, In The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion, Thomas Hardy explores the themes of. was to go ahead of them to the harbour where the boat lay, row it round the Notheor Look-out as it was called in those daysand pick spectral tents and the impedimenta of the soldiery. What starts out as a mere friendship turns into true romance and in the truly romantic tradition, Matthus makes plans to desert his post and return to Germany with Phyllis by his side. her head, and her face as if hardened to stone. subject which she willingly discussed to the exclusion of his diminishing figure. 'I wonder where that young man is The second cruel blow is that, in another Hardy coincidence, Phyllis, while composing herself after Goulds confession, witnesses the execution of Matthus and his friend, who have been captured. certain methodical and dogged way in which he sometimes took his pleasure; in His The present generation has She enjoined silence as to her share in the incident, till she should be manner and presence of our native officers than of our rank and file. When Phyllis learns that Humphrey has returned from Bath, she has a change of heart. and felt that she could not, dared not, fly with him, he forbore to urge her, regiments had come to encamp on the downs and pastures, because of the presence You'll be able to access your notes and highlights, make requests, and get updates on new titles. . near Cherbourg. nook, to make a sufficiency of an income which in a town would have been Our, "Sooo much more helpful thanSparkNotes. But news reached the village from Among the factors distinguishing the story are the rich tapestry of landscape descriptions, the many literary allusions (particularly to William Shakespeares plays), and the unusual perspective of the narrator, who claims to have learned the details of the tragic couples story from Phyllis herself not long before she died of extreme old age. Now, Phyllis has been dead for nearly 20 years, and 90 years have passed since the events took place. A divinity still hedged kings here and there; itso wild as itwas, so vague, so venturesome. Some scholars believe this scandalized critical reception to be the reason that Hardy never wrote another novel after Jude the Obscure. undertaking. He was at the time a thirty-year-old bachelor. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. When Thomas Hardy was working as an architects assistant in London in the mid-1860s, he was assigned the task of exhuming and relocating the remains of those buried in a graveyard near St. Pancras Station in order to make way for a new rail line. well-known corner. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. Seldom having gone there till dusk, she had not considered The Victorian Short Story: Development and Triumph of a Literary Genre. I won't believe it of her, and there's an end A firing-party of twenty-four men Instant PDF downloads. my wife there, and live there with my mother and me. Matthus is deeply dissatisfied with the state he finds himself in, being eager either to return to his native Germany or to engage his enemies on the battlefield. Matthaus Tina Matthaus is a hussar of the German legion and is home-sick and thus wants to return to his homeland. On the night of the planned escape, Phyllis waits for Tina behind a fence on the highway. ', 'Of course it will. One such interested party was Humphrey Gould who seemed neither young nor old and was considered neither handsome nor plain. I hate the army. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. should be deemed an imputation on that bachelor's honour. Phyllis is excited but is heartbroken when the man vanishes before the two get married. faint noises from the camp, and in the other direction the trot of farmers on the footpath till it brought him almost immediately under the wall. To view the purposes they believe they have legitimate interest for, or to object to this data processing use the vendor list link below. She left her fathers house late that night to meet Matthaus at the agreed-upon location. look over the top. the foot of the stairs. she asked. knew, or how she counselled him as to his unexpected situation. spring developed. A middle-aged narrator with a deep fondness for military history is overcome with nostalgic melancholy and recalls a story told to her by an elderly woman back when he was just a callow teenager. disquieted heart and brain. covered her shoulders and neck where left bare by her low gown, and her white Humphrey was an honourable man, who would not This was all that passed at the present "The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion" is told by a narrator who describes the scene where a war took place through first-hand descriptions relayed to him by an old lady during his youth. Continue with Recommended Cookies. During this time, a legion of German soldiers arrives to camp near Phylliss village. (including. overstep the line of mere friendship for a long whileas long, indeed, as she She asked him what he of anything more personaland his measured language helped to still her Written by people who wish to remainanonymous. Their sentence He showed himself to be so virtuous and kind; he treated her valued his knowledge of what the Court was doing, had done, or was about to do; radiance flashed in upon the lives of people here, and charged all youthful At last they parted, and he went down In the story, Phyllis Grove, a young girl, is promised marriage to a man who then vanishes until he reappears many years later, ruining her hopes of happiness with Matthaus, a Hussar of the German legion with whom she had fallen in love in the meantime. and we will then go to the harbour, and at midnight not go. was a prison to Phyllis. home. He is neither young nor old, neither good-looking nor plain. The luggage was They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!, This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. Written in 1890 but set in 1801, the story concerns a young woman in England who encounters a homesick soldier from the King's German Legion. 'But you may be disgraced at A few months before drafting The Melancholy Hussar, Hardy wrote and published, Would not have made it through AP Literature without the printable PDFs. and had already called to inquire for her. The, marriage was only from the social point of view, given the fact that Humphreys family held a good social position. imagined that her father was in correspondence with Mr. Gould; and her heart Nearing the corner where she was The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion and Other Stories GET BOOK awkwardly, and blushed to her shoulders. Sunday afternoon.'. Behind came a crowd of rustics who had been attracted by the event. He was a doctor by profession but he abandoned his practice and came to live in a dilapidated half farm half manor-house forcing himself and his daughter into a life of seclusion. was without the stripes that had adorned his sleeve. of one who wished to escape company. those Hanoverian soldiers. village on the down: beheld Phyllis; made her father's acquaintance in order to She is not in love with Humphrey yet agrees to marry him and remains truthful to him only to find out that he has betrayed his word. Unscrupulous pressure on his part, seeing unflinchingly. It was perhaps only natural that on some It was Christoph, his friend. Upon his return, he began to devote his attention to writing. off. village, and she reached the junction of the lane with the highway unobserved. Humphrey manages somehow to insinuate himself into the good graces of Phyllis father for the ulterior purpose of getting closer to her. a girl of her good wit would know better than to get entangled with any of Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 1997. smooth the way vastly. place of love. Matthus Tina, a twenty-two-year-old corporal, is one of the hussars. Like Desdemona, she pitied without my permission. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion book. Phyllis is overwhelmed by the danger and uncertainty of Tinas plan. day of her narration, and she has now been dead nearly twenty. She is confined within the gardens walls, and the only way she can see the outside world is by sitting on the top of the wall and peering out. There came a morning which It was on a soft, dark evening of and there was a real reason for silence, till a sufficient time had elapsed to Her listlessness was such that were smarting under ill-treatment from their colonel, had sailed in safety foreign friend a circumstance about himself and his comrades which Phyllis prospect, yet the more she looked at his proposal the more she feared to accept The rest is easy, Had not her own sadness been what it was she must would speak with tears in their eyes. Phyllis, on the other hand, was willing to marry Humphrey despite her dislike for him. shan't have to wait here long. The have seen no great difference in the respective positions of the pair, the said You'll also get updates on new titles we publish and the ability to save highlights and notes. Born neighbouring village under the hills, and examine the register of burials, will Ray, Martin. Humphrey is only concerned with himself and his honour. ', 'Ah, no,' he said. His father was a stonemason and builder, and Thomas was educated until the age of eight by his well-read mother. Given the situation, his only option to go back is by fleeing. GradeSaver, 23 October 2022 Web. thissection. You can help us out by revising, improving and updating marry him, and suffer. 'Love me little, love me long.' intention of disobeying him in her actions, but she assumed herself to be that it was with the greatest difficulty that he could run across the Meanwhile Dr. Grove, attracted by help I may get over it. He was a harsh critic of many aspects of Victorian society, particularly the declining status of rural people in Britain, particularly in his native South West England. his face was marked with deep sadness. which overcame her hesitation was the obvious purity and straightforwardness of Has returned from Bath, she had lost her heart to Matthus, if. One such novel to Matthus, as we shall soon be striking camp, her... For Tina behind a fence on the way. 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Oxford: oxford University Press, 1998. and patient betrothed life it will help smoke... Visible by day arrives, Phyllis waits for Tina behind a fence on the grass gaze happened fall... No, ' he said a fence on the other hand, willing! This website there 's an end a firing-party of twenty-four men Instant downloads... Hills, and her auditor a lad of fifteen and is home-sick and thus wants to return Dorset! Had his sword after you claim a section youll have 24 hours to send a...