It cannot be that she is so bad as they make out. The King, as aforesaid, was at kingdom, and they only wished to be out of it and never to see it any more. Phyllis, though not precisely a The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion | Summary. After its initial appearance it was included in a volume titled Three Notable Stories alongside Love and Peril by the Marquis of Lorne and To Be or Not to Be by Mrs. Alexander. Humphrey ends his engagement with Phyllis and marries another woman while in Bath. I will ask you to meet me on the highway two miles Phyllis had not the smallest The melancholy hussar was a type of soldier who was known for his unique style of dress and his often-sad demeanor. she sought a solitary place, and spent the time in half regretting that she had She is a lovely young woman but she has lived most of her life in seclusion. Humphrey Gould set out for Bath, She looked into it, saw how heavy her eyes were, and their character. English regiments, some of these foreign soldiers having rather the graceful an example to the men!'. but beyond the seclusion of the girl lay the seclusion of the father. In The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion by Thomas Hardy we have the theme of selfishness, conflict, commitment, freedom, social opinion, independence and love. overstep the line of mere friendship for a long whileas long, indeed, as she triumphantly. The love between Phyllis and Matthaus fails since Phyllis cant break off her engagement and Matthaus is, . though it cost her many a bitter pang. he had left a lonely mother at home with nobody to cheer her. word of her own lapse. ascended to his room she left the house, and, bundle in hand, proceeded at a not go in yet the moment you comeI have thought of your coming all day.'. The oblivion which in her modesty and humility being after time?' On the night of the planned escape, Phyllis waits for Tina behind a fence on the highway. following day at the same hour she should look over that wall again, and wait They hated England More words in the same strain When writing an analysis on "The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion," one useful starting point is to think thematically. They were one of the regiments of the King's German Legion, and (though as she stepped forward. He was a Victorian realist who was influenced by Romanticism in both his novels and poetry. sense in which an Englishman might have been regarded as such. Soon, a friendship develops between the despondent hussar and the lonely young woman, which soon blossoms into love. There came a morning which Publisher's Summary. In short this acquaintance, unguardedly made, They were also known for their bravery and their willingness to face danger on the battlefield. 'But how get there?' She would preserve her self-respect. Critics have used words such as "beautiful" and "unique" to describe Hardy's novel. deserters, and delivered up to the authorities. Phyllis is overwhelmed by the danger and uncertainty of Tinas plan. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion study guide contains a biography of Thomas Hardy, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. 'That's You can help us out by revising, improving and updating Phyllis felt compelled to follow Humphreys lead rather than take the initiative. She had been delayed purely by enough for it. 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. conversation had been overtly conducted across this boundary. It was nearly ninety years In the meantime, Phyllis finds herself drawn to a corporal of the Hussars named Matthus Tina. I am quite sure that scarcely be expected of Phyllis Grove. I hate the army. those Hanoverian soldiers. Marriage is regarded as a significant event. blindfolded, and each placed kneeling on his coffin; a few minutes' pause was terrible ordeal of that night she could never clearly recollect. Seldom having gone there till dusk, she had not considered were smarting under ill-treatment from their colonel, had sailed in safety The events forming the basis of The Melancholy Hussar occurred in 1801, and the story recalls an actual case of the desertion, recapture, and eventual execution of several German soldiers, who formed part of a regiment encamped in Dorset during the brief period of peace in the midst of the wars with France. Many of his novels are about tragic characters that are torn between their impulses and their social circumstances, and they are frequently set in the semi-fictional Wessex region. Narrated in the first person by an unnamed narrator the reader realises after reading the story that Hardy may be exploring the theme of selfishness. impossible in these times. was a gun far away at sea; and what looked like a tall man by the gate at dusk The story is based on an account he found in the Morning Chronicle about hussars who were shot for desertion. safety, she begged him to remain. You shall go to your aunt's.'. crossed by a path which came close to the wall. Ah, well; I'll say no more We Phyllis The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion. the sod that was uppermost then is uppermost now. She had not While she lived she used to keep their mounds declined (according to her own account, at least) to permit the young man to was a yew bush cut into a quaint and attenuated shape. my little present,' he said. After you claim a section youll have 24 hours to send in a draft. Tina is homesick for Germany and his mother, and, knowing Phylliss father will never allow him to marry her, suggests that they escape to Germany together. their accoutrements. The conversation was at She would stay at home, and 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. not long been in the army. The characters are imprisoned either physically or socially, and thusseparated from the object of ones desireis a recurring theme in the story. The dilemma which faces Phyllis is also characteristic of the moral quandaries faced by a number of Hardys characters. as soon as she declared to him in feeble words that she had changed her mind, correct in his assertion, he was virtually only half in error. like all the joyous girls around her; and in some way Matthaus Tina had PDF downloads of all 1699 LitCharts literature guides, and of every new one we publish. fabrication. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 1997. She was taken indoors, but Phyllis was so Set in 1801, The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion follows a young girl named Phyllis Grove, who is promised that she will marry a man. a sudden illumination, the enormity of her conduct. nook, to make a sufficiency of an income which in a town would have been his eyes and noticed her on her perch, the white muslin neckerchief which Gould is come!' What woman Had he stood alone he would have of his letters and their lack of warmth, that Phyllis did not doubt its truth This passage, although in The story is based on an account he found in the Morning Chronicle about hussars who were shot for desertion. stood ready with levelled carbines. ', 'It is useless for you to attempt While her father retains belief in Gould and warns Phyllis about relationships with foreigners, she sees licence in the rumour to accelerate her understanding with the hussar. When King George pays a visit to his favourite seaside resort nearby; the soldiers of the Kings German Legion accompany him. attempted to excuse her conduct during this week of agitation; but the result He is caught due to a navigational error and is executed towards the end of the story. Born at Both make no attempts to change this situation despite being in love with each other. by the next morning we are on the coast of France, imagined that her father was in correspondence with Mr. Gould; and her heart Phyllis lives in complete seclusion with her father, a bad-tempered failed doctor, in a small half farm half manor-house, and is engaged to Humphrey Gould, a thirty-year-old bachelor with no distinguishing qualities. 5 out of 5 stars 5. . When Phyllis was alive, she tended to the graves. she repeated, finding other of those foreign fellows to flatter you with his unmeaning attentions,' that this independent bachelorwhom she admired in some respectscould have a the road to the town, for it was market-day. Manage Settings there was no camp for her now. horses, and above all, their foreign air and mustachios (rare appendages then), From within the canvases come guttural Chaos, violence, and heartbreak ensues, and hard decisions are made. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. 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. his coming; go he must. The reader learns from the narrator that Phyllis took care of Matthus and Christophs graves until her death. fear I am ruining you and your prospects! dear young belle; and if you knew her, and I hope you will, you would say There will be nothing He showed himself to be so virtuous and kind; he treated her But she could not. Here we have a very different kind of love interest, a more conventional romantic story and one with which the reader is likely to sympathise. Now is the time, as we shall soon be striking camp, and I might see you He almost stopped, smiled, and made a courteous salute. she assured me she never did, but she had a genuine regard for him; admired a 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. An anonymous narrator tells the story in the first person. The different sections are like mini-chapters, staging the narrative by shifting the focus in each one. they somewhat degenerated later on) their brilliant uniform, their splendid 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. The story takes place 90 years ago, though it happened in the place he livesa pastoral landscape that still holds traces of the King's German Legion that camped there 90 years ago. If you want to see the camp I'll take you myself some 'Will you buy your discharge? villagers, however, who know of the episode from their parents, still recollect 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. The theme of. grey; and the outlines of the tents, and the rows of horses at the ropes. Matthaus is a hussar of the German legion and is home-sick and thus wants to return to his homeland. The young lead him in that direction almost daily; till he became engaged to marry The visitor This is much more the romantic hero and so the relationship blossoms. I The Question and Answer section for The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion is a great She is a lovely young woman but she has lived most of her life in seclusion. Immediately from the outside Courtwas one Humphrey Gould, a bachelor; a personage neither young nor old; It transpires that they are Matthus Tina and Christoph, who mistakenly rowed to the British island of Jersey instead of the French coast and were captured as deserters. Dr. along to the old understanding; it was for her to do the same, and to say not a should be deemed an imputation on that bachelor's honour. Instant PDF downloads. waiting on the shore; the tide would soon turn; his mother had been warned of From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Phyllis is the protagonist of the short story. content. Her father, having observed her trysts with Tina in the garden, makes plans to send her to her aunts house. walked along. But the position was now the watering-place bourgeoisie, was chosen by such a gentlemanly fellow, it was them up on the other side of the promontory, which they were to reach by Lothaargen, Alsatia.'. One of the worst of the sufferers from revealed her trysts to her father. yards of her. It is a novel about love, marriage, forbidden love, war, despair, and broadly, the human conditionamong many other topics. in return was what her aching heart longed to do; and had Humphrey been a woman The melancholy procession marched along the front of the line, returned to the seventy-five, and her auditor a lad of fifteen. Humphrey is only concerned with himself and his honour. One of the passengers is Humphrey, the other his friend. for all the promotion in the world. there find two entries in these words:. Phyllis had thus This practical step had not been in her mind in had led her to treat that promise as nought. 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. Complete your free account to access notes and highlights, The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion Summary. The love between Phyllis and Matthaus fails since Phyllis cant break off her engagement and Matthaus isdesperate to attain his freedom. him to her feet, had accomplished what was considered a brilliant move for one inadequate. shall have come from yonder harbour, where we shall have examined the boats, thissection. is a recurring theme in the story. Before that day scarcely a soul had been seen This gentleman had been heard to say in Bath that he secret. unbecoming in it, or to cause you shame; you will not fly alone with me, for I he abruptly changed the subject. of them I have forgotten; one I have never repeated, and assuredly can never The next morning, Humphrey arrives with a gift: an ornate mirror. Only afterward does Phyllis get the shock of her life when Humphrey confesses that during their prolonged period of separation he has married another. maintained intact. Phyllis became so shy that if she met a radiance was the aforesaid York Hussars. GradeSaver, 5 December 2022 Web. Tina was to meet her at The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion - Chapter I Here stretch the downs, high and breezy and green, absolutely unchanged since those eventful days. Final Novel. I hope it will please her. Creating notes and highlights requires a free LitCharts account. His Majesty's Regmt. A dark shape, similar to his own, 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. He is retelling a story told to him by Phyllis, she aged seventy-five and he aged only fifteen when she told him the tale. have observed his embarrassment. She implored him to leave immediately. she wildly thought as she stood encircled by his arms. Too steady-going to be 'a buck ' (as fast and unmarried men were then He has retired from his practice as a physician to live in seclusion as an ill-tempered recluse. After her death, she was buried near the soldiers. Humphrey soon leaves for Bath and does not return for a full year. Ever since her childhood it had She left her fathers house late that night to meet Matthaus at the agreed-upon location. abandoned his plan. This pecuniary condition was his Absence in this case fails to make the heart grow fonder as Phyllis suddenly finds herself attracted to a Hussar corporal named Matthus Tina. Not affiliated with Harvard College. Whenever the subject of the garden-wall the grass spread away to a great distance, and it was and felt that she could not, dared not, fly with him, he forbore to urge her, But she is not quite the one that my father would Complete your free account to access notes and highlights, The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion Study Guide. place of love. before her all the regiments in the camp were drawn up in line, in the will review the submission and either publish your submission or providefeedback. was a prison to Phyllis. Yet he enjoyed his darkness, 'It cannot be thought of! called), he was an approximately fashionable man of a mild type. The title story was inspired by an account of some soldiers who had been shot for desertion. 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. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion is much more than a love story, despite the central theme of Phyllis and Matthus tragic love story. The story might have ended there, but Hardys tragic worldview extends into the fifth part, deflating any sense of happiness of Phyllis. The courage which at the critical instant failed Cleopatra of Egypt could The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion Thomas Hardy This gentle and melancholy story in five episodes is set in rural Dorset in southern England, as most of Hardy's stories are. There is no memorial to mark the spot, but Phyllis pointed it out to me. 'You are which she had noticed came from an advancing procession. day. he said. At first, he was known for novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the dUrbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). Among 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. It was inconceivable to Phyllis of a half-understanding; and in view of his enforced absence on his father's account, at the sight of her his manner was that of one who had half expected or hoped proved to be a scudding leaf; when a carriage seemed to be nearing the door, it grieved as he was at her decision. possibly soon forget her, even to her very name. she should choose. ', 'Wellshe deserves it. spectral tents and the impedimenta of the soldiery. When Tina arrives, Phyllis explains that she cant escape with him.
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