“Under the Greenwood Tree” - an enchanting, lyrical and bright novel by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). It is an idealized pastoral written with light humour and sincere love for its heroes. The book may seem an idyll in prose, still, it is only at first sight. Side by side with tender and romantic love of Dick and Fancy there arises dramatic lot of life of the village church choir, which gives up its place to the organ the way old England falls into oblivion in front of the active offensive of modernization. And Thomas Hardy sorrowfully notes that this new world is devoid of that enchantment and romance which blossomed out “under the greenwood tree”.
