12单元哈代.ppt

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): Novelist and poet, is one of the representatives of English critical realism at the turn of the 19th century. The works of the English novelist, poet, and dramatist Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) unite the Victorian and modern eras. They reveal him to be a kind and gentle man, terribly aware of the pain human beings suffer in their struggle for life. His works: His principal works are the Wessex Novels, i.e., the novels describing the characters and environment of his native countryside. They include : The features of his Works 1: These novels have for their setting the agricultural region of the southern counties of England. He truthfully depicts the impoverishment and decay of small farmers who became hired fieldhands and roamed the country in search of seasonal jobs. These labourers were mercilessly exploited by the rich landowners. The features of his Works 1: The author was pained to see the deterioration of the patriarchal mode of life in rural England. This was one of the reasons accounting for the growing pessimistic vein which runs throughout his novels. According to his pessimistic philosophy, mankind is subjected to the rule of some hostile mysterious fate, which brings misfortune into human life. Naturalism: It lasted 1865-1900....its a literary movement that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions,heredity,and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character. It opposed to such movements as Romanticism or Surrealism, in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment. Naturalistic writers were influenced by the evolution theory of Charles Darwin. They believed that ones heredity and social environment determine ones character. Whereas realism seeks only to describe subjects as they really are, naturalism also attempts to determine scientifically the underlying forces (e.g. the environment or heredity) influencing the actions of its subje