A Literary Geographical Interpretation Of The Return Of The Native

Thomas Hardy(1840-1928),known as “the Shakespeare in British novelists”,is an important writer in the history of British literature.The Return of the Native is one of Hardy’s Wessex novels which are created based on his hometown,Dorset.This novel is famous for its detailed and unique landscape description.It tells a story of love tragedy on Egdon Heath in the early Victorian period.Recently,the upsurge of literary geography research in China has provided a new perspective for literary research.This thesis interprets the geographical phenomena inside and outside the text of The Return of the Native by using the critical theory of literary geography through close reading of the text and centering on the three dimensions of geographical gene,geographical landscape and geographical space,so as to explore its aesthetic implication and creation intention.This thesis focuses on three aspects.Firstly,it analyzes the geographical gene of literary creation.It explores the influence of the natural environment and humanistic customs of Dorset on the creation of The Return of the Native by using the concept of geographical gene in literary geographical criticism and combining with the writer’s life consciousness.Secondly,it interprets the presentation and connotation of the geographical landscapes in the novel.From the two aspects of natural geographical landscape and human geographical landscape,Rainbarrow,heather,bonfire,pond,Roman road,Mistover Knap,Blooms-end are interpreted.It discusses the connection between these landscapes and the plot,characters’ emotions and fates,digging into the profound significance of these geographical landscapes.Thirdly,it explores the geographical space in the novel and the inner complex dynamic of the characters living in space.The geographical spaces,Egdon Heath,Budmouth,and Paris,are firstly focused,and then the characters’ emotional tendencies to different geographical spaces are analyzed,aiming to explore the writer’s creation intention.Through the analysis of the geographical gene,the geographical landscape and space in the novel,this thesis comes to a conclusion that through interpreting The Return of the Native by literary geographical criticism,we can not only feel the integration of literature and geography but also realize the author’s intention of creation and aesthetic sense of geography in this novel.