| Hardy is a novelist with distinguishing personality feature. He can skillfully use musical elements to create his novels, highlighting this kind of personality feature. There are numerous quotations of lyrics, descriptions of the scenes of singing and instrument performances as well as the descriptions of the various kinds of natural sound effects in Hardy's novels. They are known as musical elements, and these music elements refer to the texts constructed by the "musical elements" in the literary text. That is to say, these music elements indicate the "lyrics",'singing","musical instruments","natural sounds" and "texts of music intertextuality" which are constituted by characters or some art symbols. Each type of music element plays a significant role in constructing artistic characteristics and content expression of novels. For one thing, the musical characteristics of Hardy's novels base on the texts which constitute music elements and learn from the artistic features of music structure and music narrative methods. It is the practice of cross-art type of Schopenhauer's artistic ideas, rendering the unique aesthetic values of Hardy's novels. For another, the vital functions of musical elements in constructing ethical environments, carrying out ethical expressions, ethical choices and moral education form the unique music expressions in his novels.Throughout the domestic and international researches of Hardy, scholars constantly explain the creative ideas and themes of Hardy's novels from different perspectives of literary criticism. The contents come down to the forms and structures of the texts, the connotative ecological significance and ethical value, as well as the relationship between the novel and the life of Hardy. However, few people systematically and comprehensively summarize and study the musical elements in Hardy's novels and the musicality of his novels. This paper proposes the concept of musical elements,expecting to more accurately refine music intertextuality of the texts in Hardy's novels. On the basis of absorbing the achievements of the existing literary criticism, A Study on Musical Element in Thomas Hardy's Novels, combines musicology, musical aesthetics, music history, ethical literary criticism, folkloristics. Taking fourteen novels and short stories of Hardy as the research object and the correlations between artistic forms and content expressions of various kinds of Hardy's novels as the leading clue, this paper extensively outlines the musical elements which are expressed by characters and specific artistic symbols (like lyrics, plots of singing, plots of musical instruments,nature stereo and texts of music intertextuality)and the relationships between emotional expressions in novels, characterizations and text structures. That is how to explore the unique musical forms and ethical connotations of Hardy's novels as well as the important values of musical elements in novel readings.This research is divided into seven chapters except the introduction and conclusion. The followings are the research contents and methods of each chapter. Chapter One clarifies the definitions of musical elements, understands their types and element constitutions. Furthermore, this chapter probes into the roles of musical elements in structures and rhetoric of novels and the features in language and in provoking the synesthesia of readers, preparing for the discussions of the following chapters in terms of definitions. Chapter Two specially discusses the embodiment of lyrics of musical elements in Hardy's novels from the perspectives of the musical characteristics, content presentations,and text functions of lyrics as well as the intertextuality of source texts. Chapter Three learns from the artistic rules of singing arts, discussing the embodiment of singing of musical elements in Hardy's novels. The discussion mainly comes from the singer of the singing described in Hardy's novels, the expressive objects of the singing,emotions in the singing and the text functions of texts of "singing".Chapter Four relies on the definition of instrumental art in musical aesthetics, discussing the embodiment of musical instruments of musical elements in Hardy's novels. The discussion mainly comes from the musical instruments described in Hardy's novels, performers of musical instruments,emotional expressions of musical instruments and the text functions of texts of "musical instruments".Chapter Five absorbs the relevant theories of music acoustics and music psychology, discussing the embodiment of nature stereo of musical elements in Hardy's novels. The discussion mainly comes from the definition of nature stereo in Hardy's novels, emotional expressions of nature stereo and the text functions of texts of "nature stereo". Chapter Six focuses on discussing the characteristics of Hardy's novels. This kind of musicality can be defined the practice of cross-art type of Schopenhauer's artistic ideas. This kind of musicality mainly manifests in the music structure and musical narrations in novels. To be specific, the greatest features of the musicality in Hardy's novels are the musicalization of text contents and artistic forms. Chapter Seven combines the critical methods in ethical literary criticism to focus on the musical expression in Hardy's novels, namely, exploring how music elements come into play in constructing ethical environment, expressing ethical emotions and ethical choices and carrying out moral teaching. This paper eventually comes to the conclusion that the musical elements play an important part in the artistic characteristics and content construction of Hardy's novels. As an attempt of cross-art type of creation, the unique musicality of Hardy's novels is worthy of further attention and research. |
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