From Beauty To Darkness

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), novelist and poet, was a prolific writer whose literary career spanned over fifty years. During his life time, he had published 14 novels, 4 collections of short stories, 8 volumes of poems and an epic drama The Dynasts.The depiction of nature is widely seen in Thomas Hardy's fiction and poems. In his works, nature has been endowed with human instincts and takes part in the development of the story. It is generous, beautiful as well as cruel, vicious. Nature now acts as the sustainer of mankind, now functions as the destroyer of them. Therefore, there is a duality in Hardy's view on nature. However, on the whole, Hardy's view on nature changes from the domination of the beautiful nature to the domination of the dark nature.This thesis makes a systematic study on the changes of Hardy's view of nature, especially in Hardy's three pastoral novels: Under the Greenwood Tree, Far from the Madding Crowd, and The Woodlanders. Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction to this paper, including the purport of this research, literature review, the meaning of nature in this paper and a brief introduction to nature in Hardy's novels. Chapter 2 mainly discusses the idyllic nature in Under the Greenwood Tree. As Hardy's earliest pastoral novel, it is full of the laud for natural beauty and the harmonious relationship between the Mellstock people and nature. Chapter 3 analyzes the fair nature and the emerging dark nature in Far from the Madding Crowd. Nature, in this novel, begins to lose its beauty and cuteness and wields its wicked power over humankind. However, although there is disenchantment of nature, on the whole, for Hardy, it is still beautiful and is sympathetic to humankind's sufferings. Chapter 4 focuses on The Woodlanders and discusses the domination of the dark nature. In this novel, nature is a world of defect, full of decay, death and the bloody survival battle. Human beings can find no solace in nature, with some of them destroyed by it, some living in melancholy in it and some alienating from it. Chapter 5 gives an exploration for the changes of Hardy's view of nature. The collapses of the natural economy in the countryside and Darwin and Schopenhauer's thinking have contributed to such changes. Chapter 6 comes to the conclusion that Hardy's view on nature changes from the domination of the beautiful nature to the predomination of the dark nature.This research has traced the development of Hardy's view of nature and explored further the reasons that account for such a development. Hopefully, it may contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of Hardy and his works.