| Thomas Hardy was a world-famous British novelist and poet. He experienced two centuries and wrote 15 novels in his life. As far as the creation of his novels was concerned, he began with idyllic drawing of the Wessex country life and then he developed his novel writing by degrees into the most tragic subject matter. His creation of novels could be divided into three stages. The first stage was about pastoral ideal, full of romantical atmosphere, which contained Under the Greenwood Tree, and Far from the Madding Crowd. The novels of the second stage mainly depicted the tragedy of the Wessex rural society; the main works included The Return of the Native and The Mayor of Casterbridge. The third stage was about the fate and future of Wessex peasantry. Tess of the D 'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure were the main works. In his Wessex novels, Hardy vividly and truthfully described the tragic lives of tenants in the last decade of the 19th century. My thesis clarifies the development of Hardy's literary thoughts by analyzing his main works of the three different stages in his life and takes afc historical, social, cultural and literary perspective to research deeply into Hardy's novels and offers a better understanding of his development in literature creation in the light of his background and social condition of his own day. At the beginning of his fiction creation, Hardy was romantic and optimistic, full of idealism; he struggled and strived in the midterm; and become very rational at the end of his fiction creation. This thesis, to some degree, refutes some critics' opinion that Hardy is a writer entirely pessimistic.As a novelist, Hardy didn't form his own writing style until he finished writing Under the Greenwood Tree and Far From the Madding Crowd .His several successful novels written after Desperate Remedies were based on the place which was called "Wessex", among which he grew up, and upon the people who livedthere, for the texture of his novel. The novels in this stage were mainly about the writer's pastoral ideal and characterized by depicting the civilization of the patriarchal society and the traditional customs of the rural society. Under the Greenwood Tree was such a beautiful pastoral story in which Hardy created a series of scenes which provided a "good background" to the love-story. With the later, pastoral scenes formed "A rural painting of the Dutch school". Far From the Madding Crowd was also linked to Under the Greenwood Tree in the subject matter, which was of an old pastoral folk tale, with elements of the ballad. Aside from the love -story, Hardy's primary concern in the novel was that old customs and habits of the vital village community were under threat. The Return of the Native showed that Hardy's writing style had changed greatly. It was his first attempt in tragedy and was marked by a deepening of his pessimism. Among the novels in this stage, Hardy revealed to the readers the conflict between Wessex people and the Wessex environment. In The Mayor of the Casterbridge, this conflict was pushed to a new high. Hardy depicted the whole process of the ruin of the peasantry and took the fate of the peasantry into consideration seriously. After this novel, Hardy was involved into deeper consideration for the fate and the future of the peasantry in Wessex society. Compared with any other novels Hardy created before this stage, Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure had greater significance in theme, in which Hardy sharply criticized the traditional morality, the hypocritical religion, the sad marriage and the decaying society in Victorian times. There was no doubt that Hardy showed the readers some gloomy scenes in these two novels, however, the fact that Hardy chose to present to his readers the most tragic side of human life did not necessarily mean that he had lost his faith in humanity. On the contrary, Hardy strengthened his confidence and aspiration and faced the reality bravely. Therefore, Hardy was a great and talent realist in the world.
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