A Perfect Historical And Fictional Novel:Research On Tess Of The D’urbervilles From The Perspective Of New Historicism

Thomas Hardy, living in the late 19 th and early 20 th century, is a literary giant who had great artistic achievement of novels and poetry. He perfectly combined his individual experiences with historical background which made him created many great works. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, created in the end of 19 th century, was Hardy’s enduring work that mainly narrates miserable fate of a country girl.Domestic and oversea scholars has deep and persistently studied on Tess of the D’Urbervilles from various perspectives such fate of characters, realism, ethical literary, religious thought, feminism, eco-feminism, Marxist theory, psychological analysis and so on. Fictional details were nicely combined with realistic historical background in this novel which described the changes of individual fate and inevitable causes of tragedy in transitional period of rural England during capitalist development. Hence, it does have realistic width and historical height to discuss this novel from a perspective of a comparatively frontier theory of western literary criticism- New Historicism. New Historicists stress firstly “the historicity of texts”, which explain that the novel was created under the influence of Hardy’s individual experiences and the social background. It is the result of Hardy’s in-depth observation to society. Besides, the novel itself is a part of the society, and would also affect the construction of history. “Textuality of history” is another core argument of New Historicism. In Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Hardy reconstructed the histories of Victorian southwest England, embodied the close relationship between people’s daily life and religion, morality, politics, and integrated ingeniously the reality of history and fictionality of novel. “Subversion and containment”, a concept related to power resolution and power control, was put forward by New Historicists. Capitalist religion and morality in Tess of the D’Urbervilles were doubted and challenged by Hardy. However, both the doubt and challenges can only be his cathartic experience, but never successful subversion because the ruling power system is still uncontainable.In a word, literary texts and historical facts reflect, elucidate and open to each other. By describing the individual tragic fate of a country girl, this novel expounded Hardy’s criticism to British history.