The Split Wessex

During the developing process of modernity,Enlightenment Modernity ,taking reason as value core,brings great improvement to society on one hand,on the other hand it also causes heavy crises to western countries, which led to the emergence of another modernity-Aesthetic Modernity which takes unrationality 玭d life perceptuality as value core.The relation of the two kinds of modernities is unity of opposities and they bring about a coordinated development in society.Among tragic novels,at first,by creating Unbalanced People,Hardy proved that at that time people were in division with society,nature,other people and theirselves,therefore,he made a new definition about "people" and depicted the modern's basic outline:lonely,broken and pessimistic.Secondly,by courting persistently to "Paganism Spirit",he not only criticized a great deal of drawbacks of Englightenment Modernityrdecrepit ethics,rigid reason,etc,but also drew the "aesthetic"prescription for the modern in predicament and called people to get back to their own existence,resume due status of perceptuality,impules and desire,etc.Thirdly,by profoundly conveying of pessimism,he revealed people's miserable situations under the violences of civilization and undependence after losing the God.Thus he refused the deformities of Enlightenment Modernity and enlightened people to look for new way of existence.At last,though dominated by realism,through the unique use of "coincidence" and "psychological depiction",his creation ,hi form,was somewhat similar with the modernism novels in the 20th century.All above factors make Hardy's tragic novels demonstrate strong aesthetic modernity characteristic,this also makes him become an important pioneer of British modernism literature.