On Thomas Hardy's Classical Techniques Of His Tragic Novels And Their Aesthetic Effects

Thomas Hardy was commended by Virginia Woolf as "the greatest tragic writer among the English novelists". Indeed, the grandeur and the tragic effect his works exert upon us is devastatingly bewildering. Inheriting the great traditions of the Greek classics, Hardy contributes uniquely to the new version of tragic novels by transplanting the essence of classical tragedy techniques into his major novels. His tragic novels are so profoundly touching to the heart of each reader that they are working in the way the classics do to bring about the emotional feelings of "pity and fear" aesthetically.The paper is composed of three main parts which include the introduction, the body and the conclusion. The introduction discusses Aristotle's tragic aesthetics and the tragic effect it exerts upon the audience; the main body can be further divided into three chapters. The first chapter deals with the historical transition of tragic drama to tragic novels; from chapter two onward, a detailed discussion of Hardy's tragedy techniques illustrates respectively the "unity of action", "reversal and recognition", "coincidence", "chorus" and "supernatural atmosphere"---each from the perspective of tragic aesthetics and its effect upon the audience. By discussing Hardy's classical inheritance, the author intends to prove that Hardy's aesthetics also resolves from the classical techniques of drama, and thus to conclude that the fusion of classical...