Hardy: A Misunderstood Aesthete

This thesis aims to prove that Hardy is a misunderstood aesthete. People usually consider Hardy a pessimist and naturalist, but Hardy is against both pessimism and naturalism. Pessimists feel hopeless towards future, but Hardy feels that if people try, the world can be made better. To him, human beings' efforts are of great value. He writes tragedies because he wants to reveal symptoms of life and hopes that we can find a remedy. Hardy is not a naturalist, either. While naturalists hold that literary creation is just like a scientific research and a novelist's duty is to record reality, Hardy holds that art is a distorting of reality; while naturalists hold that novelists should avoid expressing personal reflections in literary creation, Hardy holds that novelists cannot avoid it; while naturalists stress the importance of observation, Hardy holds that sympathetic appreciativeness of life is far more important than close observation. Instead, Hardy is closer to aestheticism. Hardy and aesthetes are alike in the following aspects: firstly, concerning the relationship between art and morality, both hold that art should not be responsible for morality; secondly, concerning the relationship between art and reality, both hold that art is superior to reality; thirdly, both hold that art should be sensuous. Then the thesis reaches the conclusion that Hardy is a misunderstood aesthete.