Date of Award

6-1927

Degree Type

Bachelors Essay

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

English

First Advisor

Thomas P. Whelan

Second Advisor

William M. Magee

Abstract

Although Thomas Hardy is still alive hundreds of criticisms and estimations of his works have been written. In past ages man believed in a certain commandment which read: "Thou shalt not judge thy contemporaries." But this was later questioned and repudiated by men with some degree of enthusiasm for truth of a kind. For, said they, if a man's contemporaries understand him not, who shall? At least there are truths and views of him that must be caught alive or, like the flower once blown, forever die. "And just as a man's biography, if it be worth writing at all, should be written thrice - by himself, by his .own familiar friend, and by one who worshipped from afar - so let a writer be judged not only impersonally and largely by posterity, but with the warmer insight of one who was in living sympathy with the man and his times."

Before attempting to write anything on Mr. Thomas Hardy as a novelist of pessimism a thorough study of his most representative novels was taken up followed by intense reading of some very illuminating and well known essays. I desire to ma.~e an acknowledgement of my indebtedness to Mr. Lionel Johnson for his "Art of Thomas Hardy"; to Mr." Lascelles Abercrombie for his "Thomae Hardy, A Critical Study•; to Mr. 'Thom. G. Selby for his "The Theology of Modern Fiction"; to Mr. H. C. Duffin for hie "Thomae Hardy"; to Mr. E. Brennecke Jr. for his "The Life of Thomas Hardy"; to Mary P. Willcocks for her "Between the Old and the New"; and to Mr. H. Lea for his "Thomas Hardy's Wessex."

Comments

A Thesis Submitted Partially to Fulfill the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts. College of Liberal Arts.

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