The purpose of this thesis is to show the influence of Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy upon two of Thomas Hardy's novels and selected poems from six volumes of his poetry.

‘Hardy's Creatures' examines the human and nonhuman animals who walk and crawl and twine and fly and trot across and around the pages of Thomas Hardy's novels: figures on two feet and on four, some with hands, all with faces. Specifically, the thesis traces the appearances of the term ‘creature' in Hardy's works as a way of levelling the ground between humans and animals and of reconfiguring traditional boundaries between the two. Hardy firmly believed in a ‘shifted [...] centre of altruism' after Darwin that extended ethical consideration to include animals. In moments of encounter between humans and animals in his texts—encounters often highlighted by the word ‘creature'—Hardy seems to test the boundaries that were being debated by the Victorian scientific and philosophical communities: boundaries based on moral sense or moral agency (as discussed in chapter two), language and reason (chapter three), the possession of a face (chapter four), and the capacity to suffer and perceive pain (chapter five). His use of ‘creature', a word that can have both distinctly human and uniquely animal meanings, draws upon the multiple (and at times contradictory) connotations embedded in it, complicating attempts to delineate decisively between two realms and offering instead ambiguity and irony. Hardy's focus on the material world and on embodiment, complemented by his willingness to shift perspective and scale and to imagine the worlds of other creatures, gestures towards empathy and compassion while recognizing the unknowability of the individual. His approach seems a precursor to the kind of thinking about and with animals being done by animal studies today. Encountering Hardy's creatures offers a new way of wandering through Wessex, inviting readers to reconsider their own perspectives on what it means to be a creature.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1932. / On cover: University of Pennsylvania. Bibliography: p. 109-136.

The connection between social change and marriage is of critical concern for nineteenth century English novelists, and the progression of both class shifts and alterations in marriage are discernable through these novelists' respective works. Due to the Industrial Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, England's social hierarchy began to shift allowing for the rise of a middle class; with the professional class's ascension came the decline of the landed gentry. These social changes blurred class boundaries and created an increasing socially mobile society. Additionally, they coincided with changes to marriage framework, as matrimony was moving towards being based on love rather than the traditional socioeconomic foundation. As both class lines and the love-revolution took place around the same time historically, there was a key change in marriage suitability, making cross-class and love-based marriages more of a reality. Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy are two of the most notable authors from the nineteenth century who chronicle this tension between marriage and class in their respective novels. This thesis focuses specifically on Austen's Persuasion and Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, arguing that they both visualize a successful marriage that is predicated on both love and socioeconomic status. Their similar image of the sustainable marriage gives value to both the socioeconomic-based and love-based marriages, depicting a realistic conceptualization of marriage.

This thesis concentrates on human relations and the potential for man’s beatitude in Hardy’s major novels through an exploration of suffering, human will, evolutionary meliorism, and Grace, discussed in separate chapters. Chapter I is devoted to an introduction of the major elements of what is here called Hardy’s vision. Relying largely on Florence Emily Hardy’s The Life of Thomas Hardy and on references to some of the novels, a compilation of impressions is arranged into what seems to represent accurately the basic nature of the world and human relations in Hardy’s novels. The emphasis and the thrust of the vision are the ways in which human doings interrelate.

My study triangulates three recurrent Hardyan concerns – gender, interiority, and form – as they are shaped by the sub-genres of the serial novel, the sentimental novel, and the novel of sensation. I explore Thomas Hardy’s adjustments of traditional forms to new paths, including his vision of a new sort of stealth-realism, in the representation of subjectivity. When we consider Hardy’s vexed depictions of gender through the lens of form, the debate over Hardy’s “unfair” (misogynist) or “progressive” (feminist) representations becomes less polarized and allows for broader examinations of Hardy’s experimental impulses. It is my contention that Hardy is relentlessly engaged with female representation – and narrative representation, overall – as a major formal and ideological problem, and that he demonstrably engages with this problem at various levels of remove: his renderings of subjectivity are not simply attempts at faithful depiction, but meta-commentary on the processes of narrative technique and gendered representation.

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