"Cliff Notes - Return of the Native, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

THOMAS HARDY: THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES

Today's readers may find Thomas Hardy's outlook stern and grim.
Hardy, however, was beloved in his own time. In an age when the
Industrial Revolution was bringing dramatic and sometimes disturbing
change to England, he celebrated the nation's roots in its rural
past. In an age when new ideas like Darwin's theory of evolution
challenged traditional religious beliefs, Hardy showed that even the
simplest people have always wrestled with similar timeless questions:
How are we to live? What determines our fate? Are we really
independent beings? He spoke directly to the concerns of people
trembling on the brink of a new era.

Though he dealt with serious questions, Hardy was an immensely
popular novelist because he believed in telling a good story. And he
liked to write about ordinary people. Their problems, their triumphs
or defeats, were in his view the most important material for any
novelist.

Born in 1840, Hardy grew up in middle-class comfort near the
provincial English town of Dorchester. His father was a stone mason,
successful enough that he could afford to employ assistants. His
mother, who wanted a better class of life, made certain that her son
was educated in the classics. Young Hardy showed a gift for language
early, but when it came time to choose a career, he went off to
become an architect, spending some years in London. As he worked at
that trade, however, his literary talent inevitably asserted itself.
He started to publish fiction; he began to get recognition for it.
Eventually, after marrying Emma Gifford, a church organist from
London, he returned to the Wessex countryside, the scene of The
Return of the Native. Until his death at 87, he remained in the
area, writing novels and, later, poetry, living simply and quietly
despite world-wide fame.

His writing, however, reveals a mind and a soul that are anything but
quiet. He questions the conventions of his day--marriage, for
instance. He probes into the complexities of human psychology, of
religion, of political theory. Though he lived in isolation, he was
in touch with all the intellectual upheavals of the age. And it was
an exciting, puzzling time. The recent invention of the steam engine
had made travel fast and easy, and people suddenly had a different
perception of distance, even of time. Suddenly, factories were
springing up everywhere, and the quick money offered by new
industries drew people from the farmlands to city slums. Typical
English life, which had been rural, now took on a new character.
People began to see themselves and their fellow men in a different
light. The British government responded to these social changes by
passing laws to guarantee conditions we take for granted today:
voting rights for all social classes; regulations to promote health