The return of the Native에 나타난 Gothic적 요소에 관한 연구 = A Study on the Gothic Elements in The Return of the Native

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Though Hardy's fiction remains always in close touch with the realistic thought, his imagination frequently transports him to the world of myth and romance. criticism has done full justice to the first aspect of his genius but had only recently begun to give proper recognition to second.
Hardy's imaginative power owes its strange individuality to a mixture of qualities seldom found together. In the first place, it is extremely true to nature. Whether the is describing a landscape or a state of mind, he never shuts his eyes to what is ugly in it or what is dull. To convey the spirit of it as it is, is his sole aim. For the second distinguishing quality about his imagination is that it is poetic. This duality is the most important fact Hardy's work considered in its romantic aspect.
Hardy's poetic strain in his creative imagination is of the romantic type-sublime, irregular, quaint, mysterious and extravagant. Indeed, the quaintness was a notable element in Hardy's imagination, for his eye was instinctively attracted by the queer. So, the grotesque was an essential of Hardy,s imaginative constitution. Here it can be also
explained partly in terms of his view of life, because he wanted to stress the strange irony of Fate.
In addition, his particular circumstance reinforced his innate disposition. Hardy started his career as an architect, and the architecture that pleased him best was Gothic church architecture. He thought it the peak of man's artistic achievement because he thought that in architecture cunning irregularity is of enormous worth, and it is obvious that he carried on his works, perhaps in part unconsciously, the Gothic art-principle in which he had been trained. Thus he saw special connection between architecture and letters, and his standard of taste in architecture became his standard of taste in letters.
On the other hand, Hardy was excessively from his childhood. Witnessing the tragic cindition of life, Hardy came to realize not only every creature's struggle for existence but also the discord in the nature of existence, that is, the will of Fate against man's intention. And yet, he also came to see a dignity of human kind and its sublimity in
man's heroic-attitude which withstand the affronts of indifferent nature.
After all, the art of his novels is not to preach his philosophy but to intensify the expression of things so that the heart and inner meaning is made vividly visble.
Accordingly his use of grotesque caprice of Fate invests his art with an intense and terrible grandeur and shows the importance of human action by magnifying the figures involved.
Therefore, Hardy's novel's horrific material of Gothicism, whether it is used for depicting nature or condition of life, is to create a hitherto unperceived beauty, 'the negative beauty of tragic tone.' And it is most faithfully represented in The Return of the Native.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. 서론
• Ⅱ. 영소설에 있어서의 Gothic spirit의 전통
• Ⅲ. Hardy와 Gothic소설
• Ⅳ. The Return of the Native에 나타난 Gothic적 요소
• Ⅴ. 결론