Conclusion

Abstract

Hardy’s psychological insight is the basis of the kind of novels he wrote. Their diversity, the multiplicity of interests expressed in them, spring from his sensitivity to, and humane sympathy for a wide variety of human beings, a compassion which includes all living things. It is this variousness which has given rise to the many divergent notions of what is the central quality of his art. Some of his contemporaries thought his intention was to shock and disgust, some later readers felt that primarily he evoked nostalgia for a lost, rural past, others saw him as a fatalist and pessimist. Recent criticism has been concerned to define his philosophical position more precisely and to show its relevance to the modern world. Ian Gregor has pointed out that while there are “a number of quite definable interests running through” the novels, “nevertheless, separate and distinctive as these interests are, they do not seem to compromise, much less to threaten the unity and coherence of the novels”. 1 Gregor’s central theme is that we must not look in Hardy for the kind of enclosed Jamesian structure, but see a Hardy novel rather as “a gradually unfolding process” . 2 I find his argument wholly convincing; indeed, by a quite different route, I have come to conclusions very similar to Gregor’s. Both the diversity and the coherence of Hardy’s novels arise from the great breadth of his sympathies. His ability to enter into a wide variety of modes of being underlies the basic structure of his novels.