Abstract
Historically speaking, the idea of ‘nature’ underwent profound changes during the nineteenth century, largely as a result of the ways in which science radically modified perceptions of the natural world. For Wordsworth (a poet much admired by Hardy), at the beginning of the century, nature was a moral guide and a source of wholesome influences: humanity could and should live in harmony with nature. But Tennyson, at the mid-century, famously characterized nature as ‘red in tooth and claw’, with its creatures existing in a state of relentless and competitive savagery: humanity was admirable only in so far as it had risen above the brutal appetites of the natural world.
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© 2001 Norman Page
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Page, N. (2001). Nature and Humanity. In: Thomas Hardy: The Novels. Analysing Texts. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4039-9038-9_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4039-9038-9_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-71617-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4039-9038-9
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