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Comparison Study between Thomas Hardy and Xu Zhimo

Author: ChenXiaoYan
Tutor: ZhouYuZuo
School: Xiamen University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: Thomas Hardy Xu Zhimo Poetry Comparison
CLC: I0-03
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2008
Downloads: 275
Quote: 1
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Abstract

Thomas Hardy’s fiction has had a remarkably strong appeal for general readers for decades, and draws increasingly provocative attention from academic readers. His poetry more recently has come to acclaim as among the most influential of the twentieth century. And according to Dennis Taylor only in the last half of twentieth century has Hardy’s major stature as a poet come to be assumed. Actually, poetry is Hardy’s first choice as well as his last one. He never gave it up completely even when he was an architect. Hardy wrote poetry for nearly sixty years, and his full-time poetic career lasted longer than that of any other Victoria writer, indeed any other English poet. Likely, Xu Zhimo never thought of being a poet before he went abroad to study. However, when attending history classes in America, he was gradually shaping a specific picture about the industry of the nineteenth century and the workers’ suffering life. He abandoned his former idea of "saving the nation by industry development," but began to hate the industrialized civilization. His life experience in Cambridge University cultivated him as a poet, a pioneer in Chinese modern poetry movement.Though lots of research has been done on Thomas Hardy and Xu Zhimo respectively, scholars usually focus their study on one of them instead of bringing them together to make a comparative study, or a few of them do make the comparison between Hardy and Xu, but mainly study Xu and use Hardy as a comparison other to make Chinese readers learn Xu more specifically. Different from their projects, my thesis tries to shift the attention from Xu to Hardy, that is to say, to make Xu a comparison other to let Chinese readers have a more detailed picture of how Hardy influenced Xu’s creation and how he influenced Chinese modern new poetry creation through exerting influence on Xu’s poetic career and what their similarities are if judging from the macroscopical environment of the English romantic period.The introduction outlines Hardy’s poetic careers and his belief on poetry, and compares Hardy’s poetic theory with that of Xu initially, in order to let readers have a better understanding of the comparison between them in the following chapters. In the first chapter, the introduction of modern Chinese poetry is given at first to make readers have an idea of the significance of it. Then a brief introduction of Xu and his close relationship with Cambridge University is offered in chapter one, mainly focusing on how the environment changes influenced Xu and turned him to a poet. At the end of this chapter, the information of Xu’s visit to Hardy can be found, which means a lot to Xu.Chapter two deals with the respective research on Hardy and Xu in China and the comparative study on them in China and abroad, the history of research on Hardy and Xu and stated the strength and deficiency of their comparative study as well as the difference of my research compared with theirs. The thesis shifts the limelight from Xu to Hardy to make the comparative study.The third chapter makes a comparison between Hardy and Xu from different subjects by adopting the comparative way of case study and discusses the similarities and differences between Hardy and Xu from the writing techniques and ideology. And the conclusion sums up Hardy’s and Xu’s poetic career, esp. the argument of pessimism of Hardy and Xu which is popular among Chinese scholars, and reveals the fact that melancholy to some extent exerts a great influence upon Hardy’s and Xu’s poetic career. Judging from the world literature, Xu is not an independent poet who borrows a lot from Hardy and other poets. And through the influence upon Xu, Hardy produces an effect on modern Chinese poetry.

Comparison Study between Thomas Hardy and Xu Zhimo

Abstract

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