Page:Life of Thomas Hardy - Brennecke.pdf/273

 Greece, of 460 B.C., and the Thomas Hardy of Dorchester, England, of 1910.

In a previous chapter we have observed how Hardy's enthusiasm and sympathy for the work of the classical tragedians made itself felt throughout his career, and in spite of his avowed repudiation of what he considers the Greek optimism, that "revelling in the general situation." The work of no other English writer of the past generation has so frequently invoked comparison with the ideals of Æschylean tragedy as his. W. S. Durrant, for instance, has pointed out striking and elaborate parallelisms between Jude the Obscure and the work of Æschylus. With reference to the novels only, he says: "To put it briefly, Mr. Hardy is the modern exponent of the guiding principles of ancient Greek tragedy," and he speaks of Jude the Obscure as "nothing less than the product of an intellectual avatar, for surely when the story was conceived, the spirit of Æschylus lived again in Thomas Hardy. Nowhere in the ancient tragedies of the great master is Destiny more relentless in pursuing its victim than in this most modern of tragedies cast in the form of prose narrative." Professor Cunliffe, in writing of The Return of the Native, declares that "Hardy's ideal of literary art is Greek tragedy, and it is an ideal with which, in spite of obvious differences, he has much in common."

It is worth noting, that just as the plays of Æschylus can be said to have been born of the Persian wars, so did Hardy look to the historical and legendary past of his nation for material with which to clothe his ideas. The Persians of Æschylus, therefore, which actually cele-