English literature the book is designed to acquaint students with the main outlines

whether they are great or not have appealed to successive gen­ erations of readers.

In 1874 he married and in 1885 built a remote country home in Dorset. From 1877 on he spent three to four months a year in a fashionable society, while the rest ofthe time he lived in the country. In 1895 his “Jude the Obscure” was so bitterly criticized, that Hardy decided to stop writing novels altogether and returned to an earlier dream. In 1898 he published his first volume of poetry.

Over the next 1wenty-nine years Hardy completed over 900 lyrics. His verse was utterly independent of the taste of his day. He used to say: ”My poetry was revolutionary in the sense that I meant to avoid thejewelled line ” Instead, he strove for a rough,

natural voice, with rustic diction and irregular meters expressing concrete, particularized impressions of life.

Thomas Hardy has been called the last of the great Victori­ ans. He died in 1928. His ashes are buried in Westminster Abbey, but, because ofhis lasting relationship with his home district, his heart is buried in Wessex. His position as a novelist is difficult to asses with any certainty. At first he was condemned as a “sec­ ond-rate romantic”, and in the year ofhis death he was elevated into one of tbe greatest figures of English literature. The first view is ill-informed and the second may well be excessive, but the sincerity and courage and the successful patience ofhis art leave him a great figure in English fiction. In the world war of 1914-18 he was read with pleasure as one who had the courage to portray life with the grimness that was possessed and in por­ traying il not to lose pity. Often in times o f stress Hardy’s art will function in a similar way and so enter into the permanent tradi­ tion of English literature.

Oscar Wilde

(1854 -1900)

Oscar Wilde was regarded as the leader of the aesthetic movement, but many of his works do not follow his decadent

theory “art for art’s sake”, they sometimes even contradict it. In fact, the best of them are closer to Romanticism and Realism.

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin on October 16, 1854. His father was a famous Irish surgeon. His mother was well known in Dublin as a writer. At school, and later at the Oxford University Oscar displayed a considerable gift for art and creative work. The young man received a number of classical prizes, and graduated with first-class honors. After graduating from the University, Wilde turned his attention to w'riting, travelling and lecturing. The Aesthetic Movement became popular, and Oscar Wilde earned the reputation of being the leader of the movement. Oscar Wilde gained popularity in the genre of comedy of manners. The aim of social comedy, according to Wilde, is to mirror the manners, not to reform the morals of its day. Art in general, Wilde stated, is in no way connected with the reality of life; real life incarnates neither social nor moral values. It is the artist’s fantasy that produces the refined and the beautiful. So it is pointless to demand that there be any similarity between reality and its depiction in art. Thus, he was a supporter of the “art-for-