토마스 하디와 노장사상

Abstract

Cheon-GieThe purpose of this paper is to cast a new light upon the poems of Thomas Hardy through the prism of Taoism, one of oriental thoughts. Of course, the direct influences of the Oriental thoughts on Thomas Hardy have not manifested themselves in his essays or autobiography etc. However, the main tincts of the Taoism, Chuang-Tzu and Lao-Tse can be traced in many of his poems: “Moments of Vision”, “So Various”, “Life and Death at Sunrise”, “Drummer Hodge”, “A Placid Man's Epitaph”, “Rain on a Grave”, “Transformation” and “Proud Songsters”, etc. The main thoughts in Chuang-Tzu and Lao-Tzu are as follows: firstly, ‘Things appear multitudinous and varied, but eventually they all return to the common root’, secondly, it is natural for man to accept the world as it is, in the cycle of the great cosmic changes. As echoed in his poems, his view of world is going beyond the dualistic boundaries between life and death, man and nature, existence and nonexistence. In his poems, Hardy's Oriental insights and speculations on man/nature, life/death are casting a new light of hope upon man as a mortal being, transcending both times and places.<Seonam University>