Risultati di "Thomas Hardy" in Tutte le categorie

In the remote wildness of Egdon Heath, the crossed love affairs and marriages of a small group of people are played out against the background of nature’s beauty and indifference to mankind. Through a series of vivid incidents and encounters, The Return of the Native moves in a relentless drive towards tragedy, as the plans and dreams of the lovers miscarry, defeated by chance, or destiny or self-deception. In their unhappy stories, Hardy gives us a powerful dramatization of his bleak philosophy, his belief in man’s helplessness before the malevolence of the universe.

Thomas Hardy's moving story of star-crossed lovers shows human beings at the mercy of forces beyond their control, setting a tragic drama of human passion against a backdrop of space and scientific discovery. Unhappily married, Lady Constantine defies social standards when she falls in love with the youthful and socially inferior Swithin St. Cleeve. In an ancient monument converted into an astronomical observatory, they isolate themselves from society and create their own private universe.

Rooted in an actual case of wife-selling in early nineteenth-century England, the story builds into an awesome Sophoclean drama of guilt and revenge, in which the strong, willful Henchard rises to a position of wealth and power, only to achieve a most bitter downfall. Proud, obsessed, ultimately committed to his own destruction, Henchard is, as Albert Guerard has said, "Hardy's Lord Jim...his only tragic hero and one of the greatest tragic heroes in all fiction."

Set against the backdrop of peaceful southwest England, where Thomas Hardy spent much of his youth, The Mayor of Casterbridge captures the author's unique genius for depicting the absurdity underlying much of the sorrow and humor in our lives. Michael Henchard is an out-of-work hay-trusser who gets drunk at a local fair and impulsively sells his wife, Susan, and baby daughter.

Young Tess Durbeyfield attempts to restore her family's fortunes by claiming their connection with the aristocratic d'Urbervilles. But Alec d'Urberville is a rich wastrel who seduces her and makes her life miserable. When Tess meets Angel Clare, she is offered true love and happiness, but her past catches up with her and she faces an agonizing moral choice.

Thomas Hardy's novel about a British farm girl and her effect on the men who fall in love with her is read by Julie Christie. This rebellious young woman finds her affections a cause for competition between a soldier, a wealthy landowner, and a modest sheep farmer.

Sexually innocent Jude Fawley is trapped into marriage by seductive Arabella Donn, but their union is an unhappy one and Arabella leaves him. Jude's welcome freedom allows him to pursue his obsession with his pretty cousin Sue Bridehead, a brilliant, charismatic free-thinker who would be his ideal soul-mate if not for her aversion to physical love. When Jude and Sue decide to lead their lives outside marriage they bring down on themselves all the force of a repressive society.

Included: The Gift of the Magi (O. Henry) The Fir Tree (Hans Christian Andersen) The Little Match Girl (Hans Christian Andersen) The Steadfast Tin Soldier (Hans Christian Andersen) The Holy Night (Selma Lagerlöf) Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe (Elizabeth Harrison) A Letter from Santa Claus (Mark Twain) Mary Returns The Doll The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter) Toinette and the Elves (Susan Coolidge) The Mistletoe Bough (Anthony Trollope) Not if I Know It (Anthony Trollope) The Two Generals (Anthony Trollope) Christmas Every Day (William Dean Howells) and more

This fine novel sets in opposition two of Thomas Hardy’s most unforgettable creations: his heroine, the sensuous, free-spirited Eustacia Vye, and the solemn, majestic stretch of upland in Dorsetshire he called Egdon Heath. The famous opening reveals the haunting power of that dark, forbidding...

Hardy’s classic ‘pastoral tale’ of wilful and capricious Bathsheba Everdene and her three suitors, the faithful shepherd, the lonely widower and the dashing but faithless soldier. An immediate success when it was first published in 1874, Thomas Hardy’s ‘pastoral tale’ of the wilful...

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation by Jon Sen of Thomas Hardy's tragic tale of star-crossed lovers in the West Country. 'Two on a Tower' is Hardy's ninth novel and contains perhaps his most complete treatment of the theme of love across the class and age divide, and also the fullest...

The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) is a tragic novel by English author Thomas Hardy subtitled, "The Life and Death of a Man of Character". A poor, disgruntled, drunken young man sells his wife and child to the highest bidder. When he awakens, sober, the next day he regrets his rash act and vows to give up drink and find his family and bring them home. Eventually he is forced to give up the search and move on with his life. He does this quite successfully until, nearly 20 years later, his past comes back to haunt him.View our full collection of podcasts & audiobooks at our website: https://...

One of the greatest English tragic novels, TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES (1891) is the story of a “pure woman” who is victimized both by conventional morality and its antithesis. Born near Dorchester, Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) set most of his stories in the region between Berkshire and Dorset in the fictional county of Wessex. He was a controversial writer whose work often showed the result of flouting the rigid Victorian moral code — his novel JUDE THE OBSCURE was (allegedly) burned by the Bishop of Wakefield for its shocking content. Hardy was an unflinching observer and in TESS has left ...

Cuando todos los dedos te señalan, rendirse no es una opción. Tess proviene de una familia de campesinos en el empobrecido Wessex. Un día recibe la noticia de que su apellido pertenece a una estirpe de nobles normandos. Al enterarse, sus padres la presionan para que se introduzca en los círculos aristócratas y obtener beneficio, algo a lo que Tess se niega. Pero el poder de la aristocracia caerá sobre ella con hostilidad y repugnancia y la sociedad no tardará en condenarla por el mero hecho de ser mujer.

This collection includes two of the most notable titles from author Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd.

Tess of the d’Urbervilles is a complex and impactful novel by Thomas Hardy. The novel follows the life of Tess, the eldest child of a family who believes they have a small claim to royalty because of their family name. When misfortune hits the family, Tess takes it upon herself to seek out a wealthier relative and ask for money, but instead is taken into the service of a libertine, who takes advantage of her situation and youth.

Paula Power, the daughter of a wealthy railway magnate, inherits De Stancy Castle, an ancient castle in need of modernization. She commissions a young architect from London, George Somerset, to undertake the work. Somerset falls in love with Paula. But Paula, the Laodicean of the title, meaning a person who is lukewarm or halfhearted, is torn between George's admiration and that of Captain De Stancy, whose old-world romanticism contrasts with Somerset's forward-looking outlook.

Socially critical and emotionally complex, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is Hardy's masterpiece. It tells the story of Tess Durbeyfield, forced by her family's poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy d'Urbervilles. Violated by the son, Alec, her hopes of rebuilding her life with the gentle and bookish Angel Clare founder when he learns of her past.

Under the Greenwood Tree is an affectionate and youthful portrait of a world Hardy knew well - village life in 'Wessex' - in which a romantic tale is set against changing circumstances. The traditional feature of local music making performed by the village band and choir is challenged by the modern innovation of organ and organist providing music in the church.

Subtitled 'A Story of To-day', A Laodicean occupies a unique place in the Thomas Hardy canon. Departing from pre-industrial Wessex, Hardy brings his themes of social constraint, fate, chance and miscommunication to the very modern world of the 1880s - complete with falsified telegraphs, fake photographs, and perilous train tracks. The story follows the life of Paula Power, heiress of her late father's railroad fortune and the new owner of the medieval Castle Stancy. With the castle in need of restoration, Paula employs architect George Somerset, who soon falls in love with her.