LANDSCAPE IN T. HARDY’S NOVEL “UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the poetics of landscape in T. Hardy’s novel “Under the Greenwood Tree” – the first literary work that entered the writer’s “Wessex Novels” cycle. It considers the story and the biographical context of the novel creation, analyses the creation techniques of landscapes and landscape sketches, identifies the functions of landscape descriptions in the system of images and the artistic world of the novel. It discovers that landscape “transcends the borders” of the nature image and operates as an independent character, spiritualized nature appears as the value centre of the literary work, and landscape descriptions introduce superplot content into the novel – eternal and timeless.