TITLE: Romance and Romanticism in the Fiction

ii The intention of this study is to examine the use of non-realis tic materials in the fiction of Thomas Hardy. Although on the surface Hardy's work appears to be in the realistic tradition, several of his prose fictions are really closer to romance, and all of them will, on examination, be found to contain at least some romance elements. In this study the term "romance " denotes a type of prose fiction which draws on non-realistic materials and which introduces situations that depart from the ordinary rules of probability. Closely connected to Hardy's predilection for romance is his use of myth, folklore, ballad motifs, symbolic episodes and evocative set tings. These very diverse techniques do not necessarily originate in romance. Some of them are more commonly associated with poetry than with prose fiction. But they do blend easily into the romance atmosphere