Abstract

This dissertation demonstrates how nineteenth-century British realism is guided by the demand to represent the world of "ordinary life." This demand, which authorizes the realist project and defines the place of literature in relation to the world, is both a formal and a social demand, a call for a just representation of the world and for social responsibility. Only by responding to this demand can realism show that it is responsible and not a product of prejudice or dogma. In addition, although this demand enjoins realism to record only what it discovers in the world of "ordinary life," it also sanctions realism's discovery of a universal or general truth within the diverse experiences composing the world of "ordinary life." The desire for universal truth, however, is compromised by the necessity to represent the demand that gives rise to realism. In other words, this demand is not only the cause of realism but also the effect of realism, something realism itself represents as demanding. ;Part 1 explores how some nineteenth-century writers and twentieth-century critics respond to and read the demands of realism. A crisis of representation, I argue, motivates realists to view their project as demanding. Although realists feel compelled to represent the world to "ordinary life," they also contend that any representation of reality is conditional. Despite the conditional nature of their representations, realists do not question the foundation of their project--the demand of realism. In fact, it becomes necessary to integrate the question of the formal into the question of the moral. The nature of the language of realism then appears as the medium of morality. ;Part 2 considers how Thomas Hardy in particular responds to this crisis. Hardy proposes that the crisis of representation can be suspended in the setting of the interview, where two parties can meet face-to-face to sort out the truth from a host of misrepresentations. The interview, however, fails to function as a sanctuary. In order to counter this failure, Hardy proposes that two strategies are necessary to respond to the demand: a sincere and conscientious representation and a reflective reader