This thesis is entitled ‘Literature, Intuition and Faith’ and it aims to create a new critical perspective of Thomas Hardy’s novels by examining four of his best-known
works.
I will suggest that the novels of Thomas Hardy reveal a particular narrative concerning the idea of spiritual intuition and the Hardyean protagonist.
The discussion will use as its methodology a close analysis of the sub-textual impulses of the novels rather than the considerable biographical information that is already available on Thomas Hardy.
The contention of the thesis is that in contrast to Hardy’s expressed allegiance to agnosticism, an unspoken and so far unrecognised narrative of intuitive spiritual faith inhabits the text