Dr Riza Ozturk's new book, The Origin of Hardy's Tragic Vision, is a lucid explanation of the most important aspect of novelist Thomas Hardy's worldview - the destruction of self. Dr Ozturk gets to the core of Hardy's 'tragic vision' - evident in the novelist's interpretation of the dramatic interplay between character and circumstance. To what degree either element of character or circumstance weighs in the tragic equation is the subject of discourse in Ozturk's book, a significant acquisition for students and scholars of Hardy, Victorian literature and culture, or the history of the English novel. This study of Hardy tackles the novelist's formulation of tragedy as an individual's 'natural aim or desire' - and attempts to answer the important question concerning who or what is responsible for such appetite. The Origin of Hardy's Tragic Vision can serve as a handbook in the study of tragedy, from the ancient Greek notions to manifestations in late nineteenth century novelists (with reference to modern novelists and dramatists, such as D. H. Lawrence and Henrik Ibsen). Ozturk's analysis, from the impulse of character in The Mayor of Casterbridge, through the envelope of circumstance in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, culminates comprehensively in his discussion of the depletion of life in Jude the Obscure. As a novelist familiar with the ideas of Schopenhauer and Darwin, Hardy's tragic vision encompasses a brutally stark statement about the reality of life itself, and this assessment is captured brilliantly in Riza Ozturk's important book. Regarding tragedy from the technical elements to the thematic, to its special attention in terms of feminism and illustrations of the absurd in Jude the Obscure, there is no question that The Origin of Hardy's Tragic Vision fills the need for newer interpretations of a vital figure in English literature who straddles both the Victorian and modern eras. - Gregory F. Tague, PhD, Professor of English, St. Francis College, New York; author of Character and Consciousness (2005) and Ethos and Behavior (2008); editor of the ASEBL Journal
About the Author: Riza Ozturk completed his MA and PhD under the supervision and guidance of Professor Christine Kuruc at the Faculty of Letters, Department of English Language and Literature, Hacettepe University in Turkey in 1996. His academic studies have focused on an interest in Thomas Hardy, (English) trench poetry, and Post-Second World War drama by writers such as Beckett, Pinter and Stoppard. Over the course of the last decade, evolutionary literary theory has moved to the centre of his studies. He is currently lecturing on English language and literature at Mustafa Kemal University and is the author of Evolutionary Aesthetics of Human Ethics in Hardy's Tragic Narratives (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011) and recently has become a member of the Editorial Board of ASEBL Journal.