THE TRANSITION FROM VICTORIAN TO MODERN LITERATURE: THOMAS HARDY AND HENRY JAMES

Abstract

This article illustrates the literary transition from the Victorian to the Modern period through the works of Thomas Hardy and Henry James, two writers whose works bridge the moral realism of the nineteenth century and the psychological experimentation of the twentieth. Both authors explored the tension between individual consciousness and the constraints of society, but in distinct ways: Hardy through tragic realism and natural determinism, and James through psychological depth and interior narrative technique. The article demonstrates how their works mark a shift from external moral order to internal consciousness a movement that laid the groundwork for literary modernism.