The Dynasts

"The Dynasts" is "an epic-drama of the war with Napoleon, in three parts, nineteen acts and one hundred and thirty scenes" by Thomas Hardy, whose parts were published in 1904, 1906 and 1908 respectively. The action is impossible to present on stage due to its elaborate battle-scenes and it is therefore usually counted as a closet drama.

The design of "The Dynasts" is extremely ambitious, on a similar scale to "War and Peace". Scenes of ordinary life are juxtaposed with scenes involving the principal historical figures of the age, and concentrating on their desire to found dynasties in order to preserve their power. There are extensive descriptions of landscape and battle scenes that are characterised by shifts of visual perspective that anticipate cinematic techniques. The drama is also notable for an extensive tragic chorus of metaphysical figures who observe and discuss the events.

Hardy regarded "The Dynasts" as his magnum opus and devoted much of his later life to its completion, but the work was not well-received and later critics have seen little reason to reverse that judgement. There is a case to be made, however, for the drama's having pioneered techniques that would later be regarded as characterising literary Modernism. Moreover, "The Dynasts" remains of interest to those studying Hardy's novels, both for the insight into his world-view and for its examination of a character mentioned famously but briefly at the end of "Tess of the d'Urbervilles": the "President of the Immortals".

Links

*gutenberg|no=4043