内容提要：民谣作为一种特殊的叙事策略，是哈代小说中一个重要而独特的艺术特征。在“性格与环境”系列小说里，哈代对于英国传统民谣做了巧妙而精密的安排与运用，使得它们对作品的主题、情节、人物、背景等方面都产生了深刻的影响，起着不可替代的作用。民谣在叙述中的穿插使用不仅给作品增添了色彩，烘托了气氛，而且深化了作品的思想内涵，拓展了其主题意义，提升了其艺术品位。
关键词：哈代 “性格与环境”小说 民谣 传统
作者简介：马弦，广东商学院外国语学院教授、华中师范大学比较文学与世界文学专业博士生，主要研究英美文学；刘飞兵，湘潭大学大学英语部副教授，主要从事文学与翻译研究。
Title:Hardy’s Employment of Ballads in His “Novels of Character and Environment”
Abstract: The ballad serves as a special narrative device, displaying an important and unique artistic feature in Hardy’s novels. Hardy skillfully employs the traditional English ballads in his “novels of environment and character”, which produces a profound effect on the themes, plots, characters and settings. The ballads interwoven in thenarration not only addto the color and atmosphere of the novels, but also intensify the connotations, expand the thematic significance and enhancethe artistic quality.
Key words:Thomas Hardy“novels of environment and character”ballad tradition
Authors: Ma Xian is professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Guangdong University of Business Studies (Guangzhou 510320,China), anda Ph. D. candidate of Comparative Literature and World Literature at Central China Normal University(Wuhan 430079, China). Her research area is Britishliterature.Email:songlacs@yahoo.com.cn. Liu Feibing is associateprofessor at College English Department, Xiangtang University(Xiangtang 411105, China), majoring in the study of Literature and Translation. Email: lfb@xtu.edu.cn
民间歌谣是展现民俗风情的一个不可缺少的组成部分。（剩余1820字）