The Inheritance and Development of the Traditional Culture in Jude the ObscureAbstract: Hardy subtly fused these three cultural sources of European traditional tragedies from ancient Greek tragedy, Bible and Shakespeare in writing Jude the Obscure, from which his own style of tragedy thus came into being. As a traditionalist the theme that Hardy probed in Jude the Obscure is traditional, although there are obvious traits of modernism in thematic matters. In fact, Hardy not only inherited the soul of the European culture in his work, but also developed the theme in plotting his tragedy. Key words: traditional sources inheritance and development tragedyI. IntroductionThe European culture itself is a part of the world culture while Jude the Obscure with its perfect plot derives from the European culture as well. It is not sporadic or occasional that Hardys tragic works appeared in the history of the western literature for the tragic consciousness plays an important part in that culture. So to speak, the tragic novel of Hardy unknowingly inherited and developed such ideas of tendency in its style and connotation. Hardys tragedies took the shape out of such three sources as the ancient Greek tragedy, the Bible literature and Shakespeares plays. Hardy subtly fused these three traditional sources of European tragedies in his writing of Jude the Obscure, from which his own style of tragedy thus came into being. Therefore, we can safely conclude that in style Thomas Hardy is a traditionalist and that the real theme of the novel Jude the Obscure is traditional, although there are obvious traits of modernism in thematic matters.II. The Influence of Ancient Greek TragedyEarly in the remote past, the ancient Greeks were curious about many things, including what made the universe. They had the spirit of free enquiry and were quite ready to drop established ideas, to speculate, to use their imagination and to form their own conclusions. The Greeks started to perform plays at religious festivals. Out of these origins a powerful drama developed. When we speak of a drama, we mean a story in dialogue performed by actors on a stage before an audience in other words, a play. We also use the term “drama” in a more general sense to refer to the literary genre that encompasses all written plays and to the profession of writing, producing, and performing plays. It manages to stir and move the audience deeply by showing heroes and heroines in complicated human situations, out of which there is no escape but death. Many ancient Greek dramas concerned with conflicts. Aristotle defined tragedy as: Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of the artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions. By “language embellished”, I mean language into which rhythm, “harmony”, and song enter. By “the several kinds in separate parts”, I mean, that some parts are rendered through the medium of verse alone, others again with the aid of song. Tragedy is concerned with the harshness and apparent injustice of life. It usually recounts an important and causally related series of events in the life of a person of significance. The events would culminate in trials and catastrophes of a hero, who falls down from power and whose eventual death leads to the downfall of others. Often the heros fall from happiness is due to a weakness in his character. The tragic action arouses feelings of awe in the audience, who often leave the theatre with a renewed sense of the seriousness and significance of human life. The word catharsis is often used to describe the audiences feelings. It means purging the mind of the feelings of pity and fear which has been aroused by the play. The characters of ancient Greek tragedies are more heroic than ordinary. The tragedies are usually named after the main characters in the plotting, such as the sovereigns or gentlemen and so on. In contrast, some of the plots were taken over and adapted by Hardys works. In Jude the Obscure, the figure of ordinary people takes the place of those sovereigns and heroes, that is, Hardy turned Jude, the stoneman, into the protagonist or the dramatis personae. This kind of unique and untouchable style of writing indicates Hardys intentional focus on the people and the democracy. In Jude the Obscure the conceptions of divinity domination and fate have been materially changed and differentiated from those thoughts in the ancient Greek tragedies. Although Hardy exploited such glossaries as “God” or “fate” in his writing, they had lost the literal and original connotations and determinacy essentially. Hardys God does not outmatch and surpass the nature, but it lies in the universe and the nature. This change of meaning demonstrates that