Thomas Hardy: Scripting the Irrational
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1 Thomas Hardy: Scripting the Irrational Alan Gordon Smith Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds York St John University School of Humanities, Religion and Philosophy April 2019 2 3 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Alan Gordon Smith to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 4 5 Acknowledgements I am extremely grateful to have been in receipt of the valuable support, creative inspiration and patience of my principal supervisor Rob Edgar throughout my period of study. This has been aided by Jo Waugh’s meticulous attention to detail and vast knowledge of nineteenth-century literature and the early assistance of big Zimmerman fan JT. I am grateful to the NHS for still being on this planet, long may its existence also continue. Much thought and thanks must also go to my late, great Mother, who in the early stages of my life pushed me onwards, initially arguing with the education department of Birmingham City Council when they said that I was not promising enough to do ‘O’ levels. Tim Moore, stepson and good friend must also be thanked for his digital wizardry. Finally, I am immensely grateful to my wife Joyce for her valued help in checking all my final drafts and the manner in which she has encouraged me along the years of my research; standing right beside me as she has always done when I have faced other challenging issues. 6 7 Abstract Through creative practice and critical engagement this thesis argues that film and television adaptations of the work of Thomas Hardy have failed to capture elements of his writing both in terms of content and form. Hardy’s writing is infused with references to the folkloric practices and beliefs that he grew up with in nineteenth- century Dorset; much of this folklore concerned itself with the irrational and the practice of witchcraft in particular. Hardy was also keen from the outset to explore adventurous narrative patterns, anticipating literary styles that were to come and this is mirrored in the form that the series takes and the attention given to it in the critical elements of the thesis. Yet these aspects of his work have been largely ignored by production companies in their quest to present Hardy’s work to the financially lucrative heritage market both here in the UK and in North America. This is a market in which the inclusion of any supernatural elements presented in a slightly challenging manner, would simply not fit with the kind of past they are recreating and their attempts to offer the nostalgia of a safe and rurally idyllic picture of nineteenth-century England. This practice-led thesis has involved scripting a five- episode mini-series for television with the aim of addressing this situation; the series, The Haunting of Mr Hardy, comprises adaptations of four of his dark short stories plus one original episode. The scripts will make an important contribution to knowledge about Hardy and their appearance is timely in that the contemporary television audience seem to have an increasing appetite for the weird and eerie, witnessed by the growing popularity of the folk horror genre. To most viewers it will be a little seen side of Thomas Hardy’s work and the series will be as much about their creator and narrator as the stories he is narrating. 8 9 Table of Contents Frontispiece ...................................................................................................... 1 Abbreviations for texts cited ........................................................................... 2 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 3 The Haunting of Mr Hardy – synopses of the five episodes .......................... 17 Chapter 1: Hardy and the irrational. ........................................................... 29 Hardy’s Wessex and Egdon Heath ....................................................... 31 Egdon Heath’s Mephistophelian Visitants ........................................... 34 Diggory Venn, Mop Ollamoor and the Freudian Uncanny .................. 40 Skimmington-rides, ghostly coaches and other superstitions ............... 42 Hardy: death, the grave, faith and the Church ...................................... 46 Chapter 2: The Scripts, The Haunting of Mr Hardy………………………55 The Fiddler of the Reels ....................................................................... 55 The Three Strangers ........................................................................... 137 The Withered Arm .............................................................................. 199 The Grave by the Handpost ............................................................... 261 Afterwards .......................................................................................... 323 Chapter 3: Hardy’s novelistic method and style ........................................ 385 The Poor Man and the Lady and The Hand of Ethelberta ................. 386 Hardy adapting Hardy ........................................................................ 392 Hardy and Coincidence ...................................................................... 395 Hardy’s range of narrative perspectives ............................................. 397 Hardy and the visual arts .................................................................... 400 Hardy and Surrealism. ........................................................................ 404 Chapter 4: Television and Film ................................................................... 409 Adaptation ………………………………………………………….. 409 Contents of Contemporary Television Drama .................................... 413 The Delivery of Contemporary Television Drama ............................. 419 Heritage Drama .................................................................................. 421 Folk Horror and the English Eerie ...................................................... 426 The Haunting of Mr Hardy ................................................................. 430 10 Conclusion……….……….……….……….……….……….……….………449 Bibliography .................................................................................................. 453 Filmography .................................................................................................. 465 NB: The scripts form an integral part of the thesis and therefore follow linear page numbering. To ensure that they retain their integrity as scripts they also include their own page numbers and these numbers are used for reference in the body of the thesis. 13 72 Frontispiece This thesis offers a rare opportunity for the curious to glimpse the eerie antics of the Mephistophelian visitants as they tread and dance over the history encrusted soil of Egdon Heath, in Thomas Hardy’s Wessex. Rare, because little in the way of page-to- screen adaptation has dared to show the Conjurors at work trying to undo the whispers of the Witches as they hag-ride and donate their evil-eye upon the innocent; no sound has ever been captured of the haunting magic of the fiddler’s strings as demented children lose the ability to control their limbs and join the young women weeping and wanting. Let us walk with Hardy as he meanders his way down the memory lane of a vanishing world, a pathway so often ignored. Let us witness the hangman’s knot on the way to the handpost by the cross-roads and show to all the reddle-man painted in dread, there for the sake of the ache in the stake driven through the heart of the dead. The tales should be told away from the lure of the heritage dollar and the critical remarks of the teacher or scholar; told as they were always meant to be told, from mother to daughter, mother to son, to everyone, passed on and on. These were the stories young Tommy was fed, about the ancient and recent just dead, there beneath the soil of secrets, the space he named Egdon Heath. 2 3 72 Abbreviations for texts cited Blue Eyes A Pair of Blue Eyes Crowd Far from the Madding Crowd Ethelberta The Hand of Ethelberta The Fiddler The Fiddler of the Reels Jude Jude the ObsCure Tess Tess of the d’Urbervilles The Mayor The Mayor of Casterbridge The Return The Return of the Native Wayfarers The Three Wayfarers Woodlanders The Woodlanders 3 72 Introduction Thomas Hardy is regarded as one of the leading literary figures of the nineteenth century, a novel such as Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) considered a ‘classic’ along with novels by Dickens, Eliot, Austen and others. This is owing, as Pierre Bourdieu suggests, to 'their consecration, and therefore their widespread durable market, to the educational system' (1986, p.153). These writers and their work were rapidly commandeered and adapted into the service of the audio-visual domain in the BBC’s early stages in 1936, informed by its Reithian responsibilities for educating and entertaining the public. Since that time adaptations of ‘the classics’ seem to have pleased and satisfied the viewing public in what appears to be their never ending appetite for film and television adaptations. As Neil Sinyard states, the ‘legacy of the nineteenth-century novel is the twentieth-century