DOCSLIB.ORG

Thomas Hardy's Pessimism Toward Marriage, Anglicanism, and Society

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Thomas Hardy's Pessimism Toward Marriage, Anglicanism, and Society View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Liberty University Digital Commons Running head: THOMAS HARDY’S PESSIMISM 1 The Doomed Union Thomas Hardy’s Pessimism Toward Marriage, Anglicanism, and Society Christine Mays A Senior Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation in the Honors Program Liberty University Fall 2012 THOMAS HARDY’S PESSIMISM 2 Acceptance of Senior Honors Thesis This Senior Honors Thesis is accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation from the Honors Program of Liberty University. ______________________________ Karen Swallow Prior, Ph.D. Thesis Chair ______________________________ Carolyn Towles, M.Ed. Committee Member ______________________________ Michael Babcock, Ph.D. Committee Member ______________________________ Brenda Ayres, Ph.D. Honors Director ______________________________ Date THOMAS HARDY’S PESSIMISM 3 Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate Thomas Hardy’s pessimism by examining his life and to display how three of his novels, Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure reflect actual events, relationships, and social issues in Hardy’s life. Hardy’s fatalism began to manifest itself in his early childhood, as he was the result of an unplanned pregnancy, and then later in his youth, when his family could not afford to fund a full education. As he grew into adulthood, Hardy began to feel acutely the line drawn between him and those of a higher class. His despairing relationships with two women, his cousin Tryphena Sparks and his first wife Emma Lavinia Gifford, were the inspiration for the futile plotlines of these three novels. Because of the harsh society in which he lived, his lack of money, two unhappy relationships, and the failure of his last two novels to be accepted by his readers, Thomas Hardy emerged as a pessimistic novelist and poet of the nineteenth century. The Doomed Union Thomas Hardy’s Pessimism Toward Society, the Church, and Marriage Introduction Thomas Hardy, who lived and wrote in rural Dorchester, England, is widely recognized as a major contributor to the English novel. He produced many successful novels between the 1860s and 1890s, but his most famous were his last and also his most controversial. Hardy captured the heartbeat of the rural English people against the looming backdrop of encroaching industrialism. His novels have a genuine, almost autobiographical feel because he used many personal experiences, aquaintances, settings, THOMAS HARDY’S PESSIMISM 4 and opinions in his fiction. An early novel, Far from the Madding Crowd, (1874) and his two last novels, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, (1891) and Jude the Obscure, (1895) reflect considerable portions of his life experiences. Some of Hardy’s heroes and even heroines adopt his personal qualities and go through some of the same life situations that he did. Additionally, many of Hardy’s female characters are extrememly similar to lovers and friends he had throughout his life. Hardy personally felt the crushing pressure of Victorian society, namely its rules and regulations concerning love and marriage. Hardy, and therefore, his characters often rebel against this society, making decisions that contradict the expectation of their society. Many times, Hardy felt that he was an outcast in his society, partly because his religious beliefs did not match up with the Church’s, but also because his social thoughts and actions were more progressive than his counterparts’. After experiencing years of disagreement with the England of the 1800s and having a marked desire for progression, Hardy became understandably morose. His novels became increasingly dismal and pessimistic and it is for this fatalistic tone that he is greatly remembered. Because of his difficult childhood, and his advanced ideas in adulthood in conjuction with his lack of money, Hardy emerged as one of the most poignant, yet pessimistic novelists of the nineteenth century. Early Childhood Jude the Obscure and Far from the Madding Crowd indicate the way Thomas Hardy’s early childhood contributed to his dismal attitude toward human existence and marriage . THOMAS HARDY’S PESSIMISM 5 Thomas Hardy did not have the hopeful, joyous start that many firstborns bring to their expectant parents. He was conceived out of wedlock; his parents Thomas Hardy II and Jemima Hand, were forced to marry six months before his birth. The stress of societal expectations took its toll on Hardy’s parents and was exacerbated when, upon delivery, the infant Hardy was pronounced dead. According to Gibson, Hardy’s newborn body was laid to the side to be disposed of while the nurses tended to his mother; it was not until his faint cries were heard that anyone realized he was alive at all (1). Hardy’s near-death experience in the first minutes of his life and the possible recounting of this story by his mother set the stage for a life of developing fascination with doom, fate, and pessimism. A strong theme of childhood death which evinces this experience can be found in Hardy’s final novel, Jude the Obscure. His character, Little Father Time can serve as a physical manifestation of the young Hardy himself and is used as an instrument to play out the subject of childhood death and suicide. Little Father Time is like Hardy because he is the only child in the novel who is born within the legitimacy of marriage. He is the son of Jude, the novel’s title character, and his first young wife, Arabella. Arabella tricks Jude into marrying her initially by telling him that she is pregnant. He immediately concedes to this marriage because in the late nineteenth century, other options simply did not exist, just as they did not exist for Hardy’s parents. Seven years later, Jude and Arabella meet up again and she reveals to her still-legal husband that she gave birth to his son in Australia and that she wants him to take custody of the young boy. According to Palmer, though societal laws were rigid at this time, the child would have been considered completely legitimate and Jude would have been admonished to raise him THOMAS HARDY’S PESSIMISM 6 under the influence of the church (88). Jude, once again, because of the compulsion of society, agrees to do so. He is introduced to Little Father Time, a morose and pensive little boy, who, Elliot says is much like Hardy himself at his age (15.) In his book, Fatalism in the Works of Thomas Hardy, Elliot writes about Hardy as a boy: “Meditating on what he had seen and done in the world up to that time, he concluded that he preferred not to grow up” (14). The young Thomas Hardy was himself a sad and pessimistic little boy who did not see the reason in living, and Little Father Time fleshes out this attitude. Jude and his current lover Sue Bridehead agree to raise Little Father Time who feels the disapproving eyes of society upon him. Though he is a mere child, he has intuition and sees that his culture does not approve of his father and Sue’s relationship because they are not married. Jude and Sue have two other children together, which they raise alongside Little Father Time. In a climactic point in the novel, Sue and the three children are staying in a boarding house when Sue reveals to a nine-year-old Little Father Time that she is once again pregnant. He reacts with immediate horror and blames her for allowing herself to be in that state. He feels acutely the burden that he and his half- siblings are upon their parents and takes responsibility upon himself to solve his parents’ financial struggles. Shuttleworth points out that because of the burden that he adopts, Little Father Time is robbed of his juvenility (138). The child is unable to live out a normal youthful life because of the oppression he feels from society. Unable to take the pressure and in a scene of sweeping horror, Little Father Time hangs his two younger siblings and himself. Though Little Father Time is fictionalized, he does have traces of the young Thomas Hardy in his character. Little Father Time is a child who grows up seeing THOMAS HARDY’S PESSIMISM 7 religious convention being broken or shirked by parents who choose to bring children into the world regardless of their marital status. Hardy’s understanding of his own illegitimacy seems to have negatively affected his outlook on procreation and on conforming to society’s expected behavior. Hardy was never despondent enough to commit suicide, but, based upon a letter that he wrote to H. Rider Haggard in May of 1891, his outlook on children’s lives was extremely grim. Haggard and his wife had recently lost a child, and Hardy’s consolation was this: “Please give my kind regards to Mrs. Haggard, and tell her how deeply our sympathy was with you both in your bereavement. Though, to be candid, I think the death of a child is never really to be regretted, when one reflects on what he has escaped” (Letters 235). Hardy seems to be offering genuine sympathy and consolation, but through his words, it is evident that his view on the sanctity of human life and even the value of the human existence was very skewed. A second way that Hardy’s childhood demonstrates his pessimism stems from the brass telescope his father owned when Hardy was a child. The Hardys lived in Little Bockhampton, England, in a house that was close to the town square but not close enough to see it well with the naked eye. He was fond of the large brass telescope, a family heirloom, which he used not only to look at the stars but for a far more morbid curiosity.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Issue of Environmental Degradation and Thomas Hardy's
    The Issue of Environmental Degradation And Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders Dr Gayatri Goswami Associate Professor & HOD Department of English, Sibsagar College, Joysagar India Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders, published in the book form in the year 1887 is a depiction of a transitional moment of history in which a new phase surpassing the old influences the lives of the people of that period. In fact The Woodlanders is a quaint story of woodland life focalizing the pain of struggle. It presents the story of betrayal, adultery and disillusion expressing Hardy’s acute awareness of the troubling dilemmas of a transitional moment. Here, he portrays pre-industrial England articulating the gradual but irrevocable and all-pervasive effect of industrialization resulting in change and transformation everywhere. Throughout the novel all-pervasive presence of nature can be perceived. So, this paper is intended to explore Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders from ‘ecocritical’ stance which affords an interesting insight into the inevitability of natural world in the human world depicting some moments of interdependence in the narrative of the novel. Because: Ecocriticism is literary and cultural criticism from an environmentalist viewpoint. Texts are evaluated in terms of their environmentally harmful or helpful effects. Beliefs and ideologies are for their environmental implications.(Waugh, 530) Thus addressing the issue of environment in the narrative of the fictional world of Hardy’s The Woodlanders, this paper is an endeavour to focus on the environmental issue of a transitional moment. Moreover, this investigation further sheds light how nature penetrates into human life manifesting mutual dependence. The basic assumption with which the novel is analysed is that nature in the novel is not just a device or setting, here the significance of nature lies in functioning as a parallel to human thought and action.
    [Show full text]
  • Thomas Hardy and His Funerals
    THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF LIFE WRITING VOLUME IX (2020) LW&D132–LW&D150 Till Death Did Him Part: Thomas Hardy and His Funerals Charles Lock University of Copenhagen [J.M. Barrie] was especially tickled by Hardy’s preoccupation with plans for his own burial—plans, continuously changed. ‘One day Hardy took me . to see the place where he’s to be buried, and the next day he took me to see the place where he would like next best to be buried. Usually he says he is to be buried between his wives; but sometimes, so many inches nearer the first; sometimes, so many inches nearer to the second.’ Cynthia Asquith, Portrait of Barrie (London: James Barrie, 1954), p. 107 The wrongness of two funerals and the wretchedness of Florence’s later years bring a sombre end to any account of Hardy. Claire Tomalin, Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man (London: Penguin, 2006), p. 377 ABSTRACT This essay considers Hardy’s two funerals—for his ashes at Poets’ Corner, for his heart at Stinsford—in the light of their consequences for life-writing: the absence of a single resting-place, and the narrative demands of synchronicity in telling of two funerals. This division of the body was the consequence of an extraordinary lack of precision in Hardy’s own will, the composition, wording and interpretation of which are examined here in some detail. Attention is also paid to the single grave at Stinsford that holds the remains of Hardy and both his wives in diverse modalities of the invisible. Keywords: Thomas Hardy, wills and testaments, ashes, funerals, heart-burials European Journal of Life Writing, Vol IX, 132–150 2020.
    [Show full text]
  • A Return to Nature
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives A Return to Nature A Critique of the Pastoral in Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native By Hege Christine Sørensen Isaksen Master’s Thesis Department of Foreign Languages University of Bergen May 2015 Summary in Norwegian Denne avhandlingen er en økokritisk studie av hvordan Thomas Hardys verk The Return of the Native (1878) fungerer som en kritikk av den pastorale sjangeren. Analysen baserer seg på en tolkning der Return er skrevet innenfor den pastorale sjangerens rammeverk, og der Hardys kritikk er skjult i selve sjangeren den kritiserer. Min påstand er at denne kritikken retter seg mot romantiseringen av den kultiverende bonden, som utnytter naturen til sin egen fordel, heller enn mot den oftere kritiserte mangelfulle evnen til å erkjenne den hardtarbeidende bondens evinnelige slit. Tilnærmingen til analysen baserer seg på en retning innenfor økokritikken kalt dypøkologi (deep ecology), slik den ble introdusert av Arne Næss. Næss vektlegger spesielt at ”[t]he flourishing of human and non-human life on Earth has intrinsic value”, og ”that the value of non-human life forms is independent of the usefulness these may have for narrow human purposes” (Naess, 1989). Som et annet element i analysen tar jeg utgangspunkt i at Hardys landskap Egdon Heath er en egen karakter og aktør, som gis aktørrettigheter til å handle for både seg selv og på vegne av sine menneskelige motstykker. Forholdene og sammenhengen mellom landskapet og Hardys menneskelige karakterer er videre analysert i detalj, der karakterene Clym Yeobright, Diggory Venn og Eustacia Vye vies ekstra oppmerksomhet.
    [Show full text]
  • Thomas Hardy
    Published on Great Writers Inspire (http://writersinspire.org) Home > Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), novelist and poet, was born on 2 June 1840, in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset. The eldest child of Thomas Hardy and Jemima Hand, Hardy had three younger siblings: Mary, Henry, and Katharine. Hardy learned to read at a very young age, and developed a fascination with the services he regular attended at Stinsford church. He also grew to love the music that accompanied church ritual. His father had once been a member of the Stinsford church musicians - the group Hardy later memorialised in Under the Greenwood Tree - and taught him to play the violin, with the pair occasionally performing together at local dance parties. Whilst attending the church services, Hardy developed a fascination for a skull which formed part of the Grey family monument. He memorised the accompanying inscription (containing the name 'Angel', which he would later use in his novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles [1]) so intently that he was still able to recite it well into old age. [2] Thomas Hardy By Bain News Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Adulthood Between the years of 1856-1862, Hardy worked as a trainee architect. He formed an important friendship with Horace Moule. Moule - eight years Hardy's senior and a Cambridge graduate - became Hardy's intellectual mentor. Horace Moule appears to have suffered from depression, and he committed suicide in 1873. Several of Hardy's poems are dedicated to him, and it is thought some of the characters in Hardy's fiction were likely to have been modeled on Moule.
    [Show full text]
  • Thomas Hardy and History, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-54175-4 230 FURTHER READING
    FURTHER READING (In the notes at the end of each chapter, full citation is supplied for published and unpublished sources consulted. These are not repeated in the following list, which refers to works that I have found helpful for a wider understanding of Hardy criticism and the history of Victorian Britain. As in the notes, place of publication is in the United Kingdom unless otherwise indicated.) (A) BOOKS Biagini, E. F., Liberty, Retrenchement and Reform: Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone 1860–1880 (Cambridge, 1992). Bivona, D., Desire and Contradiction: Imperial Visions and Domestic Debates in Victorian Literature (Manchester, 1990). Bjork L. A. (ed.), The Literary Notebooks of Thomas Hardy (Vol. 2, Basingstoke, 1985). Briggs, A., The Age of Improvement, 1783–1867 (Harlowe, 1959, 2nd edn, 2000) Broadie, A., The Scottish Enlightenment (Edinburgh, 2nd edn, 2007). Brown, D., Palmerston: A Biography (London, 2010). Burrow, J. B., A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Heroditus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century (London, 2007). Bullen, J. B. (ed.), The Sun Is God: Painting, Literature and Mythology in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1989). Cain, M. J., The Philosophy of Cognitive Science (London, 2016). Cain, P. J. and Hopkins, A. G., British Imperialism, 1682–1800 (1st edn, 2 vols, London, 1993; 2nd edn, Harlowe, 2002). Chamberlain, M. E., Lord Palmerston (Cardiff, 1987). © The Author(s) 2017 229 F. Reid, Thomas Hardy and History, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-54175-4 230 FURTHER READING Chambers, J., Palmerston, The Peoples Darling (London, 2004). Collini, S., English Pasts: Essays in History and Culture (Oxford, 1999).
    [Show full text]
  • The Natives and Their Returns in Thomas Hardy's the Return of the Native
    The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English Volume 11 | Issue 1 Article 6 2009 The aN tives and Their Returns in Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native Jason Burger Western Connecticut State University Danbury, Connecticut Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/tor Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Burger, Jason (2009) "The aN tives and Their Returns in Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native," The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English: Vol. 11 : Iss. 1 , Article 6. Available at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/tor/vol11/iss1/6 This Article is brought to you by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The sO wald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The aN tives and Their Returns in Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native Keywords Thomas Hardy, Victorian realist, The Return of the Native This article is available in The sO wald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/tor/vol11/iss1/6 The Natives and Their Returns in Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native Jason Burger Western Connecticut State University Danbury, Connecticut lthough Thomas Hardy’s 1878 novel, The Return of the ANative, appears to present a straightforward account of Clym Yeobright, the native, returning to the land of his home, Egdon Heath, such a simple rendering could prove an impediment to a complete understanding of the text.
    [Show full text]
  • A Commentary on the Poems of THOMAS HARDY
    A Commentary on the Poems of THOMAS HARDY By the same author THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE (Macmillan Critical Commentaries) A HARDY COMPANION ONE RARE FAIR WOMAN Thomas Hardy's Letters to Florence Henniker, 1893-1922 (edited, with Evelyn Hardy) A JANE AUSTEN COMPANION A BRONTE COMPANION THOMAS HARDY AND THE MODERN WORLD (edited,for the Thomas Hardy Society) A Commentary on the Poems of THOMAS HARDY F. B. Pinion ISBN 978-1-349-02511-4 ISBN 978-1-349-02509-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-02509-1 © F. B. Pinion 1976 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 15t edition 1976 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1976 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in New York Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras SBN 333 17918 8 This book is sold subject to the standard conditions of the Net Book Agreement Quid quod idem in poesi quoque eo evaslt ut hoc solo scribendi genere ..• immortalem famam assequi possit? From A. D. Godley's public oration at Oxford in I920 when the degree of Doctor of Letters was conferred on Thomas Hardy: 'Why now, is not the excellence of his poems such that, by this type of writing alone, he can achieve immortal fame ...? (The Life of Thomas Hardy, 397-8) 'The Temporary the AU' (Hardy's design for the sundial at Max Gate) Contents List of Drawings and Maps IX List of Plates X Preface xi Reference Abbreviations xiv Chronology xvi COMMENTS AND NOTES I Wessex Poems (1898) 3 2 Poems of the Past and the Present (1901) 29 War Poems 30 Poems of Pilgrimage 34 Miscellaneous Poems 38 Imitations, etc.
    [Show full text]
  • Emma Hardy's Late Writings Restored Jon Singleton Harding University, [email protected]
    Harding University Scholar Works at Harding English Faculty Research and Publications English Fall 2015 Spaces, Alleys, and Other Lacunae: Emma Hardy's Late Writings Restored Jon Singleton Harding University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.harding.edu/english-facpub Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Singleton, J. (2015). Spaces, Alleys, and Other Lacunae: Emma Hardy's Late Writings Restored. Thomas Hardy Journal, 31, 48-62. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.harding.edu/english-facpub/34 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Scholar Works at Harding. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Faculty Research and Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholar Works at Harding. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SPACES, ALLEYS, AND OTHER LACUNAE: EMMA HARDY’S LATE WRITINGS RESTORED JON SINGLETON Emma Hardy’s writings have often been misrepresented by Hardy scholars as naïve, incoherent, or insane. Her case has not been helped by the fact that Thomas Hardy, along with his second wife Florence Dugdale, burned reams of Emma’s papers in the months and years following her death. But the most blatant misrepresentation has been the actual corruption of the text of Spaces (1912), her last published work. Two full pages – the recto and verso of the same leaf – were left out when J. O. Bailey and J. Stevens Cox republished it in 1966, along with Emma’s Alleys (1911), under the title Poems and Religious Effusions. All subsequent scholarship, from Michael Millgate’s magisterial Biography Revisited on down, has relied upon this corrupted version to assess Emma’s literary merits and even to diagnose her mental health.
    [Show full text]
  • Abstract Jude the Obscure Is Not Only Thomas Hardy's Last but Probably
    “JOSEPH THE DREAMER OF DREAMS”: JUDE FAWLEY’S CONSTRUCTION OF MASCULINITY IN THOMAS HARDY’S JUDE THE OBSCURE STEFAN HORLACHER Abstract Jude the Obscure is not only Thomas Hardy’s last but probably also his bleakest novel. Even the epigram on the frontispiece – “The letter killeth [but the spirit giveth life]” – can be read as having negative forebodings; it can, however, also be interpreted as a commentary on the “nature” of language and on the absolute necessity of understand- ing its founding mechanisms such as absence, difference and deferral if one is to lead a happy and meaningful life and if one endeavors to claim the freedom and the responsibility to construct one’s gender identity. This essay thus centers on the extent to which Hardy’s pro- tagonist Jude Fawley, a man who desperately clings to the illusion of a transcendental signified, is able to understand and put into practice Hardy’s epigram when constructing his masculinity. Therefore, the focus of inquiry will be the hitherto largely neglected discursive con- struction of an ill-fated male gender identity in a discursive universe where “nobody did come, because nobody does” and where taking words literally has lethal consequences. It is certainly surprising that a closer look at the hundreds of articles, essays and monographs about Jude the Obscure reveals that most of these publications tend to ignore the eponymous hero of the novel and concentrate instead on Sue Bridehead, “perhaps the most remarkable feminine portrait in the English novel”.1 One eminent critic, Mary 1 Frank Rodney Southerington, Hardy’s Vision of Man, London: Chatto and Windus, 1971, 145.
    [Show full text]
  • Dorset Coast Thomas Hardy Walks Holiday
    Dorset Coast Thomas Hardy Walks Holiday Destinations: Dorset Coast & England Trip code: LHTHY-4 Trip Walking Grade: 3 HOLIDAY OVERVIEW Thomas Hardy understood, knew, and was loyal to Dorset, the countryside where he was born and lived most of his life. Dorset’s wild uplands and quiet villages, tucked away beneath the Downs, have changed very little since Hardy’s day. We walk through Hardy’s landscapes and see it much as he would have seen it, and the paths we take are the ancient byways followed for generations by people going about their ways. These are the paths Thomas Hardy walked and the characters in his novels trod. An exploration on foot of Hardy’s ‘Wessex’ is surely one of the best ways of discovering Hardy’s land and work. WHAT'S INCLUDED • Great value: all prices include Full Board en-suite accommodation, a full programme of walks with all transport to and from the walks, plus evening activities • Great walking: explore Hardy's Wessex in the company of our experienced leader • Accommodation: our Country House is equipped with all the essentials – a welcoming and relaxing lounge and dining area, a drying room for your boots and kit, and comfortable en-suite rooms www.hfholidays.co.uk PAGE 1 [email protected] Tel: +44(0) 20 3974 8865 HOLIDAYS HIGHLIGHTS • Discover the beautiful homeland of Thomas Hardy and the landscapes that inspired him • Walks explore Hardy’s Wessex and his inspiration for novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, The Woodlanders • Admire the scenes of Hardy’s Egdon Heath, Mistover Knap, Rainbarrow, Mellstock, and Abbot’s Cernal • Follow in the footsteps of Hardy’s characters such as Tess of the D’Urbervilles.
    [Show full text]
  • A Calendar of Thomas Hardy Correspondence
    Colby Quarterly Volume 9 Issue 5 March Article 8 March 1971 A Calendar of Thomas Hardy Correspondence Richard Cary Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cq Recommended Citation Colby Library Quarterly, series 9, no.5, March 1971, p.280-295 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Colby Quarterly by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Colby. Cary: A Calendar of Thomas Hardy Correspondence 280 Colby Library Quarterly A CALENDAR OF THOMAS HARDY CORRESPONDENCE By RICHARD CARY HE HARDY COLLECTION of books, manuscripts, letters, and T memorabilia in Colby College Library has been the cyno­ sure of scholars, American and international, since the early thirties. Offshoot of Carl J. Weber's interest in the frosty determinist, the Collection has continued to grow over the dec­ ades and to attract a substantial flow of queries from biograph­ ers, bibliographers, bibliophiles, harried assistant professors with unfinished essays, and imminent doctors of philosophy. Most frequently they have importuned a "complete list" of one or another category of these materials, or, more ambitiously, of the entire Collection. In the first years Weber attempted to satisfy the demand by turning out some helpful inventories. However, the dilation of items, accelerating geometrically, made it virtually impossible to keep any listing current. The problem still exists, if anything, in exacerbated form. Inquiries have been nlet on an individual basis, with pleas for greater specificity in the expansive cases. Persistently, the largest volume of questions received has been in the area of Thomas Hardy's correspondence.
    [Show full text]
  • Woodland Natures: Knowing Vegetal Nature Through Sympathy and Anthropomorphism In
    Woodland Natures: Knowing Vegetal Nature Through Sympathy and Anthropomorphism in Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders Tasha Harris Advisor: Benjamin Morgan Preceptor: Agnes Malinowska THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS MASTER OF ARTS PROGRAM IN THE HUMANITIES UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 24 May 2019 Harris 2 Woodland Natures: Knowing Vegetal Nature Through Sympathy and Anthropomorphism in Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders Scholars of Thomas Hardy have long noted the various forms of knowledge depicted in his novels. From representations of rural skills and folklore to classical, scientific, and medical knowledge acquired in institutions, scholarship has tended to address what the presence of these forms of knowledge reveal about Hardy as an individual, or what they reveal about the social, economic, and industrial climate of the late Victorian period in which the novels were written.1 The Woodlanders is equally invested in the theme of knowledge. The main woodland characters constantly seek to expand their knowledge and gain new practices of knowledge: Edred Fitzpiers pours over medical, science, and philosophy books late into the evening, Grace Melbury expands her academic knowledge and her social class through an education in the classroom, and Marty South quickly picks up new occupational trades like copse work and cider making. Categorizations of various forms of knowledge are helpful in identifying the nature of each form of knowledge—how they operate through the characters and what they reveal about Hardy’s larger project in his novels—but, scholars has tended to separate these forms of knowledge into very distinct, sealed categories that may be untrue to the novel.
    [Show full text]