CRITICAL APPROACHES TO THE FICTION OF THOMAS HARDY

CRITICAL APPROACHES TO THE FICTION OF THOMAS HARDY

CRITICAL APPROACHES TO THE FICTION OF THOMAS HARDY Edited by DALE KRAMER Professor of English University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign M MACMILLAN

Selection, editorial matter and chapter 1 Dale Kramer 1979. Chapter 2 Daniel R. Schwarz 1979. Chapter 3 W. J. Keith 1979. Chapter 4 Peter J. Casagrande 1979. Chapter 5 Simon Gatrell 1979. Chapter 6 Elaine Showalter 1979. Chapter 7 Mary Jacobus 1979. Chapter 8 Leon Waldoff 1979. Chapter 9 Richard C. Carpenter 1979. Chapter 10 Michael Ryan 1979. Chapter 11 David Lodge 1979. Chapter 12 James R. Kincaid 1979. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1990 978-0-333-23756-4 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First edition 1979 Reprinted 1990 Published l7y THE MACMILlAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in Delhi Dublin Hong Kongjohannesburg Lagos Melbourne New York Singapore Tokyo British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Critical approaches to the fiction of Thomas Hardy 1. Hardy, Thomas, b. 1840- Criticism and interpretation I. Kramer, Dale 823.8 PR4754 ISBN 978-1-349-03782-7 ISBN 978-1-349-03780-3 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-03780-3

Contents Textual Note Notes on the Contributors vii IX Making Approaches to Hardy Dale Kramer 2 Beginnings and Endings in Hardy's Major Fiction Daniel R. Schwarz I 7 3 A Regional Approach to Hardy's Fiction W.]. Keith 36 4 A New View of Bathsheba Everdene Peter ]. Casagrande 50 5 Hardy the Creator: Far from the Madding Crowd Simon Gatrell 74 6 The Unmanning of the Mayor of Casterbridge Elaine Showalter 99 7 Tree and Machine: The Woodlanders Mary Jacobus I I6 8 Psychological Determinism in Tess of the d' Urbervilles Leon W aldo.ff I 3 5 9 How to Read A Few Crusted Characters Richard C. Carpenter I 55 IO One Name of Many Shapes: The Well-Beloved Michael Ryan I 72 v

VI CONTENTS I I Jude the Obscure: Pessimism and Fictional Form David Lodge I93 I 2 Hardy's Absences James R. Kincaid 202 Index 215

Textual Note Quotations from Hardy's works are taken from the texts of the Wessex Edition (1912-3 I), published by Macmillan & Co. Ltd., of London. Most modern reprints use the text of this edition, the last edition supervised and proof-read by Hardy. Because the Wessex Edition is no longer in print, citations also are given to chapters for ease in reference by readers of such other editions as the New Wessex Edition, paperback and hardcover, published in recent years by Macmillan. VII

Notes on the Contributors RICHARD c. CARPENTER. Professor of English at Bowling Green State University. Has published Thomas Hardy and essays in such journals as NCF, MFS, Journal of Modern Literature, and Critique. Is writing a book on the Romantic revival in late nineteenth-century fiction. PETERJ. CASAGRANDE. Associate Professor of English at the University of Kansas. Has published articles and reviews on Hardy and Wordsworth in ELH, ELT, Criticism, and the Thomas Hardy Review. SIMON GATRELL. Lecturer in English Studies at the New University of Ulster at Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Has published several essays on Hardy, and, in collaboration with Dr Tony Bareham, A Bibliography of George Crabbe. Is working on a full-length study of Hardy from the point of view of the development of the texts. MARY JACOBUS. Lecturer at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Has published Tradition and Experiment in Wordsworth's 'Lyrical Ballads' and several essays on Hardy, and has in progress a book on Hardy. w. J. KEITH. Professor of English at the University of Toronto. Born and brough"t up in England, now a Canadian citizen. Has published Richard Jefferies: A Critical Study, Charles G. D. Roberts, The Rural Tradition, and essays on Hardy in NCF and ELN. In the press is a book on rural poetry from Wordsworth to the present. JAMES R. KINCAID. Professor of English at the University of Colorado. Has published Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter, Tennyson's Major Poems: The Comic and Ironic Patterns, and The Novels of Anthony Trollope. DALE KRAMER. Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Has published Charles Maturin, Thomas Hardy: The Forms of Tragedy, and essays on Hardy's revisions of The Woodlanders. DAVID LODGE. Professor of Modern English Literature at the Uni- IX

X NOTES ON THE CONTRlliUTORS versity of Birmingham. Has published books of literary cnttctsm (Language of Fiction, The Novelist at the Crossroads, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and The Modes of Modern Writing), novels (The Picturegoers, Ginger, You're Barmy, The British Museum is Falling Down, Out of the Shelter, and Changing Places), and numerous essays on Hardy and other writers. MICHAEL RYAN. Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Virginia. Has published essays on Pater, Newman, and Nietzsche, and is in the process of writing a book- Victorian Ideology: Mill, Arnold, and Pater. DANIEL R. SCHWARZ. Associate Professor of English at Cornell University. Has published essays in collections and in such journals as MFS, UTQ, Studies in the Novel, and Twentieth Century Literature on narrative technique in Hardy, Conrad, and Lawrence. ELAINE SHOWALTER. Professor of English at Douglass College, Rutgers University. Has published A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing, and other books and articles on women writers, Victorian fiction, and feminist criticism. Working on a book on insanity and the Victorian imagination. LEON w ALDOFF. Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Has published a number of articles on the Romantic poets from the psychoanalytical perspective.