The Hidden Hardy

215 Pages·1992·25.782 MB·English

by  Joe Fisher (auth.)

THE HIDDEN HARDY
Thomas Hardy, aged about 30.
Dorset County Museum
The Hidden Hardy
Joe Fisher
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-22158-5 ISBN 978-1-349-22156-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-22156-1
© Joe Fisher 1992
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1992
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1992
ISBN 978-0-312-05787-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fisher, Joe.
The hidden Hardy / Joe Fisher.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-312-05787-9
1. Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928--Criticism and interpretation.
I. Title.
PR4754.F5 1992
823' .8-dc20 90-20637
CIP
For Roy Fisher
and Barbara Venables Fisher
Contents
Note on Textual References viii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 Desperate Remedies (1871): A Trojan Horse 20
2 Far From the Madding Crowd (1874): Priapus in 38
Arcadia
3 The Hand of Ethelberta (1876): Fanny Rampant 63
4 The Return of the Native (1878): Arcadia Overthrown 82
5 A Laodicean (1881): Made of Money (I) 99
6 The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886): Made of Money (II) 115
7 The Woodlanders (1887): The Beginning of the End 136
8 Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891): Gotterdammerung 153
9 Jude the Obscure (1895): High Farce 174
Notes 193
Bibliography 200
Index 203
vii
Textual References
With the exception of The Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess of the
d'Urbervilles, where I use respectively Oxford and Penguin paper
back editions, page references given in this text refer to Macmillan
paperback editions of Hardy's work. Publication details of these are
given in my bibliography.
viii
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank a number of people for their generous help in
the preparation of this book. Rhys Garnett, Peter Widdowson, Adrian
Poole, Heather Glen, John Barrell and John Goode all read sections
of early drafts of my manuscript and offered many valuable (and
often salutary) comments and ideas. Beverley Skeggs and Pat Agar
have both been unfailing sources of intellectual guidance, support
and common sense throughout the project. An acknowledgement of
one's parents is often merely a devoir; but in this case it represents my
gratitude for the very active part they both played in developing the
main arguments of this text. I am also grateful to Roger Ebbatson for
permission to quote from unpublished material, and to Margaret
Cannon, my editor at Macmillan, for her unflagging patience and
support.
By far my greatest debt is to Tony Tanner, without whom this
work would simply not have been done.
Errors and opinions are, of course, my own.
ix
'Never speak disrespectfully of society, Algernon.
Only people who can't get into it do that.'
Lady Bracknelt in The Importance of Being Earnest
x