THE THOMAS HARDY ASSOCIATION
LINKS
| A 37 |
DIRECTOR: ROBERT SCHWEIK
© 2000-2004
THE MEDIEVALIST IMPULSE OF THOMAS HARDY
DESCRIPTION:
Address: http://tech1.dccs.upenn.edu/~xconnect/volume1/i3/word/sr.html
Contact: D. Edward Deifer (http://tech1.dccs.upenn.edu/~xconnect/misc/g/email.html)
Date: 07/01/04
A documented article, about seven pages long, published in XCONNECT, an electronic journal
edited by computer technologists at the University of
Pennsylvania. The author, Shannon Rogers, was a Master of Arts degree student at the time this article was written.
Originally titled "New Wine in Old Bottles" and now retitled "The Medievalist Impulse of Thomas Hardy," the article discusses the "clash between modernity
and medievalism" in Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude
the Obscure.
COMMENT:
Although it contains some well-phrased observations, major elements in the argument of this study tend
to be simplistic and reductive. Thus, in order to characterize both novels as a clash between
"medievalism" and "modernity," the author conflates medieval Christianity with
both Greek and Roman classical paganism and British pre-historic paganism by arguing that
"neither viewpoint is necessarily antithetical to medievalism" because "pagan
religions and rituals lingered in Britain far into the medieval period and classical literature was
rediscovered at the close of the Middle Ages." Then, having expanded the term
"medievalism" to include not only Christianity but also classical and pre-historic paganism,
she makes widely different sweeping generalizations about it. Thus, on the one hand, the author argues
thatTess of the d'Urbervilles "is, in essence, a condemnation of medieval Christian
moralities artificially imposed on a modern world"; on the other, she asserts that it "is
only in the medieval pagan world that woman and nature properly conjoin." Elsewhere, however,
she separates "pagan" from "medieval" and speaks of a tripartate "pagan,
medieval, and modern mindset." The term "modern," too, is used with similar looseness,
so that Arabella and Phillotson are both said to represent "modernity." At yet another point,
Angel Clare is oddly characterized as a "socialist." Unfortunately, the argument of the study
depends heavily on such imprecise generalizations.
A revised and expanded version of this article, titled "Medievalism in the Last Novels of Thomas
Hardy: New wine in Old Bottles," has subsequently been published in English Literature
in Transition, 42:3 (2000), 298-316.