HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE H0044 5/04/00 "HARDY SOCIOLOGY, AND LANDSCAPE" ========================================================= From: "Andrew Gallagher" Subject: Re: Help ! Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 18:27:35 -0000 Dear AllSorry to take up some of your time, I was just wondering if anyone could help me out with some ideas....I am starting a PhD at the University of Reading with Prof. Bullen there, and we have talked about looking at Wessex from a Social geography point of view, looking at the link between the landscape and the imagination and other sociological phenomena...My tutor suggested to me that I read Denis Cosgrove's Iconography of Landscape, which I found interesting on the subject, but as to further reading ( especially from a less Hardyan point of view ) I am at abit of a loss.Any suggestions that you could offer me would be gratefully appreciated...many thanks for your time, Andrew Gallagher ========== Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 15:43:40 -0400 From: Rosemarie Morgan Subject: Re: Help ! Perhaps -- for starters -- you should drop in on the TTHA "Poem of the Month" series which is currently discussing Hardy's "nature" poems? Good luck! Rosemarie ========== Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 13:06:46 -0700 From: Betty Cortus Subject: Re: Help ! Dear Andrew, I've just received my copy of _the Oxford Reader's Companion to Hardy_. It's a beautiful book by the way. It contains two articles by Desmond Hawkins, one under landscape and one under Wessex. The landscape article cites three other books which might prove useful: J,H Bettey, _The Landscape of Wessex_ (1980). H.J Massingham, _English Downland_ (1936) Morris Marples, _White Horses and Other Hill Figures_ (1981) Betty Cortus hardycor@mailhost2.csusm.edu ========== Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 17:59:58 -0400 From: Robert Schweik Subject: Re: Help ! Simon Gatrell has a wonderful documented chapter with (apart from the items mentioned in the endnotes) references to John Fowles and Jo Draper's *Thomas Hardy's England" and Raymond Williams' *The Country and the City*. The chapter is titled simply "Wessex" and appears in *The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy*, ed. Dale Kramer (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999), pp. 19-37. Bob Schweik Robert Schweik schweik@ait.fredonia.edu ========== Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 01:04:49 +0100 From: Ray Girvan Subject: Re: Help ! If you wanted another text to compare and contrast, you could look at "Pavane" by Keith Roberts. Like Hardy's novels, it's set in an 'altered' Dorset; in this case, an alternate history that restricts technology to a roughly 19th Century level. I view it as an SF take on Hardy's Wessex, and the atmosphere has strong similarities to Hardy: Dorset landscapes, the dark side of English pastoralism, grim humour, and a tendency for fate to deal harshly with the main characters. Ray Girvan -- ray.girvan@zetnet.co.uk +++ Technical Author +++ Topsham, Devon, UK http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/rgirvan/ +++ The Apothecary's Drawer =========== From: "Patrick Roper" Subject: RE: Help ! Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 21:41:49 +0100 These books are, I found, worth reading on the general topic of landscape and do not have a specifically Hardyan perspective: Simon Schama's highly acclaimed and brilliantly written 'Landscape & Memory'. One blurb on this says "How does environment influence history? How are events and personalities, wars and nationalities shaped by their surroundings, by the very rise and fall of earth, water and forest? This work attempts to answer these questions and gives a portrait of the world around us and how it shapes us." Other books I have enjoyed include 'The Aesthetics of Landscape' by Steven C. Bourassa and 'Topophilia : A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values' by Tuan Yi-Fu. Patrick Roper ========== From: "Alan Shelston" Subject: Re: Help ! Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 09:48:14 +0100 There is a recently completed  doctoral thesis at the University of Durham by Frances Twinn on a similar subject in relation to Elizabeth Gaskell. It had a substantial bibliography which I think you would find helpful.  Also, check Franco Moretti, An Atlas of the European Novel, for methodologies - not all of them equally helpful, but of interest. And, Andrew Enstice, Thomas Hardy, Landscapes of the Mind, 1979. Alan Shelston,University of Manchester ========== Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 21:27:28 -0600 From: Harry Sheski Subject: Re: Help ! Dear Andrew: It wouldn't be Wessex - the landscape/imagination connection - but you might find Philip Grove's novels helpful. A Polish- Prussian immigrant to Canada, he was influenced by Hardy's work, and took up ideas of integration between humans and their environment. Joan Sheski ==========