HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE H0074 9/9/00 "NEW BOOKS AND ARTICLES ON H" ====================================================== Date: Sat, 09 Sep 2000 18:48:13 -0400 From: Robert Schweik Subject: New Article on The Return of the Native I thought it might be useful to call attention from time to time to new publications on Hardy that are not yet likely to have appeared in current bibliographies. Here's one: Sara Malton, ;'The Woman Shall Bear Her Iniquity': Death as Social Discipline in Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native Studies in the Novel 32.2 (Summer, 2000): 147-164. This article discusses how a ;self-contained social unit, Egdon exhibits the capacity for stringent control that is accessible through perpetual confinement and surveillance" (p. 148) and compares Egdon and Eustacia to ideas of Michel Foucault's on social discipline in his Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Its concluding paragraph reads as follows: The Return of the Native thus retusns us to where we began, with Egdon's preoccupation with conjectural narrative at the fore.  Through his focus on the construction and subsequent demise of Eustacia's identity, Hardy exposes and condemns the destructive power of such restrictive 'disciplinary mechanisms' (Foucault, p. 209).* Ironically, however, by enacting her own death, Eustacia subjects herself in perpetuity to those tortures from which she sought escape in life: surveillance, judgment, and physical punishment.  A spectacle of self-inflicted torture, Eustacia's suicide conflates the traditional and modern methods of discipline that operate in constant tension throughout the text.  The extent of her internalization of social judgment demands that she die not merely a defiant object of surveillance and censure. Rather, as the bearer of her own punishment, Eustacia finally renders herself an erotic spectacle entirely submissive to ocular penetration and, thus, to social control. *Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, 2nd ed., trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1995). I'd be interested in any comments on this article by members of HARDY-L. Bob Schweik
schweik@fredonia.edu ========== Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 14:05:03 -0400 From: Robert Schweik Subject: Article on the Chronology of Hardy's Poetry In an earlier posting I said I thought it might be useful to call attention from time to time to new publications on Hardy that are not yet likely to have appeared in current bibliographies. Here's a somewhat earlier one, but again perhaps not yet noted by everyone: Dennis Taylor,The Chronology of Hardy's Poetry Victorian Poetry 37.1 (Spring, 1999): 1-57. This article attempts to survey all of the known evidence for the dating of the composition of Hardy's poems. Its opening paragraph reads in part as follows: One of the long-standing problems in Hardy scholarship is that of the chronology of his poems. Curiously, this problem has never been investigated in any thorough fashion. Failure to resolve the problem has reinforced the image of Hardy as a poet who never 'developed,' and has prevented the construction of an adequate chronological table of his poems. . . . The surprising fact is that, according to a reasonable reading of the available evidence, the majority of Hardy's poems can be dated within a year or with a very limited span of years; and almost all of the rest can be reasonably assigned to a specific chronological period. This essay concludes with a Chronological Table which lists poems according to the dates of composition that Hardy appended in the published or manuscript versions, or that can be determined by external evidence, including publication date if the poem was printed separately before being collected. Again, any comments on this article would be welcome. Bob Schweik schweik@fredonia.edu ========== From: Robert Schweik Date: Sun 10 Sep Subject: Recent Reviews of Hardy Books A couple of reviews published within the last year: Paul Turner, The Life of Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), Pp. xiv+326. Reviewed by Peter ΚΚΚ Widdowson in Nineteenth-Century Literature 54:1 (June, 1999): 116-119. ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ Part of the concluding paragraph reads: "Turner's book remains a largely unilluminating addition to the already ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ overladen 'Life-of-Hardy' corpus. Even the poorly reproduced black-and-white illustrations--sometimes idiosyncratic, ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ sometimes overfamiliar--underpin one's overall sense of the volume's oddity and superfluity." Tess O'Toole, Genealogy and Fiction in Hardy: Family Lineage and Narrative Lines (London: Macmillan, 1997), Pp. ΚΚΚ ix+195. Reviewed by Angelique Richardson in Victorian Studies 42.2 (Winter 1999/2000): 371-373. ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ Part of the second paragraph: "Central to Genealogy and Fiction, which draws heavily on the work of ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ D.A. Miller, J. Hillis Miller, and Hayden White, is the premise that personal histories are determined ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ by stories; fictions intervene in genealogical patterns. Spun out for the duration of the book, this ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ premise offers some novel insights along the way; it suggests, for example, that Paula from A Laodicean ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ (1881) and the eponymous Ethelberta have been neglected by critics largely because they elude the ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ conventions of gender, playing irreverently with, rather than being played upon, by family history." ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ Part of the concluding paragraph: "Privileging the fiction of the imagination over the fact of ancestry, ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ Genealogy and Fiction at times makes a fiction of genealogy. It is surely misleading, not to say ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ reductive, to write a book on genealogy which neglects contemporary social-medical texts--I am not sure ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ Darwin and Galton can be left out of any study of genealogy and the nineteenth century, whatever ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ the methodological approach." Again, any comments by Forum members? Bob Schweik schweik@fredonia.edu ========== Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 10:04:50 -0400 (EDT) From: Meg Cronin Subject: Re: New Article on The Return of the Native Thank you for the several references to articles and reviews recently published. I will look at them some time this week most likely. They will be helpful, I'm sure, especially the Taylor article on the chronology of the poetry. Thanks again. I will comment on the articles when I read them. Meg Meoghan Cronin St. Anselm College mgcronin@anselm.edu ==========