HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE H01063 7/11/01 "HARDY AND TRILOBITES" =========================================================== From: "Eustacia" Subject: Keane's "Hardy Country" and Trilobites Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 19:22:49 +0100 Thank you for the article, Robert. I have just been working on an idea regarding Breece D'J Pancake's short story, "Trilobite," which reminded me of the Trilobite in the cliff-hanger scene in Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes. Aside from Darwin's work, does anyone know how Hardy became familiar with the Trilobite? I admit that I am more interested in Hardy's novels than his short stories or poetry, so could anyone inform me if the trilobite shows up in any other work by Hardy (I can't recall the trilobite showing up in any other novels, however)? Best, Melissa Phillips University of Kent at Canterbury ========== Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 20:50:38 +0100 From: Birgit Plietzsch Subject: Re: Keane's "Hardy Country" and Trilobites Melissa--a concordance of "trilobites" shows that ch 22 of _A Pair of Blue Eyes_ is the only occurence of this word (singular and plural) in Hardy's novels. Birgit ========== F Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 13:30:40 -0700 From: Betty Cortus Subject: Re: Keane's "Hardy Country" and Trilobites A check of Martin Ray's Concordence of the poems confirms that the word "trilobites" doesn't occur there, however a poem like " Before Life and After" appears to refer to a primordial time "[b]efore the birth of consciousness" when such mindless creatures may have existed. Betty Cortus ========== Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 12:32:29 +0100 (BST) From: Michael Day Subject: Re: Keane's "Hardy Country" and Trilobites I I know that this isn't strictly relevant to the question (and with apologies if this has been discussed before) but there is a meditation on Boscastle, "A Pair of Blue Eyes" and trilobites in Richard Fortey's "Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution" (Knopf/HarperCollins, 2000). He notes that while the Carboniferous rocks on the relevant part of the Cornish coast has (to date) yielded no trilobites, Hardy "needed the trilobite to stare out Stephen Knight." An extract is available at: http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/f/fortey-trilobite.html Best wishes, Michael Day * Research Officer, UKOLN The UK Office for Library and Information * * Networking, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY. * * Tel. +44 (0)1225 323923 Fax +44 (0)1225 826838 * ==========