HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE H01097 12/3/01 "ORIGINS OF TERM WESSEX - CONTINUED" =======================================================================

From: "Patrick Roper" <patrickroper@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Wessex - origins
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 16:13:36 -0000
 

Bill said:

> The discussion centres around "When did Wessex become "known" as a place"
>
> I have a vague recollection that Wessex as a term had fallen into disuse
> until TH resurrected it in his writings. But I have no references or
sources
> I can refer to.
>
> Can anyone help prove (or disprove - snarl) my assertion - i.e. "Thomas
> Hardy helped raise the profile of Wessex as a place in the minds of
people,
> the term having fallen into disuse prior to his writings"

As some of you will know, I have for some time been intrigued about the
possible link between Elfride, the heroine of PBE and, to some extent, a
portrait of Emma, TH's first wife and the Anglo-Saxon Elfrida of Devon
(Emma's county of birth).

There are very few Elfridas/Elfrides in English history, so Hardy's choice
of name would seem significant.  She was a wicked woman by all accounts and
one who would have been well-known to Hardy because of her doings in Dorset.
Where Wessex comes in is that I believe she married King Edgar and, instead
of becoming Queen of Wessex, was the first woman to become Queen of
England.  Thus it was arguably Anglo-Saxon Elfrida who began the process
that consigned Wessex to history until TH resurrected it.  The region is
certainly mentioned in PBE, but in the earlier Under the Greenwood Tree only
as a title: "Geoffrey Day lived in the depths of Yalbury Wood, which formed
portion of one of the outlying estates of the Earl of Wessex, to whom Day
was head game-keeper ..."  Is this TH's first mention of Wessex?  And is his
first mention of it as a specific place in PBE?

Patrick Roper

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From: "Gary Alderson" <Gary.Alderson@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: Wessex - origins
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 18:12:00 -0000
 

Possibly not, as my earlier version of "Under the Greenwood Tree" doesn't
mention the Earl of Wessex - he just "lived in the depths of Yalbury Wood".
Much the same in the wedding party at the end.  Whereas my later version has
the Earl of Wessex and Lord Wessex in those places.

Presumably this is an example of Hardy retrospectively "Wessex"-ing his
work; some of the place names are changed as well.

> was head game-keeper ..."  Is this TH's first mention of Wessex?  And is
his
> first mention of it as a specific place in PBE?
>
* Patrick Roper

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Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 10:50:46 -0800
From: Betty Cortus <hardycor@owl.csusm.edu>
Subject: Re: Wessex - origins
 

Some time ago I wrote to the list about George Eliot's reference to Wessex
in chapter three of _Daniel Deronda_, where she describes the location of
Gwendolen Harleth's home  "Offendene"  as being in the midst of  "the green
breadths of undulating park which make the beautiful face of the earth in
that part of Wessex."  As _Daniel Deronda_ appeared in 1876, two years
after FFMC, I wondered if Eliot had read the latter, and  had Wessex
already come back into wide usage due to Hardy's reintroduction of the
term, or was Eliot reviving the ancient term independently of him?

Betty Cortus
hardycor@mailhost2.csusm.edu

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