HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE HO2026 4/6/02 "THE STORM SCENE IN FFMC" =========================================================== From: "M S Phillips" Subject: Hardy and the great storm scene in Far From the Madding Crowd Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 21:07:45 +0100 Dear all, In the _Daily Telegraph_ (a popular British newspaper) of Saturday, May 19 2001, there was featured an article by Philip Eden regarding the storm scene in FMC where Oak helps Bathsheba save the ricks. Eden praised Hardy's rendition of the storm, stating that "the detailed observation and sequence are meteorologically accurate and complete, very different from the traditional, rather generic, accounts of thunderstorms often found in novels. One might safely infer that Hardy had witnessed such a violent summer night in Dorset, perhaps shortly before writing about it." Eden then goes on: FMC "was published in 1874, so Hardy's thunderstorm, if it happend, could have struck during the late Sixties or early seventies. The meteorological journals of the day turned up the closesest likely fit on 2 and 3 September, 1867. The storms were reported over southern and central England, but the most prolonged and intense were in Devon, Dorset and Somerset." I have scanned through Millgate, Gittings, and Bjork to find out if Hardy did indeed witness and record anything about the storm specified by Eden; however, I have neglected to find anything specific. I would normally spend more time perusing Hardy books for this, but I am under a severe deadline for a thesis chapter at the moment. So, if anyone can provide me with any information that would help verify any sort of 'source' for the storm scene in FMC, I would be overly grateful. Best, Melissa Phillips University of Kent --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.344 / Virus Database: 191 - Release Date: 02/04/02 ========== Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 15:55:15 -0600 From: Bill Morgan Subject: Re: Hardy and the great storm scene in Far From the Madding Crowd As long ago as 1941, Carl J. Weber argued that the source of that famous storm was literary rather than natural or experiential: see his "Ainsworth and Thomas Hardy," Review of English Studies, XVII (April 1941): 193-200. Weber thinks that many of the details of the scene were modeled on similar descriptions in Ainsworth. cheers, Bill Morgan ========== Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 17:57:31 -0600 Subject: re: Hardy and the great storm scene in Far From the Madding Crowd From: Joan Sheski The storm brings to climax (inference intended) a number of archetypal elements, not the least of them the sexual tension between Gabriel and Bathsheba. Hardy,in what some might see as the height of delicacy, portrays earth and sky as sexual partners, but G and B are present - human participants in a much greater ritual that transcends individual personality. Nevertheless, the storm raises their human love affair to vastly more important heights than it had before, and diminishes into pettiness Bathsheba's other involvements. It is entirely understandable that readers would attempt to relate such a masterpiece of elemental energy, even synergy, to the possibility of a real storm, the storm of the century, say. It seems to be, however, the quintessence of all storms, both inner and outer - at least those that fructify. The storm in The Caine Mutiny has the same greatness, but it destroys...or maybe not, but that is another story. Joan Sheski ========== From: Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com Subject: RE: Hardy and the great storm scene in Far From the Madding Crowd Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 13:05:57 -0500 I agree with Joan. Most interesting that the electrical storm is not accompanied by rain. A brutum fulmen. Certainly good symbolism for unrelieved sexual tension. The rain arrives at daybreak, after Gabriel has completed his work and long after Bathsheba has left him. Vivid as the storm scene is, I never thought it was a description of a real storm, mainly because of the long lapse between the ferocity of the electrical storm and the rain. This may be a storm pattern common in England, for all I know, but here in the Midwestern U.S. it is rare. This oddity might be of use in determining whether the storm scene was based on a specific, real storm. (Nor do lighning strikes in the Midwestern U.S. smell "sulphurous". They smell of ozone.) Chuck Anesi Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com 612-667-9518 pager 888-278-6532 ==========