HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE HO2081 11/28/02 HARDY AND RHETORICAL THEORY" ================================================================== From: "deborah maltby" Subject: Hardy and rhetorical theory Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 02:57:12 +0000 Do you know of critical analysis of any of Hardy's works that uses any version of rhetorical theory? Deborah Maltby maltbydk@hotmail.com ========== From: "deborah maltby" Subject: Hardy and rhetorical theory, once more Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2002 02:17:14 +0000 Dear Hardy list people - I apologize for the bother, but I sent a question on Thanksgiving Eve and realize it may have gotten overlooked in your shuffle of holiday travels. Just in case you missed it, I asked whether any scholarly work has been done which analyzes Hardy's writings using rhetorical theory. I know that, if there is any work of that kind, someone on the list will know. Thank you! Deborah Maltby maltbydk@hotmail.com ========== Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 09:46:54 -0800 From: Betty Cortus Subject: Re: Hardy and rhetorical theory, once more Dear Deborah, I'm sorry that your question has come up with a blank so far from our members. This list is usually a good place to find answers. I wonder if the lack of response is because rhetorical theorists have not yet applied themselves to Hardy's work? I am not aware of any such theoretical studies having been done, but if anyone more in the academic mainstream than I have been of recent years can enlighten us, I'm sure it would be very much appreciated, Betty Cortus ========== From: "deborah maltby" Subject: To explain "rhet. theory" query Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2002 17:47:49 +0000 Rosemarie Morgan has thoughtfully suggested I clarify what I am asking in my query about Hardy and rhetorical theory/criticism. In Abrams' A GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS, (my copy is dated 1993) a section on rhetorical criticism says that it "without departing from a primary focus on the literary work itself, undertakes to identify and analyze those elements within a poem or prose narrative which are there primarily to effect certain responses in a reader" (181). Some books which deal with this are Wayne Booth's RHETORIC OF FICTION (1961), M.H. Nichols' RHETORIC AND CRITICISM (1963), Edward Corbett's (ed.) RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF LITERARY WORKS (1969), and Sonja Foss' RHETORICAL CRITICISM: EXPLORATION AND PRACTICE. Some of these place rhetorical theory with reader-response, but I believe it goes beyond that. There's also a question about how much this approach focuses on authorial intent. In this case I'm really trying to look beyond authorial intent to see how messages are communicated unintentionally. In the case of Hardy, I am interested in those elements which effect responses or create impressions in a reader, but which may NOT have been specifically intended to do so. For example, when Hardy was writing about the countryside in FFMC, did his glossy picture of country life for the workers influence readers to think that conditions for rural workers were comfortable and happy? I am looking at William Barnes' dialect poems for the same kinds of elements. This is part of an interdisciplinary study which will also look at historical sources: Poor Law union records, published first-person accounts of conditions in the countryside written by 19th century travelers such as Richard Jefferies, articles such as Hardy's The Dorsetshire Labourer, and so on. Mixing elements of literature, history and even communication studies, I hope to see what kind of messages readers were getting about conditions in the countryside from both literary and non-literary texts, and what effect these impressions may have had on reforms. I hope this helps, and if anyone knows of any work on Hardy that seems relevant, please let me know. Thanks! - Deborah Deborah Maltby maltbydk@hotmail.com ========== Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2002 16:54:17 -0500 From: Robert Schweik Subject: Re: To explain "rhet. theory" query Dear Deborah, I hesitate to suggest the following because it's so old it was probably written before you were born. But you might check my "Character and Fate in Hardy's *The Mayor of Casterbridge*, *Nineteenth-Century Fiction 21 (December, 1966), 249-262. In it I point out some inconsistencies in the novel and then argue as follows: The sacrifice of simple consistency in fiction can yield some important compensations, particularly in the freedom it allows a novelist to manipulate detail and aspect as a means of controlling and shifting reader attitude as the work progresses. It is possible to make a rhetorical use of elements whose implications will not add up to a logically consistent whole. Clearly such a rhetoric can serve the imaginative purpose of the novel if it is arranged to generate an initial image of life which is then altered by subsequent changes in the handling of character and event, and when the progress of the whole is such as to move the reader from one way of looking at things to another less immediately acceptable view of them. A novelist may meet his readers by providing a view of life which is socially orthodox, familiar, and comforting, then more or less deliberately shift his ground and, in effect, undertake to persuade his audience to adjust or abandon that view in order to accommodate some other less familiar or less comforting one. In such cases, it is not in the sum of its particulars but in the organization of their presentation that the novel will have its unity, and this, I believe, is true of the organization of *The Mayor of Casterbridge*. Perhaps that might fit the kind of "rhetorical" view of Hardy's fiction you have in mind. Bob Schweik "Character and Fate in Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge," Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 21 (December, 1966), 249-262. schweik@fredonia.edu schweikr@localnet.com ==========