HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE HO3025 4/21/03 "TESS PASSAGE EXPLICATION SOUGHT"
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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 15:49:17 -0700
From: Betty Cortus <hardycor@owl.csusm.edu>
Subject: A Hardy Sentence
Terry Meyers has given me permission to forward this question, posted to
the VICTORIA List, to the Forum. You may write to him directly, or I will
forward responses coming to the Forum.
Apologies to VICTORIA subscribers.
Many Thanks,
Betty
Can anyone translate the second sentence below, from Tess of
the D'Urbervilles (I, x), describing certain curious activities at
The Slopes--or at least explain to me what goes on in said activities
(remembering, please, that Virginia law forbids my reading sexually
explicit material on my office computer)?
`You shall catch it for this, my gentleman, when you get home!' burst
in female accents from the human heap - those of the unhappy partner
of the man whose clumsiness had caused the mishap; she happened also
to be his recently married wife, in which assortment there was
nothing unusual at Trantridge as long as any affection remained
between wedded couples; and, indeed, it was not uncustomary in their
later lives, to avoid making odd lots of the single people between
whom there might be a warm understanding.
_________________________________________________________________________
Terry L. Meyers voice-mail: 757-221-3932
English Department fax: 757-221-1844
College of William and Mary
Williamsburg, VA 23187-87
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Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 13:03:37 -0700
From: Betty Cortus <hardycor@owl.csusm.edu>
Subject: Re: A Hardy Sentence
I gloss the last part of this passage to say that, once the initial romance
in a marriage had waned a little, an individual may be likely to dance with
an unmarried partner to whom he or she were attracted.
Does anyone have a different interpretation?
Betty Cortus
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Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 17:58:21 -0400
From: Robert Schweik <schweikr@localnet.com>
Subject: Re: A Hardy Sentence
Some index of the ambiguity of the passage is that I took it to mean
just the opposite of Betty. My sense of it was that (the passages
just before it make clear that dancing with various partners was the
norm) but that there was nothing unusual for a man to dance with his
own wife and that man and wife (as long as any affection remained
between them) often did. Indeed, it was not uncustomary for them to do so in
order not to interfere with couples who were lovers by dancing with
one of their partners and so making the other an "odd lot."
Bob Schweik
schweik@fredonia.edu
schweikr@localnet.com
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From: Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com
Subject: RE: A Hardy Sentence
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 17:31:59 -0500
Status:
I read it that way, too.
Chuck Anesi
Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com
office 612-667-9518
pager 888-278-6532
cell 612-940-3345
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Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 17:10:40 -0600
Subject: A Hardy Sentence
From: Joan Sheski <harrys@cnetco.com>
I'm with Bob Schweik and Charles, but must re-read to better assess the
context - this is the prelude to the treacle business, is it not? There is
then something about rivals, and Alex messing about with more than one woman
- not just dancing. Joan
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From: Jcphardysoc@aol.com
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 16:21:45 EDT
Subject: Re: A Hardy Sentence
Dear Forum Readers
I agree entirely with Bob Schweik's interpretation of Hardy's sentence - I do
not think it can be read any other way.
Best wishes
John Pentney
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Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 06:19:20 -0700
From: Betty Cortus <hardycor@owl.csusm.edu>
Subject: A Hardy Sentence
Dear Members,
I forwarded all your messages to Terry Meyers. See his response below.
Betty
From: "Terry L. Meyers" <tlmeye@wm.edu>
Subject: Re: A Hardy Sentence
Status:
Thanks, Betty. Still a lot of problems with the sentence, I think,
in the context of the whole episode. But clearly, I'm outvoted.
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Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 16:50:45 -0600
Subject: Re: A Hardy Sentence
From: Joan Sheski <harrys@cnetco.com>
I read again the Trantridge chapter, and find a strong flavor of Bacchanalia
- TH seems to create an environment around Tess with the dance, the fact
that Trantridge is known for drinking and revelry (not industry or
prudence), and at the treacle incident the women fighting over sexual favors
& making crude assumptions - that is, one of abandon to the most primitive
instincts, and thus the sentence in which the dancers become entwined in a
heap might be as far as he could take the analogy toward orgy - certainly
toward indiscrimination among partners.
All this being part of the old pre-christian world, pre-lettered world Angel
finds so convenient, it must in many respects be familiar to Tess as the
world of her parents - later, when she tells Alex she does not love him, and
that is the reason for her refusal of him, we might glimpse a valid contrast
between the two worlds - in the old, lust for life's continuance mattered
most; in the new, love, the sense of a spiritual/heart connection between
souls becomes important. Unfortunately, Tess's awareness of the need for
this love is not met in the new world - Angel is obsessed with control, not
love.
Joan Sheski
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From: Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com
Subject: RE: A Hardy Sentence
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 18:00:59 -0700
Everybody is right.
I think what Hardy said was: (1) If current affection existed, then it
determined dance partner preference; (2) If no current affection existed,
then marital status, if existing, determined dance partner preference; (3)
recent marriage implied current affection between spouses; (4) Some
unmarried couples had current affection, a "warm understanding". He did not
explicitly address the disgusting possibility of extramarital pairings, but
he did not exclude it, either.
Therefore, the following couples would choose to dance together: (1) a
recently married couple; (2) a long-married couple where mutual affection
remained (fat chance of that, Hardy would say); (3) A long-married couple
with no affection for each other and none for anyone else (these are the
ones who danced together to avoid making "odd lots" of others, not because
they liked their partners); (4) An unmarried couple with a "warm
understanding"; (5) A couple consisting of a long-married person with no
affection for his/her spouse and an unmarried person, between whom mutual
affection existed; and (6) A couple consisting of a long-married person with
no affection for his/her spouse and another long-married person with no
affection for his/her spouse, between whom mutual affection existed.
Everybody else, married or unmarried, would be paired up randomly, I guess.
Who knows. Maybe they had a pseudo-random process like a maypole to decide
things. Charles Babbage should have applied himself to this weighty problem.
Chuck Anesi
Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com
office 612-667-9518
pager 888-278-6532
cell 612-940-3345
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From: "Patrick Roper" <patrick@prassociates.co.uk>
Subject: RE: A Hardy Sentence
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 12:01:45 +0100
I wonder if there is still another possibility implied in "making odd lots
of single people"?
I am reminded of the two men and one woman situation in the film "Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" which, I believe, was based on a true story
and took place at around the same time as Hardy was writing Tess (though I
expect he knew nothing of it). In the film, which is undoubtedly a highly
romanticised account, there is a conventional dance scene with Butch and
Sundance taking turns with the woman, a relationship which extends very
amicably well beyond the dance floor.
Such arrangements have, of course, always existed outside the gates of
conventional morality and, judging by stories of rural communities in
England 100 years or more ago from my father and grandfather, situations
like this were not uncommon. Indeed, during my own lifetime I have known of
the most complex interrelationships between people in the small Sussex
villages in which I have lived. Everyone knows about them (except very
often the resulting children) and I am sure it was the same in Hardy's
Dorset.
Does the Tess dance episode have a subtext of this kind? (I am interested
in the problems Terry Meyers still has with this sentence).
Patrick Roper
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Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 11:21:31 -0700
From: Betty Cortus <hardycor@owl.csusm.edu>
Subject: A Hardy Sentence
The more I think about it the more I find myself coming around to the
opinion of Terry, Joan, and Patrick, who see a kind of Bacchanalian subtext
in this passage. The earlier mention of "satyrs clasping nymphs--a
multiplicity of Pans whirling a multiplicity of Syrinxes; Lotis attempting
to elude Priapus, and always failing," all in a concealing mist of
floating peat and hay, does tend to strip the innocence away from the
proceedings. Add to this the still-virginal Tess's reluctance to join the
dance; "She did not abhor dancing, but she was not going to dance here."
According to Purdy this episode was part of a section (Chapters X & XI)
rejected by the editor of the serialized edition as being "more especially
addressed to adult readers." It appeared separately later under the title
"Saturday Night in Arcady." I wonder if the passage in question was more
explicit, or different in any way, in that article.
Betty Cortus
`You shall catch it for this, my gentleman, when you get home!' burst
in female accents from the human heap - those of the unhappy partner
of the man whose clumsiness had caused the mishap; she happened also
to be his recently married wife, in which assortment there was
nothing unusual at Trantridge as long as any affection remained
between wedded couples; and, indeed, it was not uncustomary in their
later lives, to avoid making odd lots of the single people between
whom there might be a warm understanding.
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