| H03074 MOLLY LEFEBURE'S BOOK CONTINUED 8/24/03 HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE |
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Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2003 13:22:31 -0700 From: Betty Cortus <hardycor@owl.csusm.edu> Subject: Sensationalism in Tess
Your discussion of sensationalism, Richard, reminded me of something I read this morning in Molly Lebebure's _Thomas Hardy's World_, (Knickerbocker P, 1997), a book I've promised to review for Shannon. In Lefebure's comments on _Tess of the d'Urbervilles_ she writes:
" . . . Hardy's genius as a story-teller bore the reader along a plot as melodramatic and objectively unconvincing as ever was penned."
She goes on to praise the novel as "compulsiveÓ and "impossible to put down" (90). But I must say I was a little taken aback by such a strong charge of sensationalism, even although Tess does have its melodramatic moments (blood dripping from the ceiling etc.). However, if she means it in the sense you quote below, such a claim becomes a little easier to understand.
Betty
Richard wrote in part: Further, one of sensation fiction's goals was (obviously) to be "sensual" and to provoke the "senses," as Ann Cvetkovich has pointed out. |
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From: "Richard Nemesvari" <rnemesva@stfx.ca> Subject: Re: Sensationalism in Tess Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 12:34:23 -0300
I think to describe the plot of *Tess* as "objectively unconvincing" is rather extreme, but it does demonstrate the sort of critical orientation which has often been applied to Hardy, and which I don't think works very well. The assumption that Hardy is trying to be realistic, that he is interested in mimetic verisimilitude, simply isn't supported by many of his texts, or by his own statements on his fiction. I hate to drag this back to genre, but Hardy's radical mixing of forms, including such reprobated styles as melodrama and sensationalism, prevent the kind of unified response aimed for in English realism. Hardy has no particular desire to be "convincing" in the style of Austen, Eliot, or James, and this is a strength of his, rather than a weakness that needs to explained away by saying his novels are "compulsive" and "impossible to put down" DESPITE his style. And this isn't just me being a crank. Peter Widdowson, Linda Shires, and others have been advancing this idea for several years.
There has been an increasing scholarly effort to demonstrate that the denigration of sensationalism had as much to do with literary ideology as it did with objective evaluations of literary quality, and the luckiest thing that happened to Dickens was that his fame was established before the sensation fiction debates of the 1860s, otherwise he might have ended up on the B-list with Braddon and his friend Wilkie Collins (ok, that's somewhat excessive). TH may have sleep-walking scenes and blood dripping through a ceiling, but Dickens has spontaneous combustion, ghosts, mysterious disappearances/reappearances, doppelgangers, dwarves, and death by being run over by a train, and you name it. You want a plot that's "objectively unconvincing," have a look at *Nicholas Nickleby.* Hardy, who began writing on the other side of the sensation fiction divide, a divide marked by the rise of Eliot and her approach to fiction, has never fit into the paradigm established at the time, as his dismissal by Leavis demonstrates.
So, if we can accept that Hardy is sensational, the issue then becomes how does he USE sensationalism to achieve his goals. My position is that he uses it very well indeed, since it allows him to explore controversial issues of gender, class, and sexuality, and *Tess* is a prime example of that.
Richard Nemesvari Department of English St. Francis Xavier University rnemesva@stfx.ca |
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Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 10:32:37 -0600 Subject: Re: Sensationalism in Tess From: Joan Sheski <harrys@cnetco.com>
Many contemporary readers seem unable to leave the boundaries of today's societal assumptions, freedoms, and something else - perhaps a numbing of expression or the heights of an ironic world - to see the depths of feeling Hardy achieved by describing sensational events with understated delivery - and as well they make the mistake of reducing an entity like Tess to merely an individual - when seen in the context of her more universal representations, what on the individual plane is sensational, even hysterical (get out the valium, drug it all away) becomes on the mythical plane or universal plane, tragic. Joan Sheski |
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Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 10:39:22 -0700 From: Betty Cortus <hardycor@owl.csusm.edu> Subject: Lefebure Book
As well as the charge of sensationalism in Tess, Molly Lefebure makes some astonishing comments in her discussion of some of the other novels. For example, Elizabeth Jane "is the most convincing of all Hardy's heroines, since he gives her a reasoning mind and allows her to use it" (75).
And of RN: "The problem of not accepting _The Return of the Native_ as a deeply superstitious work, based on ancient rituals and, not to put too fine a point on it, witchcraft, is that one is left asking, what *is* it about?" Then after a rather selective retelling of the plot elements: "Why did Hardy, a highly intelligent man and creative genius, write this farrago?" (56,57).
This is a visually attractive book--nice for the coffee table--but it worries me that it has been recommended as a reliable source for students. Betty |
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From: "Gary Alderson" <Gary.Alderson@btinternet.com> Subject: Re: Lefebure Book Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 19:36:02 +0100
I was considering the aspect of witchcraft in Return of the Native the other day (as you do). Hardy did, after all, have quite a strong streak of the supernatural in his writing. In RN, there is that scene where Susan creates the image of Eustacia and carries out what we would regard as a "voodoo" ceremony upon it. And shortly afterwards, Eustacia does indeed come to harm. I couldn't help wondering what became of little Johnny afterwards, and whether he recovered from the "evil eye". But then I remembered it was fiction...
But the ones who are out of kilter with EgdonÕs nature are those that disturb it, bring harm to others and, finally, are killed by it. I guess as well as Damon and Eustacia, this also includes Mrs Yeobright, whose main aim seems to be keeping Clym out of the place. Venn and Thomasin, living so close to it, ultimately triumph - much to the author's apparent displeasure! And Clym gains strength from being at one with the heath, while his attempt to change it leaves him weak. So maybe the spirit of the place is using old magic to conquer the forces of modernity - in the same way it does in wrecking the health of those who try to cultivate it. This is more like animism than witchcraft, however. Hardy also describes the vestigial paganism of the heathfolk several times. None of which is "what it *is* about", but it forms one of the themes along with social class, the purpose of education, star-crossed lovers, sexual frustration, and the dangers of being bright red.
Looking forward to being shot down in flames.
Gary Alderson |
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From: "Richard Nemesvari" <rnemesva@stfx.ca> Subject: Re: Lefebure Book Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 16:20:04 -0300
Sounds like the text has a bad case of "coffeetable-bookitis"--lots of pretty pictures, extremely lame attempts at analysis (usually fitted to frame the pretty pictures). I have no problem with the idea that Hardy uses the (implied) supernatural to shape events and themes in *Return,* but to then throw one's hands in the air and say that this means one can't understand what the novel is "about," let alone to dismiss it as a "farrago," is simply foolish grandstanding. You have to wonder what Lefebure makes of "The Withered Arm." Whatever this book may have going for it visually, Betty's quotations make it seem less than impressive critically. Steer students away.
Richard Nemesvari Department of English St. Francis Xavier University rnemesva@stfx.ca |
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From: Thudecki@cs.com Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 17:23:23 EDT Subject: Re: Lefebure Book
Gary, Interesting thoughts on Native and the supernatural aspects in Hardy's writing. Not sure I am qualified to debate anything here but your theories on who was more connected to the heath and nature are certainly food for thought. Loved your closing line! Janine |
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Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 18:14:03 -0400 From: Rosemarie Morgan <rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu> Subject: Re: Lefebure Book
When I received a copy of the Lefebure a few years ago I enjoyed it for the pretty images. But it couldn't possibly be on a Lit. student's reading list. The title of Chapter One speaks for itself: "Who Was Thomas Hardy?" And if that doesn't shudder your timbers take the Final Chapter which is entitled "Hardy's Place in the Literary Canon." It begins:-
"What exactly, as a start, is the definition of "the literary canon"? Learned men and women tell you firmly that the literary canon is what is taught in English Lit: you "do" *these* authors, but *those* are no longer "done..."
I guess Lefebure herself never did "do" Hardy...
For coffee table books I'd say Tom Howard's *Hardy Country* (Regency House Publishing, 1995) "does" Hardy a little better!
Best Rosemarie |