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At the risk of being a bit flippant, how about "If you've sworn off Hardy

and think he's so depressing, why were you wasting your time looking him up

on Google?"

regards

Gary Alderson

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 7:07 PM

Subject: Depressing Subject

A friend of mine suggests the following response:

Dear ________,

Thank you for your comments. In our experience, readers depressed by Hardy

respond well to conventional treatments for depression. We have not

completed our "Drugs for reading Hardy" web site yet, so please consult

Antidepressants can be dangerous and should be used only as prescribed by a

competent physician. If you call your physician and ask for a "pre-Hardy

Physical" he will know what you are looking for.

Ordinarily, treatment should commence at least one month prior to reading

Hardy's lighter works, and at least two months prior to reading Jude the

Obscure. An exception is Under the Greenwood Tree, which can be read

without the aid of antidepressants. Self-medication by heavy drinking is

not recommended.

Regards,

Chuck Anesi

office 612-667-9518

cell 612-940-3345

This is one of those, "where do I begin?" kind of messages, so I guess I'll

pick a point of entry with the writer's constant repetition of the word

"depressing," which Betty cleverly plays on in her subject line. The word

is itself depressingly (couldn't resist) imprecise, since it is a completely

subjective evaluation outside of a clinical diagnosis, which is not what

we're doing here. I might be "depressed" by the relentlessly mindless

high-jinks of certain television sitcoms whose purpose is (theoretically) to

create the exact opposite effect, or by a very bad production of *A Comedy

of Errors,* or by confronting the forty-fifth undergraduate essay out my

pile of sixty. Are these the same responses? Who knows?

So one way to respond would be to move out of this extremely inexact frame

of reference and into a potentially more precise one. Hardy is not a

"depressing" writer--he is (often, not always) a tragic writer. Tragedy, as

an aesthetic form, when done well, leads to the opposite of depression,

whether you want to term the response catharsis or not. It potentially

energizes its audience through the empathy generated and/or through the

desire to change the tragic situation so that it can't happen again ("If a

way to the better there be / It exacts a full look at the worst"). Now of

course Hardy was fully aware that not everyone reacts well to tragedy, and

it seems to me that Betty's "inquirer" is one of those people who cannot

accept the demands of the form, which are, of course, that you are forced to

confront pain, suffering, and their results. The short answer to the

question "Why does Hardy seem to remain a popular enduring writer" is that

(luckily) there are large numbers of people who still have the ability to

appreciate the modes and effects of tragedy. This is connected with Hardy's

skill as a writer, since obviously form and content cannot be divorced, as

this writer seems to want to believe in his/her "surmise that people enjoy

his rich descriptive style & either don't mind the truly depressing nature

of his writing, or they actually enjoy it." The bemusement of that "or they

actually enjoy it" is rather sad, since it seems to reveal a complete

incomprehension of tragic effect. But of course I'm not sure we're dealing

with an especially sophisticated reader. The idea that "the 'selling of

his wife' [is] the 'hook'" to *The Mayor of Casterbridge* is almost too

naive to believe. The "hook" is, as the subtitle makes overt, Henchard's

character, and the fact that this person never got far enough into the novel

to figure that out reveals a great deal. And then to use the movie to

confirm one's mistaken impression; well, how does one respond to that? In

my own case it was my encounter with *Tess of the d'Urberilles* in high

school that drew me instantly to Hardy, and the fact that at the same stage

of schooling it didn't present anything that this writer could "relate to"

(another phrase so imprecise as to be meaningless) possibly says more about

her/him than about the book.

So, to end more placatingly, perhaps Betty might gently suggest to this

writer that an understanding of tragedy and its effects would help towards

an understanding of Hardy's continuing popularity, and kindly imply that a

more open-minded response to that mode would provide extended possibilities

of literary enjoyment which are the opposite of "depressing."

Richard Nemesvari

Department of English

St. Francis Xavier University

    Sir:     Let me reply to your query about Tom Hardy's work. I am not in the academic arena, but have a keen interest in the locale of nearly all of Hardy's novels.  My great grandparents were both related to him through the families Whittle and Samways.  Both of those families appear in Hardy's novels, much tongue in cheek.  Hardy portrays many of them as drunks and worthless indolents. Inside joke, you see.

    I did not start reading Hardy until I was well into my 60s.  In 1996 I found out where in England my great grandparents, Sarah and John Bridle, emigrated from. It turned out to be Dorset. It turned out to be the Workhouse at Cerne Abbas.  From that time, I have devoured all of the available Dorset genealogical and historical material available.

    I mention the genealogical and historical essence of his novels because Hardy is a regional writer who wrote stories about the English country folk in that context. Tess gets into a web of trouble because of her genealogy. Jude goes down a rocky road because he is a round peg in a square hole of the eletist English school system of the time. In a sense, Hardy wrote about a lot of underdogs. His plots of necessity included a taste of sour history in the 18th and 19th centuries; history that might have never been published if Hardy hadn't had such a knack for it.  He furnished an laboring class  insight into the changing times of England which was emerging from a hand labor agricultural society into the age of the Iron Horse when  folks were  leaving their villages for a career in the new age.

    When I first started reading Hardy, the dreary side of his plots and characters were rather what I expected.  The struggle  was with  his profound occupation with the erudite classicism--religions and mythology for example. Geez!  I felt like I was reading a modernized version of Shakespeare.

    Now!  Why is Hardy still popular today?  Well, in my casual polls over the years the women Hardy readers like the romance of Hardy's novels.  Call it hard love, but it might be the same reason French women adored Edith Pfiaf whose life was as dreary as the Bastille. I don't think that a lot of men like Hardy's works. His womenfolk seem to always gain the upper hand.  Have you read any of his short stories?  They are rather humorous, probably because Hardy didn't have enough time to get a good old dreary plot going? Wordsworth Classics published a 179 pages slender selected short stories. The ISBN IS 1 85326 1785

    If you can put your hands on Hardy's short story, The Distracted Preacher, I'll make a wager that you will chuckle aloud. It is about a young preacher's who is smitten with a young lady villager who is engaged in the Dorset art of  smuggling "tubs [of brandy] from Cherbourg."  And then there is A Grave by the Handpost, Hardy's short story which mentions some carolers from Sydling St. Nicholas, the village for centuries of my kin Bridles. 

    Let me pose the critical question again; why is Hardy so popular? It is probably the movies. I think that Tess has had two remakes.  Jude the Obscure, Far >from the Madding Crowd are on the silver screen.  Return of the Native is not a well known film.  Without searching, I'd wager there will be more filming in the future.

    I cannot dispute your impression and conclusion that Hardy's novels have a depressing element that needs to be encountered.  Geez!  In The Mayor of Casterbridge the guy sells his wife. It doesn't get much more depressing than that, does it?  Yet, the BBC version of Mayor  recently pulled in a large viewing audience. People actually taped it on their vcr machines!  

    Wait until my novel, The Swinging Bridge, is published.  I'll retain your email address and arrange to send a gratis copy.  It is a story about the Great Depression which ironically is not depressing. LOL

    Thanks for furnishing TTHA with a dandy question.  The members will have a banging good time, as Hardy would say, to explain an answer. 

/s/

Why do I read Hardy?

Because his characters are rooted in their environment. Because the way

they react to the changes in their environment draws out their humanity.

Because a general theme in Wessex seems to be a constant re-iteration of the

Fall; or of growing up. The idyll of Wessex constantly dissolves into the

complexity of the modern world, whether vicars are throwing quires out of

churches or upstart Scotch people are introducing new-fangled seed drills.

Because that's how we are - the certainties and simplicities of our

childhood gets complicated by the world as it really is.

Because every page can make you sigh or laugh.

Because in Tess, Jude, Yeobright, Henchard, Eustacia (sp?), he has shown us

some of the finest major characters in world literature. Because at their

best they reflect everything that is best about humanity. And at their

worst...

Because in Jan Coggan, Joseph Poorgrass, Thomas Leaf, the entire

Casterbridge crew, Grandfer and Christian Cantle (and a lot more) he

introduces us to some of the funniest, saddest and generally most realistic

minor characters anyone could ever draw.

Because I love Dorset.

Because his poetry can be funny, moving, witty, and pretentious by turns.

Because he faces the possibility of a world without meaning, yet can't quite

believe it.

Because Christmas would not be the same if I didn't read Under the Greenwood

Tree - A Christmas Carol doesn't even come close.

Because church organs really are miserable dumbledores.

Because he's about the only genius in history who kept being a genius even

in his 80s.

Gary Alderson

Dear Betty,

There is no solution you can offer. Depression lies in the mind of the

beholder: a depressing event or fact or theme, whether in fiction or

beyond, can only be measured against our own inner world where it may be

integrated in compassion and understanding or rejected as illfitting and

alienating. This last -- the intolerable world --is the condition of the

depressive.

Cheers (?)

Rosemarie

This correspondent’s question — why do we all read Hardy when he’s so damned depressing? — reminds me of a question I was asked by a brilliant Shakespearean scholar during the defense of my doctoral dissertation (on Hardy). As the defense was winding down, and we were all relaxing, he asked me, "Why would a woman with your positive outlook, your overall optimism about life want to spend your time on an author whose perspective was so often very dark?" I was astounded by the question, especially coming from a man who had spent a great deal of his life exploring Shakespeare’s tragedies.

My response to him then is one I’ve often given my students when they ask why they should "endure" Hardy’s less-than-sunny perspective. Hardy combines, better than any writer I’ve read (other than Shakespeare), a soulful understanding of life’s sorrow and tragedy with an extraordinary apprehension of its beauty. It’s that combination of shadow and light, pain and beauty that I find irresistible in Hardy’s work. If Betty’s correspondent would prefer not to take "a full look at the worst" — as Hardy (and Shakespeare) require us to do — then there are plenty of writers out there who will allow him to avoid that task.

Best wishes,

Suzanne Flynn

Dear All,

One possible reply might be, "What about

Shakespeare's MACBETH, HAMLET, JULIUS CAESAR or KING LEAR;

Aeschylus', Sophocles', Euripides' tragedies;

Homer's ILIAD;

Dante's INFERNO;

Jean Racine's ANDROMAQUE, BRITANNICUS, BERENICE or PHEDRE;

Baudelaire's so many great poems;

Honoré de Balzac's LE PERE GORIOT (and so many other novels);

Goethe's FAUST;

Tolstoy's ANNA KARENINA;

Dostoevsky's THE IDIOT, THE DEVILS or THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV;

... And several other geniuses belonging to the literature of the world

...?

Yours, Eric Christen

dear All,

I  received this rather  "depressing" e-mail this morning,

For those who know depression themselves, like the poet Robert Lowell,   Hardy was and is a companion:

No longer to lie reading Tess of the d'Ubervilles,

while the high, mysterious squirrels

rain small green branches on our sleep!

All that landscape, one likes to think it died

or slept with us, that we ourselves died

or slept then in the age and second of our habitation.

The green leaf cushions the same dry footprint,

or the child's boat luffs in the same dry chop,

and we are where we were. We were!

Perhaps the trees stopped growing in summer amnesia;

their days that gave them veins is rooted down-

and the nights? They are for sleeping now as then.

As the light lights the window of my young night,

and you never turn out the light,

while the books lie in the library, and go on reading.

The barberyy berry sticks on the smaller hedge,

cold slits the same crease in the finger,

the same thorn hurts. The leaf repeats the lesson.

(Robert Lowell, in: For the Union Dead)

regards,

Anne Louwen, Amsterdam

At a gathering of Hardy editors at the University of Illinois a number of

years back an undergraduate who knew of the conference was overheard to

opine, in some astonishment, that "They seem like such a cheerful group!"

Clearly we should have been more depressed, given the depressing author we

had chosen to explore.

Richard Nemesvari

Department of English

St. Francis Xavier University

As was Hardy, apparently-- ensconced upstairs in his room "happily writing

his miserable stories" (according to his wife).

RM

"They seem like such a cheerful group!"

Dear Betty

Thank you for sharing this. The question is excellent - why is Hardy such an

enduring writer?

I have no answer and I would like to know - too.

Does Hardy endure because Tess is a curriculum choice? Does Hardy endure

because there is something about his writing that is exceptional? Is the

curriculum choice a result of this only? Is it chosen because it raises

important questions on a wide range of sensitive issues or is the novel

chosen for the wonderfully crafted character of Tess and ease inwhich

readers identify with her?

Every once in a while the identification phenomenon shows itself in

discussions of Tess on the forum. Readers

identify with the heroine despite her flaws and they protect her ferociously

(the rape question is particularly sensitive). I suppose identifying with a

doomed character could depress some people. However, I think the word the

reader was looking for is 'tragic' rather than 'depressing'. 'Depression'

and 'depressing' are badly abused expressions - particularly in the States.

I agree with the description 'sobering' or 'disheartening' perhaps even

'grim', but have troubles understanding how a Hardy novel could be

'depressing'. Perhaps it is possible in the States to get a Prozac

prescription in order to read Hardy.

FFTMC has a sort of feel-good ending. Too bad the reader didn't bother to

finish the novel.

Kind regards

Chris Cathcart

Winterthur Switzerland

Hello,

I've never actually "spoken" here, so forgive me for intruding now.  I just felt the need to respond to this topic -- however poorly. 

I have never been assigned Hardy in any of my classes -- not in high school and not as an English major in college.  I picked up Tess quite arbitrarily during high school and I had one high school English teacher recommend Jude.  I mention this only because I do think Hardy is occasionally (consciously or unconsciously) avoided because the tragedies in his work are too easy to "relate to" - Tess could certainly be one of those stories to get translated into modern high school setting (not that I think it should).  Perhaps we should be jealous that this reader could not relate to feeling sad, lonely, confused, or betrayed.

Hardy's work expresses tragedies that happen all the time (unlike, say, King Lear or Hamlet) but because he isn't a Naturalist the tragedies might be more "depressing" because they bleed into reality while remaining part of the fictional world.  That doesn't quite make sense and I'm sure I am driving all the real academics mad.  I think that the reason Hardy endures is part of the reason your reader can't handle him.  His characters could, often, exist in a story by Crane - whose work is quite dark but so "real" that it is easy to dissociate.  It is difficult to dissociate from Hardy's work because it is at once so real and so literary -- it invades all of our senses.  This is also why Hardy's novels are so wonderful - and also, I believe, why your reader cannot stop thinking about how much he/she hates his work.

I really don't understand her assessment of TMoC's "hook" or how exactly she "toyed" with FFMC, but I think it's clear that your reader would be better off watching Depression-era Hollywood comedies -- thoroughly enjoyable, happy, and completely detached from reality.  But, if she wants to read, maybe suggest Austen and tell her to avoid Wharton?

Not expressing myself quite coherently,

Christina

threat might care to look at very recent treatment of a

"Tradition of Pessimism" in relation to Hardy--

Galett, Rene.  "Ted Hughes and the Tradition of Pessmism."

     Symbolism: An International Journal of Critical Aesthetics.

     3 (2003): 191-214.

It discusses Hughes's "pessimism" in relation to Hardy.

Bob Schweik

Robert Schweik

University Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus

Department of English

State University of New York

Fredonia, NY 14063

USA

schweik@fredonia.edu

How does hope awaken? One aspect of the "enduring" is that the physical

world, inseparable (in Hardy) from the psychical, endures, palpably. In

counterpoint to the mislaid plans and thwarted dreams of his protagonists

there are deep resonances, profound sense experiences, nuances of meaning

which we feel but can barely explain -- so subtly do they creep up on us.

In some marvellous way they take us quite unawares even when we think we

know their provenance by heart. There is, in the darkest hour, a "Blessed

hope" which stirs momentarily from one tiny sound uttered in the bleakness

-- from one brief "ecstatic sound." And in Tess's darkest hour, when she

turns to face her captors, the moment is itself captured in a kind of turn:

her words touch us physically with an unexpected sweet rush of surprise- "I

am ready," she says, gently.

Hardy's world turns upon such deep resonances and permits of nothing

finite, nothing that precludes an awakening. His world is "ready." Possibly

readers experiencing such subtle nuances of meaning engendering fresh

awarenesses, such unexpected feelings of surprise or unselfknowingness come

as close as they might ever come -- in their "self-unseeing" -- to a

prelapsarian state of innocence.

Cheers,

Rosemarie

Does Hardy endure because Tess is a curriculum choice? Does Hardy endure

Dear Friends,

   What a wonderful and heartening response by Christina!  Thank you.  I  have been fuming away over this thread and longing to put in some unangry response, and I finally feel moved to add to all the other more literate and sensitive messages only this: the original writer struck me as somewhat new to "serious" literature, British or other.  Wider reading would convince her/him that Hardy's work, considered with attention, a bit of background and an open mind, would not be read as "depressing". 

   Possibly the linguistic challenge, which my students in 2004 find more difficult than their predecessors of the 80's and 90's did, could be a contributing factor to her/his "depression".  When one considers all the humour, wit, and music, along with the classical comedy and tragedy, which all abound in the novels, stories and poems, and which seem to have escaped Betty's original correspondent, one must be generous, which I am trying to be.  Should that person read this, I'd advise wider and deeper readings of Hardy beyond and including Tess and Jude  (the elements mentioned above are in both those novels as well).  Perhaps some recordings of Dorset music and dialect would help.  I doubt that films can capture Hardy's work, but gleaning his rusticity along with his philosophy might be worth the effort for this person.

Julian

Dear Betty

Just had a thought...

When you respond to your 'depressed' writer, you might like to tell

him/her about the THS London Lecture in October which is entitled 'Hardy

and Happiness'.

Regards

Angela Bell

Dear All,

I arrived back late yesterday after a brief vacation at the Palm Springs

International Film Festival, and was staggered at the number of wonderful

responses to the letter accusing Hardy of undiluted pessismism. You were

all magnificent! You have given me a wealth of ammunition to respond to

the letter writer, and I can't thank you all enough Bravo!

Betty.

I must admit I have been totally caught up in the brilliant responses to such a fundamental issue - and such a depressing question. Thank you all so much for encapsulating so precisely and so comprehensively why it is we are so addicted to - whatever: Hardy's works, the great tragedies, the condensed heights and depths of life's experiences, art, life, human beings, etc. As someone who is such an addict, but perhaps not so much of an analyst, it is wonderful to read and recognize so much that one would like to have said oneself. I'm going to print out these responses for future re-reading!

The problem, I feel, is not just this "not uncommon" (can I risk "common"?) response to Hardy, but it goes so much wider - people feel this way about Shakespeare, about classical music, about paintings, about thinking - and an on-going battle for me (with my regional touring theatre company): about drama! Sit-coms and soaps on TV - fine; but if it doesn't give you a cheap laugh or thrill, if it's serious in any way, if it uses big words, complex or even new ideas, if it's interesting for Heaven's sake, why bother, life's too short. The universal (or is it just British?) trend towards "dumbing-down", the fact that I am not alone in thinking live drama (our original art form?) is going down the pan (even if, as an optimist, "I believe in pendulums" - and that everything will be alright again one day!), the possibility that it may even be becoming non-PC to offer intellectual challenge (the old adage that culture is elitist) - all this is what is so profoundly depressing.

It seems to me - and I say this very guardedly because so many of you are clearly doing such a good job within education - but nevertheless and in spite of individual efforts, it seems as if education, in Britain at least, is losing out, is unable to build on what has been achieved in the past, admittedly in more disciplinarian times. That the gene pool is slowly filtering out cultural response. That evolution is regressing.

I know you need to be exposed to an influence before you can respond and perhaps adopt it - and this exposure is usually a haphazard accident (or a benefit of education, if you're lucky). (eg My own exposure to skiing at 28 was totally accidental, but my response was overwhelming - just 10 years later than it should have been!). But with exposure, there needs to be a personal capacity to take the influence on board, in addition to an inclination to do so. (eg I have no inclination towards atonal music, so do not pursue it, in spite of having been exposed to it. I perhaps have no capacity to appreciate poetry, so spasmodic inclination seems ineffective).

This may be a bit woffly, but I'm trying to pin down three things that need to be in place before any sort of addiction can occur - and for the arts, the "personal capacity" element may just amount to "size or depth of soul" (or some such concept).

The barriers can sometimes be broken down by spending (money!) on sales, marketing, hype - but without this, all too often one (the provider of the exposure) is spitting in the wind. Classic FM in Britain spent big and has done wonders in winning new audiences for classical music (and Radio 3 carries on unruffled providing a potential escape from Classic FM's inevitable crasser dumbed-down aspects!). Passion of course can also break down barriers - and there's clearly a lot of that in this circle, and as a result a lot of very lucky students who will bless you providers all their lives.

I guess there's no simple answers - except to continue one's own passionate commitment and hope that it's not all spitting in the wind and that the trickle of converts will continue! And of course that the pendulum will start its return path!

Thanks again for so much pleasure!

Michael Barry

I was intrigued by the idea that you don't need a prescription dose of anti-depressants to read Under the Greenwood Tree.  I know it's charming, full of music and nature and all the rest of it -but consider:

It arguably has one of the highest body-counts of any Hardy novel, including Jude: 14 children have died in childbirth in UTGW and there's a drowning (albeit taking place off-stage). 

By the end of the novel, Mrs Dewey is still a nag, Leaf is still an idiot.  Maybold has lost the woman he loved.  Mr Day is still facing a future with a crazed wife.

Andour lovebirds?  Fancy is now no longer the chased-after attraction of the neighbourhood.  She's a married woman.  She's thrown in her lot with Dick, who let's face it is not the sharpest spar in the thatch.  In fact, she's looking forward to the same life of childbearing and potential child-losing as Mrs Leaf and Mrs Pennymen.  And you can't help that suspect that, if she can't rule the village anymore, Fancy will make sure she'll rule Dick - especially if his branch of the tranting business doesn't keep her in the style to which she is accustomed. 

Reuben, for all his knowing how to "manage" the vicar, has been kicked out of the gallery, along with the rest of the quire.  The music of the church has been professionalised; and as a result the worship has changed from something of a collective act to a performance.   Not to mention Reub's still got his duff cider barrel. 

I seem to remember that, during the height of the popularity of the soap Dallas, there was a group who dedicated themselves to having a drink every time Sue Ellen had one on-screen.  If you adopted the same policy with a cider cup and Under the Greenwood Tree, you'd be very drunk before you reached the end of the book.  Perhaps this is why we think it's light-hearted? 

Gary Alderson

Is anyone else finding all this talk of depressing Hardy slightly hilarious?

Or, am I the only one....

M S Phillips

Good points. I was sorry to see the quire go, but then if I had heard them

play I might have felt differently about the matter. Still, the major

characters are spared from tragic death, homicide, execution, and complete

financial ruin, and this (in my unlearned opinion) makes it one of Hardy's

less gloomy works. Now that I think of it, you could probably read the Hand

of Ethelberta, a Laodicean, the Trumpet Major, and maybe even the Well

Beloved without an antidepressant. You need another kind of drug for these.

I really like the cider cup idea.

Chuck Anesi

office 612-667-9518

cell 612-940-3345

I'm with you Eustacia. I have to confess that I find none of Hardy's works depressing simply because his descriptive powers are so compelling that they transcend the storylines. As for UTGWT, I found it so jolly (clearly a superficial reading) that I named my garden design business "Under The Greenwood Tree". Regrettably that puts me at the back of the alphabetical listings in business directories so perhaps "A Rural Painting of the Dutch School " would have served me better.

On a different but still non-academic note, devotees of John Betjeman are enraptured each summer to hear live readings of his poetry in the achingly-pretty and dune-bound North Cornwall church of St Enodoc, the place where he is buried and also the place of the Camel estuary where he enjoyed holidays as a child. St. Juliots, near Boscastle, is not a million miles away and a celebration of Hardy's works there would be an electric - if not too depressing - experience (recriminative poems of  his courtship with Emma not allowed). Does anyone know whether such a thing happens aleady ?

Roger Williams

I'm not about to argue that *The Trumpet-Major* is a tragedy (I've argued

that it's an "anti-comedy" in an essay/introduction which doesn't need

elaboration here), but it isn't all sweetness and light either, especially

depending on which edition of the text you read. As he revised the novel

Hardy increasingly hinted, and then made overt, that John Loveday goes off

to die at the end of the story. So what you get is one attempted rape,

Uncle Benjy dead (with his corpse grotesquely propped up by a rail), Festus

and Matilda apparently heading for the beginning of a beautiful friendship

(they deserve each other in their feckless dishonesty), Anne and Bob engaged

to be married (they deserve each other in their feckless immaturity), and

the one clearly noble and honest character marching out to be slaughtered

like so many others in the Peninsular War. It isn't in the same league as

"Done because we are too menny," but it isn't a laugh-riot either.

Richard Nemesvari

Department of English

St. Francis Xavier University

Agree that The Trumpet Major is not devoid of sorrowful events, though the

death of the aged Uncle Benjy from heart failure did not seem all that sad,

and it was not a big surprise to learn at the end that John Loveday would

not return from the wars. I didn't much like the guy anyway -- he was too

much of a prude.

In Tom Sawyer, Dr. Robinson is murdered; Injun Joe stalks the Widow Douglas

with the intention of slitting her nose and ears, then stalks Tom, and then

ends up slowly starving to death after being immured in a cave. All this

does not keep Tom Sawyer from being classified as humorous fiction.

Chuck Anesi

office 612-667-9518

cell 612-940-3345

-----Original Message-----

Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 8:53 AM

Subject: The Trumpet-Major and Depressing Hardy

I'm not about to argue that *The Trumpet-Major* is a tragedy (I've argued

that it's an "anti-comedy" in an essay/introduction which doesn't need

elaboration here), but it isn't all sweetness and light either, especially

depending on which edition of the text you read. As he revised the novel

Hardy increasingly hinted, and then made overt, that John Loveday goes off

to die at the end of the story. So what you get is one attempted rape,

Uncle Benjy dead (with his corpse grotesquely propped up by a rail), Festus

and Matilda apparently heading for the beginning of a beautiful friendship

(they deserve each other in their feckless dishonesty), Anne and Bob engaged

to be married (they deserve each other in their feckless immaturity), and

the one clearly noble and honest character marching out to be slaughtered

like so many others in the Peninsular War. It isn't in the same league as

"Done because we are too menny," but it isn't a laugh-riot either.

Richard Nemesvari

Department of English

St. Francis Xavier University

I think it's interesting to link *Tom Sawyer* and *The Trumpet-Major,*

because you could argue that Twain and Hardy are doing something similar.

They create audience expectations for a kind of comedy, and then deliver

something else. Hardy does this by providing apparently "classical" comic

figures--the miser, the miles gloriosus, the light-hearted sailor, the

faithful solider, the fickle heroine, and then placing them in a courtship

plot, all of which seems to promise one kind of fiction, which is then

subverted by what actually happens. The miles gloriosus tries to rape the

heroine; the miser isn't just chastened and shown the error of his ways, he

dies; the light-hearted sailor is a fool and something of a knave; and the

faithful soldier not only doesn't get the girl, but he goes off to be

killed, which is what soldiers do, but not in romantic comedies. Hardy's

manipulation of generic expectations is consistent in both the "major" and

"minor" works, which is one of the reasons that distinction is problematic.

*Tom Sawyer* is often, as you say, classified as "humorous fiction," but I'd

be more comfortable calling it satire. Satire can, of course, contain

humour, but it usually produces uncomfortable laughter, as is most clear

with Swift. Twain is mocking the kinds of "frontier" romances that were so

popular at the time (Twain detested Fenimore Cooper), and the dark edges of

his plot are meant to show up the unpleasant truths about frontier

experience. That Tom is himself so enamored of "lighting out for the

territory" makes him a stand-in for the naive reader, and we are meant to

be educated along with him. Like Hardy, Twain sets up his audience, but I

think Hardy packs more of a punch (but then I would think that, given the

discussion list in which we are participating).

And finally, I wouldn't call John Loveday a "prude." Hardy clearly

indicates John's passionate desire for Anne, which is not prudish at all,

but his love for his brother, and what he perceives as his duty towards him,

force him to restrain it. At the end of the story Anne explicitly asserts

that her feelings for Bob represent her "true" love, and that her brief

encouragement of John was based on a sense of HIS love for her, and on her

wounded pride. In other words, she actually does love the unworthy brother,

not the worthy one. This isn't exactly unheard of in life, but it's pretty

close to heresy in comedy and romance.

Richard Nemesvari

Department of English

St. Francis Xavier University

Richard Thank you for a very interesting and worth analysis of The

Trumpet-Major. John Bridell, Minneapolis

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 8:52 AM

Subject: Re: The Trumpet-Major and Depressing Hardy

Richard Thank you for a very interesting and worth analysis of The

Trumpet-Major. John Bridell, Minneapolis

=========================================================

Dear Betty

Do you think your correspondent might be interested in this conference? If

so, do please forward my email.

All best, Angelique

Chicago

--

Dr Angelique Richardson

Senior Lecturer

School Admissions Tutor

School of English

University of Exeter

Queen's Building

The Queen's Drive

Exeter

EX4 4QH

UK

Telephone: ++(44) (0) 1392 264354

Good observations, but this has wandered away from the original question,

which was, do a few sad events make The Trumpet Major a depressing work?

Answer must be no. Humorous works of any complexity at all contain events

and reversals that, taken in isolation, seem sad or even depressing. Thus

the Tom Sawyer example. Our English friends would probably find Vanity

Fair, in which George Osborne is killed at Waterloo leaving Amelia Sedley a

widow, John Sedley goes bankrupt, and Jos Sedley is possibly killed by Becky

Sharp, to be an even better example.

John Loveday's prudery is demonstrated by his meddling in his brother's

romance and sending Matilda away because of her past as -- gasp -- an

actress. I realize, of course, that in the nineteenth century "actress" and

"strumpet" were practically synonyms, and that Hardy takes advantage of this

fact. But as Bob says, reproaching his brother, "After all, she would have

been snug enough for me."

Also, can't see why Bob is less worthy than John. Bob distinguishes himself

at Trafalgar and elsewhere, is commissioned despite his humble origins, and

overall knows far more of the world than his brother does.

(Sorry for the delayed reply -- been roaming in the desert.)

Chuck Anesi

office 612-667-9518

cell 612-940-3345

I take your point about having wandered away from the original question, and

I guess my response would be that I don't think ANY of Hardy's novels are

"depressing," at least not in the way Betty's original correspondent

(whatever happened with him/her Betty?) was using the word. *The

Trumpet-Major,* like *Mayor* or *Tess* or *Jude,* presents an underlying

vision which is the opposite of "comic," even if it doesn't achieve quite

the same effects as tragedy, but the result isn't the nebulous idea of

"depressing" that started all of this off. The unhappy events in the plot

are less important than the structural, generic manipulations in which Hardy

is engaged, which are centred around the creation and then denial of

audience expectations of a humorous story. For me *Vanity Fair,* even more

than *Tom Sawyer,* isn't "humour," it's an often vicious satire, so the

"sad" events are perfectly in keeping with the form, and the kind of bitter

laughter it creates. My example of a humorous work from the period would be

*The Diary of a Nobody,* for although poor Mr. Pooter has many

misadventures, and often feels very put-upon, there is no serious subtext in

the work at all, which there manifestly is in Twain and Thackeray, let alone

Hardy.

As for John Loveday and his prudery, because I edited this novel for OUP

more years ago now than I care to remember, I have unfortunate background

information on Hardy's attitude towards the lovely Matilda. In his original

exchange with her in the manuscript, all John says to her is "You have not

seen me before?", to which Matilda replies "No." In the British

serialization Hardy adds the phrase "nor any of the ---th Dragoons?" In the

American serialization and the British first-edition this is changed to "Nor

any of the ---th Dragoons? Captain Jolly, for instance." And in the 1912

Wessex edition Hardy achieves the final form: "Nor any of the ---th

Dragoons? Captain Jolly, Captain Beauboy, Mr. Flight, for instance?" In

other words, Hardy quite specifically goes out of his way through his

revisions to blacken Matilda's reputation. John does not send her away

because her past as an actress equals "strumpet" in his mind--her sends her

away because she IS a strumpet, and has slept her way through a good chunk

of his regiment, as well as misleading his brother and his family. Hardy's

revisions clearly suggest where he wants his audience's sympathy to lie, and

it is not with a female con-artist who, having latched onto a "live one" in

the character of not-too-bright Bob, is ready to cash in her chips for the

first manageable dupe who comes along. That John prevents his brother from

being played for a sucker doesn't strike me as prudery, and Bob's claim that

he and Matilda would have been "snug enough" together is just more evidence

of his thick-headedness. He certainly doesn't pursue her very far after he

thinks about the situation for bit. He's slow, but he gets there

eventually. Sexual peccadilloes apart, she has lied to him from first to

last, and the idea that that would suddenly stop after they marry seems too

good to be true.

As for Bob's worldliness, I'm not sure that necessarily transfers into

worthiness. That he is a good sailor is admirable, although there is no

evidence that he is any better a sailor than his brother is a soldier, but

he is obtuse to a startling degree, and let's just say that there are

(substantial) hints that he has fidelity issues. His last lines in the

novel have always struck me as especially crude, encompassing as they do the

triumphant declaration of his successful courtship of Anne (to a brother

whose depth of feeling for her continues to elude him): "It's all right

Jack, my dear fellow. After a coaxing that would have been enough to win

three ordinary Englishwomen, five French, and ten mulotters she has to-day

agree to bestow her hand upon me." Hmmm. One is left to wonder just how

many women Bob has bedded while Anne was waiting at home. Typical sailor

behaviour, perhaps, but not exactly "worthy." I have a hard time picturing

Bob engaging in the kind of self-control which characterizes his brother,

and he certainly doesn't have either his intelligence or his delicacy. Like

*Under the Greenwood Tree* and *A Laodicean,* we end with a marriage, but

there doesn't seem to be much comic resolution in the resulting unions.

But this is much too long a message. Obviously I have an unhealthy

investment in *The Trumpet-Major*--I should really get myself a hobby.

Richard Nemesvari

Department of English

St. Francis Xavier University

I take your point about having wandered away from the original question, and

I guess my response would be that I don't think ANY of Hardy's novels are

"depressing," at least not in the way Betty's original correspondent

(whatever happened with him/her Betty?) was using the word.

I sent him a condensed version of some of the excellent responses Forum

members offered Richard. His reply was disgruntled non-acceptance of any

defense of Hardy. As he appeared to be beyond any change of heart I

decided to leave it at that.

Betty

Of course Matilda was a strumpet -- I was just observing the amusing 19th

century device of using "actress" as a proxy for "strumpet", saving the

author from using the S word. But Bob Loveday was a lusty sailor and felt

that a strumpet was snug enough for him. Seems to me this shows his moral

honesty. Why would he expect in another a chastity that he did not practice

himself? This also shows John's dishonesty in censuring Matilda. Surely

Hardy did not expect us to believe that John had no experience with women.

I think the evidence that Bob was a better sailor than John was a soldier

can be deduced from Bob's attaining, for his distinguished service, a naval

rank equivalent to that of an army captain, while his brother is stuck as a

trumpet major -- good for an enlisted man but hardly at the level of a

captaincy.

Apparently I am the only living person who finds Vanity Fair and Tom Sawyer

amusing, and will not attempt any further examples.

Yu do

Chuck Anesi

office 612-667-9518

cell 612-940-3345

Hi Betty,

I suppose that was probably a predictable reaction. Oh well, thanks for

trying.

Richard Nemesvari

Department of English

St. Francis Xavier University

I'll get depressed if I can't laugh out loud at VANITY FAIR.

I'm with both you and Chuck. I find *Vanity Fair* amusing, but I don't find

it especially "humorous," which is probably a metaphysical distinction

perculiar to myself. What I find depressing is that Betty's original

correspondent isn't willing to accept any rationale for the enjoyment of

Hardy, and has simply washed his hands of the author. Pity.

Richard Nemesvari

Department of English

St. Francis Xavier University