Far From The Madding crows, Thomas Hardy

Far from the Madding Crowd was warmly received by the reading public and generously reviewed by the press. In reviewing the first installment of the novel, the Spectator's reviewer went so far as to suggest that the anonymous author might be George Eliot. Hardy himself seems not to have gained much confidence as a literary artist. Writing to his editor, Leslie Stephen, Hardy claimed "Perhaps I may have higher aims some day, and be a great stickler for the proper artistic balance of the completed work, but for the present circumstances lead

Also, nineteenth century interpretation said that Aristotle defined a tragedy as a certain structure. A Greek tragedy is constructed in odes and episodes. Episodes are sections that move the plot along, while odes are the ancient Greek equivalent of a song-and-dance number: a Greek chorus sang and danced, expressing the emotions in the play with song and dance, in lyrical, beautiful language. In The Mayor of Casterbridge, Hardy's descriptions are his odes. They do not advance the plot, but rather are full of lyrical language and convey an emotion, as in the following passage:

Hardy made several revisions to the novel, the first for an 1887 second edition published by Sampson Low, and a more extensive revision for the 1895 Osgood, McIlvaine & Co. uniform edition (of which The Mayor became the Volume 3). As he did for most of the novels, Hardy made a final revision for Macmillan's 1912 Wessex Edition of the novels.

"The door was studded, and the keystone of the arch was a mask. Originally the mask had exhibited a comic leer, as could still be discerned; but generations of Casterbridge boys had thrown stones at the mask, aiming at its open mouth; and the blows thereon had chipped off the lips and jaws as if they had been eaten away by disease . . . by the alley it had been possible to come unseen from all sorts of quarters in the town - the old play-house, the old bull-stake, the old cock-pit, the pool wherein nameless infants had been used to disappear. High-Place Hall could boast of its conveniences undoubtedly" (Chap. XXI).

In this, the second of an occasional series on the part played by Dorset’s landscape, places and buildings in the writings of Thomas Hardy, Dr James Gibson looks at one of his most popular novels.....

Some topics in this essay:
Mayor Casterbridge, Sergeant Troy, Michael Henchard, Antells Hardys, Cerne Abbas, Virginia Woolf, Casterbridge Hardy's, Madding Crowd, Crowd Hardy, Separation/Departure Destiny, mayor casterbridge, madding crowd, hero circle, mythic hero, ancient greek, michael henchard, madding crowd hardy, classical tragedy, crowd hardy, leslie stephen, moment destruction, pair blue eyes, campbell's hero circle, leslie stephen editor, seen mayor casterbridge,