Thomas Hardy

In my humble opinion, Thomas Hardy is the best writer the English language has yet encountered (next to Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, and John Steinbeck, of course). I read "The Mayor of Casterbridge" last year and enjoyed it a lot. I then read "The Return of the Native" which I did not enjoy nearly as much but which I found interesting, nevertheless. I was told by an excellent source (an acquaintance of mine who happens to be the chairman of the English department at a secondary school) that "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" is his best book and is read in advanced placement English classes. Well, I bought the book last spring, but since I've been reading other works since then (like sociology, German, and history textbooks), I only got around to beginning to read the book last night. I found that this book is not only good, it's GREAT!!!

Unlike his other two books, this one is REALLY a page-turner. His undertones of irony and sarcasm come out quite subtly to the intelligent reader. The plot is engaging. He uses words like "mendacious", "desultory", and "appurtenances" which help one develop one's vocabulary (assuming one takes the time to look these words up in the dictionary since their meaning is not obvious from the context).

In addition, his characters (which do NOT use words like "desultory" but rather words like "poppet" and expressions like "Don't that make your bosom plim") are very well described in all their virtues and imperfections. Hardy makes extensive use of alternate spelling in the dialogues of the characters (except for the parson, who is educated) to give the reader an idea of the dialect. However, in addition to phonological differences, some of the charactres, particularly Joan d'Urberville (Tess's mother) also make extensive use of incorrect grammar ("Tis Thoughted", "we was", "he do want to get up his strenghth", and countless other examples).

There IS one paragraph, in particular, which I find extremely interesting and which can REALLY get a discussion going here, but I'll save it for my next message which I will write at a later time, as I must be going now...

Suffice it to say for the time being that this is one extremely excellent book and a "must read" for anyone who takes an interest in England, the English language, English accents, grammar, and all that other stuff. Also, unlike some books, this is not one of those books which you have to read quite a few chapters into before it gets interesting. It engages the reader from the very outset.

It's refreshing to see that for once, somebody wants to discuss literature and great books rather than bicker over the pronunciation of individual words or engage in name-calling or argue over trifling or superfluous matters or gossip about memebrs of the Royal Family, etc...

>>ather than bicker over the pronunciation of individual words or engage in name-calling or argue over trifling or superfluous matters<<

Hmm... it seems like you don't really like linguistic discussion, and like you don't really understand the whole prescriptivism versus descriptivism issue and why it matters... <shakes head>

<<Hmm... it seems like you don't really like linguistic discussion, and like you don't really understand the whole prescriptivism versus descriptivism issue and why it matters...>>

Totally mendacious dude!!

<<Hmm... it seems like you don't really like linguistic discussion, and like you don't really understand the whole prescriptivism versus descriptivism issue and why it matters... <shakes head>>>

Ditto.

(I think I'd rather discuss literature, too, myself!)

I was forced to read the Mayor of Casterbridge in high school (12th grade Brit Lit), and I couldn't get into it. (I was also forced to read Pride and Prejudice, and I hated every page -- but that's another story! No pun intended.) If I recall correctly, the Mayor of Casterbridge was set several centuries ago, which explains the use of a lot of fifty-cent words like "mendacious" and "appurtenances". Not to mention "plim". I'm not sure my bosom has ever plimmed. But I think if it did, I'd go see a doctor...

Actually, it was Tess's mother, Joan, who said "Now don't that just make your bosom plim". Thus, that statement was part of the dialogue of one of the characters (an uneducated peasant woman) and not part of Hardy's own narration.

Joan Durbeyfield also refers to Oliver Cromwell as Oliver Grumble. (Now that's a good one!!!)

Here is one paragraph I'd like to analise:

<< 'Well, I'm glad you've come,' her mother said, as soon as the last note had passed out of her. 'I want to go and fetch your father; but what's more'n that, I want to tell 'ee what have happened. Y'll be fess enough, my poppet, when th'st know!' (Mrs Durbeyfield habitually spoke the dialect; her daughter who had passed the Sixth Standard in the National School under a London-trained mistress, spoke two languages; the dialect at home, more or less; ordinary English abroad and to persons of quality.) >>

Now, here I'm about to mopen a Pandora's box. Are you ready???

What do all of you think Thomas Hardy meant when he wrote "ordinary English"??? Could he possibly be referring to RP??? Is he trying to imply that 'RP' is simply ordinary, correct, standard, educated, non-regional English English and should not be given such attributes as 'posh', 'snooty', 'arrogant', or 'condescending'??? Is he attacking people who attack RP??? (albeit in his very subtle and ironic way). He does say in the preface to the book that many people at the beginning criticised him for the opinions and views which are implied in the book. Could this be one of them???

...Or does he merely mean English which is grammatically, syntactically, and lexically correct, regardless of accent, when he speaks of "ordinary English"???

I do hope this message generates a dicussion which is a little deeper and more meaningful than some of the other BS that I've read on this discussion forum. (One example of bullshit being the "American sounds like Cockney" message - as far as I'm concerned GAE resembles Cockney about as much as the Amazon rain forest resembles the dark side of the moon - but we won't get into that now...)

Any comments on Tess or Thomas Hardy in general are gladly welcome.

I couldn't tell you what Hardy's actual opinion was, but many people practice what I think is called code-switching. In To Kill A Mockingbird, the narrator is surprised to hear her housekeeper, Calpurnia, speak black dialect at church when she normally speaks "ordinary" (that is, "standard") American English at home. Calpurnia matter-of-factly explains that she HAS to speak one way in front of white people -- or be considered inferior and unintelligent to them -- and another way with black people -- or be ostracized for being uppity.

Often dialect is used not out of ignorance or lack of education, but as a sign of membership in an exclusive group. Often people are smart enough to switch back and forth when they know one or the other is going to confer the greatest social advantage at a given time. And sometimes people will refuse to switch out of defiance -- one reason southern Americans take such fierce pride in their often-maligned accent is because they consider it a cornerstone of their identity -- as the bumper sticker says: "American by birth; Southern by the grace of God."

<<And sometimes people will refuse to switch out of defiance -- one reason southern Americans take such fierce pride in their often-maligned accent is because they consider it a cornerstone of their identity -- as the bumper sticker says: "American by birth; Southern by the grace of God.">>

And, conversely, people who do change their accents (whether on purpose or not) may run the risk of being ostracized for "abandoning their roots." This has happened to Shakira, who in recent years has been heard using Argentine words and some Argentine speech patterns (she's been going out with an Argentine for several years so I guess he rubbed off) and has been harshly criticized by some Colombians for it.

<<What do all of you think Thomas Hardy meant when he wrote "ordinary English"?>>

When he says ordinary English he isn't referring to any accent, rather that dialectical (non-dictionary) words are dropped and letters that may be dropped in dialect pronunciation are sounded. Also, the same rules that apply to written English are applied to spoken English.

I reckon that much of English (or British) literature of the 19th century and further back to the 16th - to the works of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Bunyan and others - and even further back to Langland and others.....do not appeal to American readers in particular because of considerable differences in culture generally.

They clearly appeal much more to Europeans who are more able to appreciate the writings and styles and share the same historical values over here among other things. Also they have a much closer proximity to this country physically, and therefore have reasonably easy access to the settings of the action of the novels, plays etc.

The Atlantic is a wee bit of a divide in this respect I reckon.

Thomas Hardy was one of England's best novelists in describing rural life in 19th century Wessex - that district of South West England embracing mostly the county of Dorset, from where he hailed. He was able to put into words a picture of amazing clarity of all the hardship and tragedy as well as the humour and merriment and joy of living in a very rural environment in which the local people by and large relied on their wits (and wit) to survive without the benefits of formal education and all the conveniences of modern life we know today.

He portrayed the class distinctions that pervaded English life in those days (as did most Victorian writers) and altough he used humour a great deal in many of his characterisations, the main theme in most of his books was one of tragedy. Life was tragic in those days....and Hardy has often been criticised for being a wee bit too pessimistic in the tone of his storylines.

The accents and dialects of the Wessex area are clearly iillustrated in his books and you can get a really good idea of the way people communicated at that time. It would be difficult for most of us to understand what people were saying if we were to be transported back to Casterbridge here and now, especially for those people who do not live i the area now. Many of the places named in his Wessex novels are modelled on real life places down there, such as Dorchester, Weymouth and Salisbury.

My favourite Hardy novel is Far From the Madding Crowd.....wonderful characterisations and you get a real feel of raucous and bawdy country life in mid 19th century Barsetshire (oops..sorry - Dorset) complete with the earthy dialected speech of the villagers where the beautiful Bathsheba Everdene revelled in the attentions of Gabriel Oak, the poor shepherd made even poorer when his flock of sheep followed each other off the edge of the cliff into the pounding waves below, William Boldwood the screwed up and blindingly jealous local squire and the incredibly dashing and sexy and womanising rascal Sergeant Troy...the philanderer Bathsheba tragically fell for the most proving the point that it's often the bad guys women ultimately fall for, so nothing has changed much! :-)

For fantastic dialectal local 19th century Wessex (Dorset) speech and also great humour in the description of life in a small village in the area, Hardy's novel Under The Greenwood Tree is spot on.

He took the title for Far from the Madding Crowd from Thomas Grey's poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, the churchyard concerned being out of the Wessex area, at Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire, but nae matter. The popem beings...The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day etc.

'Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.'

popem = poem

<<The Atlantic is a wee bit of a divide in this respect I reckon. >>

That definitely explains why I despised "Pride and Prejudice". A whole book about people whose greatest horror in life was being faced with the prospect of (gasp!) having to WORK for a living!

Do you guys over there really relate to that crap in this day and age? Do you have some residual sense of nostalgia about it, even though you would probably never have been able to participate in that lifestyle?

>>I reckon that much of English (or British) literature of the 19th century and further back to the 16th - to the works of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Bunyan and others - and even further back to Langland and others.....do not appeal to American readers in particular because of considerable differences in culture generally.

They clearly appeal much more to Europeans who are more able to appreciate the writings and styles and share the same historical values over here among other things. Also they have a much closer proximity to this country physically, and therefore have reasonably easy access to the settings of the action of the novels, plays etc.

The Atlantic is a wee bit of a divide in this respect I reckon.<<

The matter is that English-speaking North America cannot be regarded as sharing a common culture with the UK, even though it shares a common language with England and much of the rest of the UK, which is something that many British people seem to often miss, by assuming that Americans and English-speaking Canadians are simply transplanted English-people. This is most significant with the US than with Canada, or in particular Australia and New Zealand, which can be more correctly regarded as extensions of England culturally.

In particular, this is rather pronounced at least here, where the vast majority of the population is not English, and where the English language only became fully dominant during my parent's generation, unlike many other places in the US outside the Upper Midwest, where English had been dominant from the time of the first European settlement or where English had previously replaced Spanish or Dutch. This is why I tend to more strongly emphasize this than other Americans, as it is clear that this is not simply an "outpost of Anglo-Saxon civilization", but rather a place where English just happened to serve as a lingua franca, which just happened to then replace all the other languages in the area. Thus, I at least feel very little attachment to any kind of global "Anglo-Saxon civilization" which some claim to exist.

>>Thomas Hardy was one of England's best novelists in describing rural life in 19th century Wessex - that district of South West England embracing mostly the county of Dorset, from where he hailed. He was able to put into words a picture of amazing clarity of all the hardship and tragedy as well as the humour and merriment and joy of living in a very rural environment in which the local people by and large relied on their wits (and wit) to survive without the benefits of formal education and all the conveniences of modern life we know today.<<

Heh - most Americans wouldn't have the least clue about Wessex, much the less 19th century rural Wessex.

Travis says that his area of the US is

"is not simply an "outpost of Anglo-Saxon civilization",a place where English just happened to serve as a lingua franca, which just happened to then replace all the other languages in the area"

Just happened? Travis, how is it possible to spew so much ignorant twaddle. Are you in high school yet? Have you read any history? Do you know anything about American literature? What language was it written in? What books did American writers all read?