Thomas Hardy and Paradoxes of Love

Thomas Hardy and Paradoxes of Love
Author :
Publisher : University of Missouri Press
Total Pages : 492
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0826211259
ISBN-13 : 9780826211255
Rating : 4/5 (59 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Thomas Hardy and Paradoxes of Love by : Hillel Matthew Daleski

Download or read book Thomas Hardy and Paradoxes of Love written by Hillel Matthew Daleski and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emphasizing the vast changes in literary criticism that have occurred during the last thirty years, H. M. Daleski reexamines Thomas Hardy's novels in the novelist's own terms, presenting a revisionary account of his treatment of gender. He also shows that Hardy was not as sexist as is asserted in much feminist criticism and that his female characters are sympathetically portrayed as the centers of his fictional worlds. By carefully analyzing the novels, Daleski refutes the generally accepted reason for Hardy's abandonment of fiction at the height of his powers, claiming that he drove himself to a dead end in Jude the Obscure. The typical Hardy plot places a female protagonist in a love triangle with two male protagonists who are portrayed as polar opposites. The woman contradicting a general view of her as victim is always granted the freedom of choice of a marriage partner. She invariably makes the wrong choice, which leads to a bad marriage and disastrous sexual relationships. As this scenario is played out in most of Hardy's novels, the men are presented as distinct types, the types being depicted with rich diversity and with steadily greater psychological depth. Hardy's rendering of sexuality in both his male and his female characters is marked by its originality and profundity. In his intuitions about sexual relations, Daleski maintains Hardy was not outdone by writers such as Lawrence and Joyce. Daleski studies Hardy within his Victorian context, but he also shows that Hardy, both in his depiction of sexuality and in his technical innovations, was in advance of his time. In these respects Hardy deserves to be regarded as a forerunner of the great modernists. In Thomas Hardy and Paradoxes of Love, Daleski offers acute and thoughtful analyses of Hardy's major novels. Avoiding critical jargon, the author has made his book accessible to all readers with an interest in Hardy and his novels, as well as in the study of gender in English literature.


Thomas Hardy and Paradoxes of Love Related Books

Thomas Hardy and Paradoxes of Love
Language: en
Pages: 492
Authors: Hillel Matthew Daleski
Categories: Love in literature
Type: BOOK - Published: 1997 - Publisher: University of Missouri Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Emphasizing the vast changes in literary criticism that have occurred during the last thirty years, H. M. Daleski reexamines Thomas Hardy's novels in the noveli
Hardy, Conrad and the Senses
Language: en
Pages: 312
Authors: Hugh Epstein
Categories: Impressionism in literature
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-11-12 - Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book reads the highly descriptive impressionist writings of Hardy and Conrad together in the light of a shared attention to sight and sound.
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Language: en
Pages: 404
Authors: Thomas Hardy
Categories: Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008-04-01 - Publisher: Penguin

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Thomas Hardy's classic novel, an ambitious man discovers that the blind energies and defiant acts that brought him to power can also destroy him.
Jude the Obscure
Language: en
Pages: 431
Authors: Thomas Hardy
Categories: Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009-05-07 - Publisher: Penguin

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Upon its first appearance in 1895, Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure shocked Victorian critics and readers with a frank depiction of sexuality and an unbridled
Ethics and Narrative in the English Novel, 1880–1914
Language: en
Pages: 190
Authors: Jil Larson
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2001-02-12 - Publisher: Cambridge University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Drawing on interdisciplinary work in the field of ethics and literature by a diverse range of thinkers, including Martha Nussbaum, Emmanuel Levinas and Paul Ric