Image and essence in Thomas Hardy's Wessex

Since the publication of Thomas Hardy's novel Far From the Madding Crowd in 1874, Hardy's descriptions of rural England's landscapes have received a great deal of attention from critics and readers. This thesis examines the relationship between Hardy's descriptions of landscape and the reading public's desires and expectations for those landscapes. It focuses on the disjunction between the difficult truths Hardy sought to reveal through his landscape representation and the demand for realism and authenticity involved in his public reception. The study documents how a collective desire for nostalgic images of rural England shaped popular readings of Hardy's fiction---readings that often ignored more complex issues in Hardy's work. Where the nostalgic readings interpret Hardy as a regional chronicler of England's remote, more stable past, this study shows how the landscapes illustrate broader contemporary concerns of a modernizing Victorian society. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).