Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Description

Etched against the background of a dying rural society, Tess of the d’Urbervilles was Thomas Hardy’s ‘bestseller,’ and Tess Durbeyfield remains his most striking and tragic heroine. Of all the characters he created, she meant the most to him. Hopelessly torn between two men—Alec d’Urberville, a wealthy, dissolute young man who seduces her in a lonely wood, and Angel Clare, her provincial, moralistic, and unforgiving husband—Tess escapes from her vise of passion through a horrible, desperate act.

‘Like the greatest characters in literature, Tess lives beyond the final pages of the book as a permanent citizen of the imagination,’ said Irving Howe. ‘In Tess he stakes everything on his sensuous apprehension of a young woman’s life, a girl who is at once a simple milkmaid and an archetype of feminine strength. . . . Tess is that rare creature in literature: goodness made interesting.’

Now Tess of the d’Urbervilles has been brought to television in a magnificent new co-production from A&E Network and London Weekend Television. Justine Waddell (Anna Karenina) stars as the tragic heroine, Tess; Oliver Milburn (Chandler & Co.) is Angel Clare; and Jason Flemyng is Alec d’Urberville. The cast also includes John McEnery (Black Beauty) as Jack Durbeyfield and Lesley Dunlop (The Elephant Man) as Joan Durbeyfield. Tess of the d’Urbervilles is directed by Ian Sharp and produced by Sarah Wilson, with a screenplay by Ted Whitehead; it was filmed in Hardy country, the beautiful English countryside in Dorset where Thomas Hardy set his novels.
Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840, in a thatched-roof cottage in upper Bockhampton, Dorset, England, a prophetic birthplace that lay in the center of ‘Wessex,’ the fictional region of southwest England which would serve as the backdrop for his novels. The eldest son of a prosperous builder and stonemason, Hardy was educated at the village school and apprenticed at the age of sixteen to local architect and church restorer John Hicks. In 1862 he went to London to pursue his architectural career; he also began writing at this time. Hardy returned to Dorset in 1867 to become assistant to John Hicks and wrote his first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, of which only fragments remain. Although George Meredith, who was reader for Chapman & Hall publishers, advised against its publication, he encouraged Hardy to keep writing, preferably a story with a more complicated plot. Over the next several years he produced three more novels: Desperate Remedies (1871) and Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) were published anonymously, but A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) bore the author’s name.

In November 1872, Leslie Stephen, the distinguished critic and editor, wrote to Hardy inviting him to contribute a novel for serialization in the Cornhill Magazine, a prestigious monthly that had published the work of such established writers as Anthony Trollope. Hardy accepted and in his letter to Stephen added that ‘the chief characters would probably be a young woman-farmer, a shepherd, and a sergeant of cavalry.’ He wrote Far from the Madding Crowd both in and out of doors at Bockhamptom as if possessed. ‘Occasionally without a scrap of paper at the very moment when [I] felt volumes . . . [I] would use large dead leaves, white chips left by the woodcutters, or pieces of stone or slate that came to hand,’ Hardy later recalled. Published anonymously in 1874, Far from the Madding Crowd sold out in just over two months and marked the turning point in Hardy’s literary career. As Virginia Woolf later noted: ‘The subject was right; the method was right; the poet and the countryman, the sensual man, the sombre reflective man, the man of learning, all enlisted to produce a book which, however fashions may chop and change, must hold its place among the great English novels.’

The success of Far from the Madding Crowd in 1874 encouraged Hardy to abandon architecture and devote himself entirely to the craft of fiction. His next novel, The Hand of Ethelberta (1876), also appeared in the Cornhill Magazine but did not repeat the success of its predecessor. In 1874 Hardy married Emma Lavinia Gifford, and the couple soon settled in an idyllic cottage overlooking the Dorset Stour, at Sturminster Newton, where Hardy wrote The Return of the Native (1878). In 1878 he moved to London. Although he became a well-known figure in literary circles and was considered a catch for hostesses, Hardy wrote three disappointing ‘minor’ novels during his years there: The Trumpet-Major (1880), A Laodicean (1881), and Two on a Tower (1882). This fallow period in his career seemed to lift in 1885 with his return to Dorset to live at Max Gate. Over the next three years he published The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), which many regard as his greatest tragic novel, The Woodlanders (1887), and his first collection of short stories, Wessex Tales (1888). In 1891 Tess of the d’Urbervilles appeared, and in 1895 Hardy’s final novel, Jude the Obscure, came out. The book sent shock waves of indignation rolling across Victorian England. It was denounced as pornography and subjected the author to an avalanche of abuse. Hardy’s disgust at the public’s reaction led him to announce in 1896 that he would never again write fiction.

During the remaining years of his life, Hardy devoted himself to poetry, publishing his first book of verse, Wessex Poems, in 1898. A second collection, Poems of the Past and Present, appeared in 1901. Over the next five years Hardy wrote The Dynasts, an epic drama about the Napoleonic War. In 1912 he made a final revision of his novels for the authoritative Wessex Editions. Hardy’s wife died suddenly the same year. In February 1914 he married his longtime secretary, Florence Emily Dugdale. Over the next decade Hardy continued to write poetry and to work on his autobiography, The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, which was supposedly authored by his second wife and published posthumously. Thomas Hardy died in Dorset on January 11, 1928. His heart was buried in the Wessex countryside in the parish churchyard at Stinsford; his ashes were placed next to those of Charles Dickens in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey.

1. Why do you think Thomas Hardy chose the subtitle "A Pure Woman"? How does Hardy define "pure," and in what sense does Tess personify purity? Does Hardy idealize Tess? Is she a victim or does she participate in her own undoing?

2. Discuss the roles of Alec d’Urberville and Angel Clare in Tess’s life. Consider the ways in which Hardy describes them and how his choices influence the reader’s impressions of them.

3. What is the significance of the seven phases into which the book is divided? Tess of the d’Urbervilles was serialized in a newspaper before it was published. Do you think the divisions relate to the serialized breaks? What else might the junctures represent and what episodes do they separate? What is the meaning of Hardy’s use of the number seven?

4. In the course of the novel, Tess Durbeyfield becomes a d’Urberville. In what ways does Tess’s transformation from "field" to "ville"-and her move from a country farm to a mansion in a larger town-mimic the change in English agrarian life in the wake of the Industrial Revolution?

5. In Hardy’s hands, Tess and the landscape seem to have a reciprocal relationship. How does the landscape represent and reflect Tess’s outlook and her situation? How do Hardy’s descriptions of Tess mirror what is happening to the countryside from which she hails?

6. Before devoting himself to writing full-time, Hardy apprenticed with an architect and intended to become one himself. How do the principles of architecture inform the structural elements of the novel?

7. Thomas Hardy seems to work both within and without the traditions of the literature of his day. What are some of the hallmarks of the writing of the time? In what ways does he break with the styles and themes of many of his contemporaries?

8. Hardy once said that he refused to "[end] a story happily merely to suit conventional ideas." Indeed, his novel took an unconventional moral stance and shocked readers upon its publication. In what ways might Tess of the d’Urbervilles have been controversial? What were some of the mores that governed and epitomized the Victorian age?

ON an evening in the latter part of May a middle-aged man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village of Marlott, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore or Blackmoor. The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line. He occasionally gave a smart nod, as if in confirmation of some opinion, though he was not thinking of anything in particular. An empty egg-basket was slung upon his arm, the nap of his hat was ruffled, a patch being quite worn away at its brim where his thumb came in taking it off. Presently he was met by an elderly parson astride on a gray mare, who, as he rode, hummed a wandering tune.

‘Good night t’ee,’ said the man with the basket.

‘Good night, Sir John,’ said the parson.

The pedestrian, after another pace or two, halted, and turned round.

‘Now, sir, begging your pardon; we met last market-day on this road about this time, and I zaid ‘oGood night’, and you made reply ‘Good night, Sir John’, as now.’

‘I did,’ said the parson.

‘And once before that—near a month ago.’

‘I may have.’

‘Then what might your meaning be in calling me ‘Sir John’ these different times, when I be plain Jack Durbeyfield, the haggler?’

The parson rode a step or two nearer.

‘It was only my whim,’ he said; and, after a moment’s hesitation: ‘It was on account of a discovery I made some little time ago, whilst I was hunting up pedigrees for the new county history. I am Parson Tringham, the antiquary, of Stagfoot Lane. Don’t you really know, Durbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family of the d’Urbervilles, who derive their descent from Sir Pagan d’Urberville, that renowned knight who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey Roll?’

‘Never heard it before, sir?’

‘Well it’s true. Throw up your chin a moment, so that I may catch the profile of your face better. Yes, that’s the d’Urberville nose and chin—a little debased. Your ancestor was one of the twelve knights who assisted the Lord of Estremavilla in Normandy in his conquest of Glamorganshire. Branches of your family held manors over all this part of England; their names appear in the Pipe Rolls in the time of King Stephen. In the reign of King John one of them was rich enough to give a manor to the Knights Hospitallers; and in Edward the Second’s time your forefather Brian was summoned to Westminster to attend the great Council there. You declined a little in Oliver Cromwell’s time, but to no serious extent, and in Charles the Second’s reign you were made Knights of the Royal Oak for your loyalty. Aye, there have been generations of Sir Johns among you, and if knighthood were hereditary, like a baronetcy, as it practically was in old times, when men were knighted from father to son, you would be Sir John now.’

‘Ye don’t say so!’

‘In short,’ concluded the parson, decisively smacking his leg with his switch, ‘there’s hardly such another family in England.’

‘Daze my eyes, and isn’t there?’ said Durbeyfield. ‘And here have I been knocking about, year after year, from pillar to post, as if I was no more than the commonest feller in the parish . . . And how long hev this news about me been knowed, Pa’son Tringham?’

The clergyman explained that, as far as he was aware, it had quite died out of knowledge, and could hardly be said to be known at all. His own investigations had begun on a day in the preceding spring when, having been engaged in tracing the vicissitudes of the d’Urberville family, he had observed Durbeyfield’s name on his waggon, and had thereupon been led to make inquiries about his father and grandfather till he had no doubt on the subject.

‘At first I resolved not to disturb you with such a useless piece of information,’ said he. ‘However, our impulses are too strong for our judgment sometimes. I thought you might perhaps know something of it all the while.’

‘Well, I have heard once or twice, ’tis true, that my family had seen better days afore they came to Blackmoor. But I took no notice o’t, thinking it to mean that we had once kept two horses where we now keep only one. I’ve got a wold silver spoon, and a wold graven seal at home, too; but, Lord, what’s a spoon and seal? . . . And to think that I and these noble d’Urbervilles were one flesh all the time. ‘Twas said that my gr’t-grandfer had secrets, and didn’t care to talk of where he came from . . . And where do we raise our smoke, now, parson, if I may make so bold; I mean, where do we d’Urbervilles live?’

‘You don’t live anywhere. You are extinct—as a county family.’

‘That’s bad.’

‘Yes—what the mendacious family chronicles call extinct in the male line—that is, gone down—gone under.’

‘Then where do we lie?’
‘At Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill: rows and rows of you in your vaults, with your effigies under Purbeck-marble canopies.’

‘And where be our family mansions and estates?’

‘You haven’t any.’

‘Oh? No lands neither?’

‘None; though you once had ’em in abundance, as I said, for your family consisted of numerous branches. In this county there was a seat of yours at Kingsbere, and another at Sherton, and another at Millpond, and another at Lullstead, and another at Wellbridge.’

‘And shall we ever come into our own again?’

‘Ah—that I can’t tell!’

‘And what had I better do about it, sir?’ asked Durbeyfield, after a pause.

‘Oh—nothing, nothing; except chasten yourself with the thought of ‘how are the mighty fallen’. It is a fact of some interest to the local historian and genealogist, nothing more. There are several families among the cottagers of this county of almost equal lustre. Good night.’

‘But you’ll turn back and have a quart of beer wi’ me on the strength o’t, Pa&rs’n Tringham? There’s a very pretty brew in tap at The Pure Drop—though, to be sure, not so good as at Rolliver’.’

‘No, thank you—not this evening, Durbeyfield. You’ve had enough already.’ Concluding thus the parson rode on his way, with doubts as to his discretion in retailing this curious bit of lore.

When he was gone Durbeyfield walked a few steps in a profound reverie, and then sat down upon the grassy bank by the roadside, depositing his basket before him. In a few minutes a youth appeared in the distance, walking in the same direction as that which had been pursued by Durbeyfield. The latter, on seeing him, held up his hand, and the lad quickened his pace and came near.

‘Boy, take up that basket! I want ‘oee to go on an errand for me.’

The lath-like stripling frowned. ‘Who be you, then, John Durbeyfield, to order me about and call me ‘boy’? You know my name as well as I know yours!’

‘Do you, do you? That’s the secret—that’s the secret! Now obey my orders, and take the message I’m going to charge ‘ee wi’ . . . Well, Fred, I don’t mind telling you that the secret is that I’m one of a noble race—it has been just found out by me this present afternoon, P.M.’ And as he made the announcement, Durbeyfield, declining from his sitting position, luxuriously stretched himself out upon the bank among the daisies.

The lad stood before Durbeyfield, and contemplated his length from crown to toe.US

Additional information

Weight	16.2 oz
Dimensions	1.2000 × 5.2000 × 8.0000 in
Series	Modern Library Classics
Imprint	Modern Library
Format	General Trade
ISBN-13	09780375756795
ISBN-10	0375756795
Author	James Wood, Thomas Hardy
Audience	General / adult
BISAC	FIC014000, FIC027170
Subjects	classic fiction, Thomas Hardy, Wessex, victorian, FIC027170, english literature, classic literature, classic books, historical novels, Family relationships, psychological fiction, thomas hardy books, victorian literature, tess of the d'urbervilles by thomas hardy, tess of the durbervilles, pastoral, classic British literature, love triangle, british, marriage, family, english, tragedy, classic, fiction, classics, Literature, wealth, novels, FIC014000, psychological, gifts for women, historical fiction, britain, 19th century