Shannon Rogers in her essay on Hardy and medievalism presents the position that Hardy interprets the changes of his time (from Victorian values to modernism) through the lens of an earlier change in English history, the Norman invasion (from Saxon to Norman). These social upheavals, she says, created a “somber” and “bleak” tone for the lives of those who lived through them.
After reading and discussing Roger’s essay, do you believe she makes her point? Do you agree or disagree with Rogers? What evidence have you found in your reading to support this view?
After reading and discussing Roger’s essay, do you believe she makes her point? Do you agree or disagree with Rogers? What evidence have you found in your reading to support this view?
11 comments:
I believe that Rogers made her point and made it well -- and I also do agree with her. At any point in history there has never been a smooth transaction between change. Take the industrial revolution for example, horrible living conditions and 20 hour work days in the name of industrialization which is the foundation of our country. In order for success, there must be failure. There has to be setbacks. One cannot be without the other. So yes, I do agree with her.
After struggling through Shannon’s essay, I was able to see she was connecting Hardy’s principles to a medievalism. She accentuates Hardy’s modern style as seen through the past. Hardy is so progressive and modern due to his strong principles rooted in the prior events and ideals; hence he is "medievalist". Although it seems impossible for Hardy to be modern through moralistically living in the past, it is not. It is merely ironic. Everyone around him in society is Victorian, believing in selfish principles based on status and self indulgence, while hardy is the total polar. He sees that everything in society in unnatural and fake. He sees that with the technology and with the hypocritical people. He reverts back to nature after reading the origin of species and abandons all Victorian values (if he ever had any to begin with). After his novels are published, it is evident Hardy’s thinking is revolutionary. It is so because no one else thinks it, because he is alone in believing nature. Shannon proves this point though Tess and Jude. Shannon points out that Tess denied her natural instinct (to be with Angel) and went with societal values (being with Alec. Eventually Tess can no longer lie anymore and she once again reverts to nature and past values by killing Alec. It is simply survival of the fittest, and society doesn’t approve of her and it leader to her demise. Hardy was trying to point out that Tess was doing what we should all be doing, being natural and using instincts. i am able to agree with Shannon mainly because her strong connections to Tess. Just like in Tess, Henchard, in Mayor of Casterbridge has his past "confessed". At a trail it is announced that he sold his wife and daughter. Although this is not a confession made by Henchard like it was by Tess it still is a revival of the past.
From what I got out/understood from Rogrs essay after our class discussion was that yes she did make the point that Hardy show's a change in "progress" for the move to modernism. I agree with Rogers, especially how she connects Tess and Angel to show her perspective on Hardy's points on medivel, pagon and victorian views on how they effect the future. When Rogers states "there is some hope on Hardy's part that the marriage of modernity--released from the bonds of medieval morality--and pagan medieveal pastoralism will give birth to a unified, perfected future." She uses marriage to represent the move to a more modern perspective. She is talking about the marriage between Angel, and Tess and in the end Tess sister. Angel represents modern christianity/medieval morality, Tess is the pagon living under the victory law but being robed (raped) of her "fresh"/"verginity" (pg 2) and then you have Tess sister who replaces Tess in their marrage after Tess is punished for killing Alec, she represents the pure pagon/victorian. This supports her statement because in marrage you become "unified" (pg 3) which is going to "perfect the "future" bringing a little bit of everything that will create something new/modern.
Yes I do believe that she makes her point. I agree with Roger's idea that Hardy shows the changes of time through earlier change such as medievalism. I've found in reading her paper that hardy shows paganism through Tess and talks about ancient sites that he thinks shouldn't be destroyed. He believes the medieval and ancient architecture should be destroyed by nature's course and man shouldn't tamper with it. Thus it makes it hard to transition because man wants to tamper with the past instead of just letting it be.
Yes I do believe that she makes her point about Hardy. "Hardy continually equates women with the pre-Christian, pagan world of mother earth, while men rule the artificial (and hypocritical) realm of society."
In class we discussed that, according to Rogers, Hardy associates women as the pagan medievalists and the men as more modern and artificial-like. I found this contradictory when she uses Jude the Obscure as an example and says "Hardy illustrates the essential incompatibility of medieval and modern when Jude and Sue quarrel over her promise to marry Pillotson. While he longs to sit in the catheral (medieval) for comfort, while she turns to the railway station (modern)." The roles are flip-flopped in this instance.
This makes me question whether the "medievalist" is gender driven or assigned to many of Hardy's characters (both sexes) because Rogers also uses Angel to describe Hardy's medievalist connections. "Angel is unable to assimilate an actual modern situation into his weakly-held modern principles and so he reverts to medieval morality."
Though I do agree that Hardy portrays the men as more modern "artificial" (with the exception of Angel) and women as pagan. In Far From the Madding Crowd Bathsheba is even the owner of the farm and runs the opperation. This shows the female connection with agriculture and nature.
From Shannon Rogers essay Rogers believe that Hardy interprets the changes of his time. Reading the essay I 110% believe that Rogers made her point, and I agree with her because in Tess of the d'Urbavilles, Tess decides to keep the baby and not to get married to Alec, because she belives that Alec is NOT here true love and she want to countinue looking, however people that belive in Victorian vauls do not accept this at ALL. No women in this time frame would do something like that without a husban by herside, it was just that kind of time.
After reading and discussing Roger's essay in class it is clear that she makes a valid point. I agree with her completely in saying that "the social upheavals have created a 'somber' and 'bleak' tone for those who lived through them." Hardy proves this through-out his novels, with his theme of modernism and pain and hardships. He also shows us how the transitions and changes in time wear out and damage characters A character that has become damaged by the effects of time is Henchard from The mayor of Casterbridge. Henchard is constantly showed up by the younger more modern man--Farfrae. His new industrialized methods and young ways constantly prove to us that time is changing and leaving come characters behind.
I think that she makes her point. She shows through tess and other writtings that hardy goes back to such examples like ancestory. when tess finds out that she is a d urberville is when the trouble starts, this leads her to alec which leads to her rape whihc leads to his murder which then leads to the death of tess. Altogther that is a bad tone or a bleak tone to those that used to live back in those days because everything seemed to end badly. Also in mayor of casterbridge it also seems medival because of the way the business was run throughout the time and how the streets we set up seemed like the medival times on how they proceeded in hangings and in how the had street fairs and trading and that was how their business was conducted. So i agree with rogers on her view that hardy explains things in a medival sort of way jsut by the books that i have read.
I believe that Rogers makes her point. The Victorian ways are very simular to medeivalism or the futal system. Everyone wants to jump up in social status which the futal system was based on. In Tess they talk about ancestors and new and old money. The feudal system sets clergy above the nobles which shows us how Angel feels himself to be superior to the D'Ubervilles. New money wasn't as strong as old money and lineage which is why the Stokes took over the D'Urberbille name.
As Roger says Hardy does present the change from Victorian to monern values. Rather than just take a jump on social status Tess flee's Alec because she doesn't like him. In Far Bathsheba doesn't marry Gabriel or Boldwood to better herself because she wasn't ready to marry and didn't love them at the time. Bathsheba, as a woman, had alot of power and control by choosing not to have a bailif. This also represents the change because woman were looked at as inferior beings in victorian times and the men ran the show.
The bad decisions/occourances in Far and Tess such as Bathsheba's marriage with Troy and Tess's rape create that "somber" and "bleak" tone.
I believe that Rogers made her point that Hardy connects the changes of the Victorian times and modernism to those of the medievalistic times and modernism. Rogers writes of relations in Hardy's novels to the past and the present, rejection of faith, and antagonistic views created among the characters and values of his works. She claims that the characters cannot evolve. They are "unable to assimilate" into thier future or "modern situations". Hardy goes back to his medieval morality, rejecting his own characters, causing them to fall to new obsticals. I agree with Rogers because this view is present in his novels. For example, in Tess, he causes her to fall when deciding to tell Angel of her broken past. He becomes antagonistic to the Victorian views when resorting back to medievalism in Tess. Hardy does this by rejecting Christianity in Tess as well as rejecting social order.
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