Abstract
In this article I argue that ‘the formation of the character’ of the teacher, a phrase coined by the pioneer of elementary-school training, James Kay-Shuttleworth, was of as much concern to ...the novelist as it was to the educationalist. Focusing on what became a classic depiction of Victorian teacher training in Jude the Obscure (1895), I situate Hardy among those educationalists and men of letters held responsible for refashioning character to suit the liberal currents of late nineteenth-century culture. Hardy read about the issue of formation in sources as varied as the letters of his sister Kate, who trained to be a teacher at Salisbury (1877–1879), and the reports of his acquaintance, and chief inspector of women’s training colleges (1885–1894), Joshua Fitch. At times his novel reflects the views of the inspectorate, but it also accommodates those who challenged the conception of the teacher that was otherwise imposed upon them. This article therefore contributes to recent interest in overlooked perspectives in the Victorian institution by addressing the ways in which women began shaping a profession in which they had become by far the largest constituent.
A reexamination of Austen's unpublished writings that uncovers their continuity with her celebrated novels—and that challenges distinctions between her "early" and "late" work Jane Austen's six ...novels, published toward the end of her short life, represent a body of work that is as brilliant as it is compact. Her earlier writings have routinely been dismissed as mere juvenilia, or stepping stones to mature proficiency and greatness. Austen's first biographer described them as "childish effusions." Was he right to do so? Can the novels be definitively separated from the unpublished works? In Jane Austen, Early and Late, Freya Johnston argues that they cannot.Examining the three manuscript volumes in which Austen collected her earliest writings, Johnston finds that Austen's regard and affection for them are revealed by her continuing to revisit and revise them throughout her adult life. The teenage works share the milieu and the humour of the novels, while revealing more clearly the sources and influences upon which Austen drew. Johnston upends the conventional narrative, according to which Austen discarded the satire and fantasy of her first writings in favour of the irony and realism of the novels. By demonstrating a stylistic and thematic continuity across the full range of Austen's work, Johnston asks whether it makes sense to speak of an early and a late Austen at all. Jane Austen, Early and Late offers a new picture of the author in all her complexity and ambiguity, and shows us that it is not necessarily true that early work yields to later, better things.
As for Thomas Hardy's Jude The Obscure, the cause of Jude's tragedy has always been a topic of great concern in literary study. The existing researches lay more stress on external factors such as ...social contradictions and class orders, claiming that the inferior class status and the hidden social injustice are the main causes of Jude's disaster. However, this paper argues that Jude's weak ethical consciousness and his deviation of ethical identity play a vital role in his tragedy, which is the deeper root of his obscurity. Due to his excessive emphasis on free will and unconstrained desire while neglecting his responsibilities and obligations assigned to him by his ethical identity, Jude fell into multiple predicaments in marriage, career and interpersonal communication, and finally passed away in an unknown and sorrowful manner. This paper mainly explores how Jude deviates his ethical identity in love relationship, father-son relationship, and teacher-student relationship, as well as the profound influence on his tragic life. (1) Keywords Jude The Obscure; literary ethical criticism; ethical identity; ethical responsibility Author Dong Kai is PhD candidate at School of International Studies, Zhejiang University. His main research interests include American literature and Intellectual studies. Sui Hongsheng is Professor and PhD supervisor at School of Foreign Language Studies, Zhejiang University City College. His main research interests include British and American literature, Gender Poetics, and Virtue Ethics.
A reexamination of Austen's unpublished writings that
uncovers their continuity with her celebrated novels-and that
challenges distinctions between her "early" and "late"
work
Jane Austen's six ...novels, published toward the end of her short
life, represent a body of work that is as brilliant as it is
compact. Her earlier writings have routinely been dismissed as mere
juvenilia, or stepping stones to mature proficiency and greatness.
Austen's first biographer described them as "childish effusions."
Was he right to do so? Can the novels be definitively separated
from the unpublished works? In Jane Austen, Early and
Late , Freya Johnston argues that they cannot. Examining the
three manuscript volumes in which Austen collected her earliest
writings, Johnston finds that Austen's regard and affection for
them are revealed by her continuing to revisit and revise them
throughout her adult life. The teenage works share the milieu and
the humour of the novels, while revealing more clearly the sources
and influences upon which Austen drew. Johnston upends the
conventional narrative, according to which Austen discarded the
satire and fantasy of her first writings in favour of the irony and
realism of the novels. By demonstrating a stylistic and thematic
continuity across the full range of Austen's work, Johnston asks
whether it makes sense to speak of an early and a late Austen at
all. Jane Austen, Early and Late offers a new picture of
the author in all her complexity and ambiguity, and shows us that
it is not necessarily true that early work yields to later, better
things.
Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure has frequently been read as Hardy›s social critique of marriage, class, and systemic education. Readings of the novel in this critical tradition have a tendency to ...simplify the text into an allegory emergent from Hardy’s own biography. I seek to destabilize these readings by instead engaging with the text as one not concerned with institutions but rather the underlying social codes that give them coherence. By pairing Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of speech and counter speech with Lee Edelman’s queer critique of child-centered futurity, I offer a new reading of the novel that privileges codes and legibility as central to the novel’s critical project.
Les horizons de Thomas Hardy Camus, Marianne
Cahiers victoriens & édouardiens,
06/2015, Letnik:
75, Številka:
75 Printemps
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Thomas Hardy’s fiction is generally regarded as concerned with the hopelessness of the human condition in an indifferent universe. But Hardy’s heroes are also clearly situated in the society of their ...time. This article will look at two of the socially determined patterns that contribute to the failure which they usually encounter in their quest for a horizon beyond the class and place where they were born : the inability to construct a horizon and the adoption of a horizon in simple reaction to the environment. The inability to construct a horizon will be analysed through Tess, whose future is destroyed by her status as a fallen woman and the characters of The Woodlanders, lured by their hopes of social betterment. The notion of a reactive horizon will be analysed through the protagonists of The Return of the Native and Jude the Obscure. The heroes of Far from the Madding Crowd and Two on a Tower will be used to confirm the point a contrario.
This book examines Thomas Hardy's representations of the road and the ways the archaeological and historical record of roads inform his work. Through an analysis of the uneven and often competing ...road signs found within three of his major novels - The Return of the Native, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure - and by mapping the road travels of his protagonists, this book argues that the road as represented by Hardy provides a palimpsest that critiques the Victorian construction of social and sexual identities. Balancing modern exigencies with mythic possibilities, Hardy's fictive roads exist as contested spaces that channel desire for middle-class assimilation even as they provide the means both to reinforce and to resist conformity to hegemonic authority.
The French critic Charles du Bos devoted many essays to the writings of Victorian and contemporary English authors including Thomas Hardy. For Du Bos, Hardy is an architect seeking a principle which ...would account for the order of things. The failure of this quest produces his faith in his experience of the world, including its gloomiest aspects. Du Bos sees Hardy as devoid of hope, starting from the « unhope » expressed in his poetry in order to sympathize with the human condition. The disenchanted world that he depicts through Jude and Tess can be related to the empowerment of modern societies as analyzed by M. Gauchet. Such autonomy gives rise to Hardy’s dispassionate appraisal whereas, Du Bos’s essay evidences mixed feelings towards Hardy's philosophical stance.
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