Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)

Flott gagnrýni hjá Hardy á Viktoríanskt samfélag í Bretlandi. Hann birtir lesandanum harmþrungið lífshlaup ungrar konu sem kremst undir stífri stéttskiptingu, hrokafullum tvíeggjuðum siðaboðskap og trúarofstæki.
Um leið getur lesandinn varla en hrifist og orðið snortin af söguhetjunni Tess. ( )

My third visit to the lovely town of Dorchester and surrounding parts of Dorset and as a consequence, my third Thomas Hardy novel. Tess is a simultaneously heroic and tragic figure, in her relationships with two men Alec D'urberville, who seduces and by implication rapes her, and Angel Clare, whom she marries, loses and then regains. I found the ending quite sudden and shocking. There is also humour, especially in the early parts with the Durbeyfield family, Tess's parents keen to show themselves the lost but superior branch to the aristocratic D'urbevilles. As with other Hardy novels, there is a very good feel for the ebb and flow of rural life, farming and the seasons. This is not plot-driven like Mayor of Casterbridge, but is more tragic than the more similar Far from the Madding Crowd, and Tess's travails make a powerful impression on the reader. ( )

This Classic is the tragedy of a young country girl/woman in Wessex during the 1870s who tries to make her way through the world with love and a sense of dignity— even as her world is corrupted by outside influences. There is plenty of fodder for literary criticism and discussion, but what cannot be rendered equivocal is the richness of the text and the vivid, painterly descriptions of the settings and characters. This edition contains endnotes that compare other MSS of the text (Hardy made revisions/redactions to accommodate himself and various publications, most notably Graphic in the latter case), as well as references to paintings that the author was influenced by; Biblical citations & notes and; song attributions... all of which are in equal measures tedious and/or enlightening. ( )

Thoroughly depressing. If this is Victorian literature, I'll pass. ( )

It was subtitled A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented because Hardy felt that its heroine was a virtuous victim of a rigid Victorian moral code. Now considered Hardy’s masterwork, it departed from conventional Victorian fiction in its focus on the rural lower class and in its open treatment of sexuality and religion.

Tess of the D’Urbervilles is as famous for its heroine as for its notoriously tragic plot. Originally shunned by critics upon its publication in 1891 because of “immorality,” the novel traces the difficult life of Tess Durbeyfield, whose victimization at the hands of men eventually leads to her horrific downfall. Tess spares the reader none of the bitterness inherent in English country life, and Hardy’s often romanticized love for the landscape of Wessex is balanced by the novel’s grimly realistic depiction of social injustice.

When Tess’s father discovers that his own family, the Durbeyfields, are related to a prominent local dynasty, he agrees that his daughter should contact the heir, Alec D’Urberville, with tragic results. He seduces her, and soon abandons her, leaving her an unmarried single mother. While she briefly finds happiness with another man, the seemingly upright Angel Clare, he too rejects her upon hearing of her sexual past, leaving her in poverty and misery. Forced back into the arms of Alec, Tess must sacrifice her personal happiness for economic survival, but when her feelings of injustice overwhelm her in a moment of passion, the consequences are tragic.

In Tess, Hardy presents a world in which the human spirit is battered down by the forces, not of fate, but of social hierarchy. ( )