Jude the Obscure ~ Thomas Hardy ~ Part I ~ 2/98 ~ Export

I've had an odd feelings as I read these preparatory messages and it seems to me that it's largely envy of those who are experiencing Hardy for the first time. As a miserable teenager I read voraciously--a kind of literary bulimia. Hardy's name takes me back to the Chicago "Rocks," a manmade breakwater on Lake Michigan where as a 15-year-old about to graduate from high school I sat and read Hardy while gobbling ZuZu gingersnaps (5 cents a box in those days). At 15, what did I know or understand about his plots or themes? But filling my head with fiction blocked out reality, which wasn't very nice at that time. In later and more measured readings I began to perceive his authorship in a more mature way. I still find his concrete descriptive style satisfying, and as with any good author, every reading produces different understandings.

LJ, describing Hardy's writing as "pornography" leads to a consideration of the Victorian double standard in fiction as (we're told) in life. (Hardy was on the cusp of Vic. and Edwardian, but lived most of his life in the former.) I don't think his writing was seen as pornography. Victorian porno was strong stuff! (Those who wanted it knew where to find it.) So was Victorian sensationalism, both fictional and non, again available even in the penny papers.

Many other authors of the time dealt, directly or indirectly, with the same themes as we'll find in Jude. They stayed within the limitations of public morality, the pretense that "nice people" didn't do these things. They were careful to cloak everything in the appropriate tut-tutting, expressions of shock, plots pointing to punishment, repentance, etc.

Hardy was less of an apologist for his characters and more of a realist in his plots. (You'll find the same themes and attitudes in his voluminous poetic output.) He knew that "nice people" did just what the common folk did, sometimes able to conceal it better. He wasn't afraid to suggest that society could be better managed.

Some of the women writers of the time also timidly advanced the same ideas but had far less of an audience for them. They wrote passionately about the moral, emotional, and material enslavement of married women.

Hardy not only didn't tut-tut, he didn't preach in either direction; he often avoided taking any position about his characters except to point out the irony of their situation.

Ros

Joan, I have the map all printed out and it's beside my monitor. I love that part of the UK. Jack and I have walked all through it and we visited Hardy's birthplace and childhood home!

Joan, you have put yourself out all over the place!! Super job!!

Until I read Pat's post, I didn't realize I could print out the map, and so have done so, and am so pleased with it.

Love the history above about his life! How interesting! Love the HOUSE he designed, he could have come designed for me any day. Now want to see the house and the church he designed!! Is a GB author's tour in the making?? Wouldn't that be a hoot???

Is Hardy the old man in the photo? Is that Edward VIII??

Thanks so much for that interesting background!

Ginny

Thomas Hardy was also a prolific poet, though most of his verse wasn't published until after he became established as a novelist. Here's a little poem, written after the publication of the first edition of Jude, that seemed to me to state Hardy's willingness to support, and write about, a viewpoint that might have shocked the majority:
MUTE OPINION
I traversed a dominion
Whose spokesmen spake out strong
Their purpose and opinion
Through pulpit, press, and song.
I scarce had means to note there
A large-eyed few, and dumb,
Who thought not as those thought there
That stirred the heat and hum.

When, grown a Shade, beholding
That land in lifetime trode,
To learn if its unfolding
Fulfilled its clamoured code,
I saw, in web unbroken,
Its history outwrought
Not as the loud had spoken.
But as the mute had thought.

In other words--"Perhaps some of us are "ahead of our time," but time will catch up with us--wait and see!"

Ros

Oh Ros, what a treasure you are!!!
We have so much to learn from this reading...and your knowledge should go a long way to keep us informed of the period in which it was written...and the thinking of that period.

My wish for you is that upon reading Thomas Hardy again, you will discover some of the excitement of those ZuZu days...Certainly you will bring a different perspective from a lifetime of experience to the table this time. I wonder what you made of Thomas Hardy at 15. You probably don't remember. I'm sorry you were a miserable teenager...weren't we all! Just out of curiosity, how long has it been since you read Jude?

Ok, many other authors dealt with the same themes that we will find in Jude. That's good to know. He wasn't breaking any ice with this story then. He wasn't trying to shock his readership, (although he did). He was trying to deal with a subject that many people agreed with, but didn't voice...is that what we are to understand?

I found some interesting things that went on in the publication process. Of course, what I found only confuses matters, but I'll throw it out into cyberspace to see what you make of it.

This is the last novel that Thomas Hardy ever wrote...he turned to poetry after this. Thank you again, Ros for that sampling of his work! He knew even then that he had "stirred the heat and hum", but it was going to get even hotter and he had to revise, revise , revise in an attempt to still that hum.

I think this is interesting-we just read Othello, Shakespeare's last tragedy. He turned to Romances after this. Both men were discouraged after completing these works. Shakespeare was revolted by his character, Iago and the hollowness of life. But Hardy was exhausted by the controversy surrounding the publication(s) of Jude and his attempts to respond to the criticism.

I find the whole thing somewhat difficult to understand. It seems that Hardy heard a story of a woman who died, which stayed with him.

In his journal, in 1888, he wrote that he was planning "a short story of a young man, who could not go to Oxford.- His struggles and ultimate failure" He wrote the story between 1890 and 1895

The first published version was titled The Simpletons and then, The Hearts Insurgent It was published in serial form between December, 1894 and November 1895. He later requested that it be changed to The Recalcitrants, but the request came too late after the type had been set. It was published on both sides of the Atlantic in Harper's New Monthly Magazine based in NY and Harper's Monthly Magazine in London.

The NY publisher had commissioned a novel which "should be in every respect suitable for a family magazine." Hardy had promised that, but he later warned the editor as he worked on it, that "it was carrying him into unexpected fields" and asked to cancel the agreement. No cancellation was allowed. Hardy agreed to reduce the sexual frankness...but the London serialization was published as submitted. ( I think this is correct)

The first book edition was published in London in 1895 with the new title, Jude the Obscure, complete with the original boldness and frankness. Hardy was faced with such critical attack that he revised the text for the 1903 version and then further revisions for the Macmillan 'New Wessex' 1912 edition. This then was the text reproduced in subsequent British editions., but in the US, , the 1895 version was reprinted until 1957 , when the Harper's Modern Classics edition issued the 1912 ext. By 1990, the editions published by Harper', Penguin Books, Macmillan, Oxford University Press and Norton all maintained the 1912 New Wessex text.

I imagine that we are all now reading the revised 1912 text too. Wouldn't you just love to see the original text that he intended back when he was writing it before all that criticism? It is possible that the 1912 text was an improvement over the one published in 1895 because of all the revisions for the serial presentation. Be aware that there were several different versions of his original story.

No wonder the poor man gave up on novels after this experience!

Let's rely on our own response to Thomas Hardy, keeping in mind the impact it may have had way back then......get those ginger snaps ready...we'll take on two chapters next week!

Tune in tomorrow with your own reactions!

Joan

Well, is this it? Our first day of Hardy? I've already learned a great deal, I think, and am anxious to see if my memory of Jude the Obscure which I read years and years ago ("the greatest book") holds up.

It's interesting to reread things you thought were great with a different perspective, and with much more understanding, and among friends.

My book has a Preface and a Postscript both by Hardy explaining himself and why he stopped writing novels and turned to poetry. From what Ros quoted above (the first poem by Hardy I've ever read--thanks for that, Ros!) so far, I think he should have stuck to fiction.

But I can see why he chose poetry: he HINTS at things he'd have had to SAY in a novel....When I first read the poem, it made little, if any sense to me. I went on Ros's explanation, which I have learned is probably right...but after reading the Preface, the background material and the Postscript and the first chapter, I'm thinking that as a poet, he's sort of a weak.....Tennyson?? The rhythm is there but there's some sort of lugubriousness??? Or something.

Chapter One of the book seems straight forward enough: the school teacher leaving...(why start with that?) and the child leaning over and drawing water from the well. I thought the depiction of his seeing himself in the well water really nicely done. As a child in Philadelphia, I was "farmed out" in the summer with my grandmother to my aunt and uncle's place in SC, where they did, indeed, draw their water from a well, had an outhouse, and did other such picturesque things....I've drawn water in the old "oaken bucket," and thought he captured the experience very well. Am not sure what a "cottage piano" is?..

The schoolmaster has explained to Jude that Jude will "understand" his reasons for leaving in time, and I think this must be a clue for us to watch. Why else start the book with this?

Wish I didn't know, tho, that it was serialized....keep looking for the breaks.

Also wish now I had some way of knowing what edition I've got! I wanted a "nice" copy this time instead of the eye breaking little paperback I had, and found a fairly nicely bound "International Collectors Library" on my shelf, but it doesn't say WHICH edition.

How can we tell?

Ginny

Well good morning everyone! I am sure that you knew that I would be a Hardy Girl!!

I read chapter I online this morning. I find it very difficult to discuss a book chapter by chapter or to read one that way. I decided that I would read online with this one to see if I could stick to the assigned reading and not read ahead.

I don't really have anything to say about what I read this morning. I just wanted you to know that I am here and reading.

Joan

Hardy's two prefaces defend his "adult theme" and ask for a more realistic consideration of the novel. The second preface points out that his book didn't succeed in destroying the hallowed institution of marriage despite the fears of some early reviewers. He also accepts credit for having created one of the earliest "liberated" women. Though these claims and counter-claims seem quaint to us today, they were significant in their time.

In these first two chapters we meet 11-year-old Jude Tillotson as a sad and neglected boy in rural Wessex, where poverty and ignorance, combined with the destruction of old landmarks and the onslaught of an ugly modernism, make a gloomy setting for his childish hopes. Did you begin to sense that this might not be a happy tale?

The orphan Jude's model of education and achievement, Phillotson the schoolmaster, is leaving; Jude's dreary occupation of "bird-scaring" arouses conflict between his desire to be kind to the birds and his obligation to keep them off his employer's fields; his kindly great-aunt is suspicious of his interest in books and likens it to a family disease; he is beaten and feels disgraced and hopeless. But Jude has a dim awareness of a world beyond his village where learning is respected and even rewarded, and he climbs to the highest hill hoping to glimpse the "dreaming spires" of Christminster.

Isn't Hardy skillful at painting a picture of the rural setting? And, if you glance back through these early pages, do you notice how often he uses terms that describe Jude's condition? "I found "helpless," "poor," "disgrace," "lonely," "ugly," and there are many more.

Ros

I can visualize the young Jude idolizing the schoolmaster as a role model and perhaps surrogate Father. I could feel his sadness at seeing his relationship with the schoolmaster uprooted as Phillotson leaves the village.

I haven't researched this, but would expect that the cottage piano is like a spinet piano. In that time frame, however, it may have been a big upright piano.

Larry

While we are waiting for the book to come in at our book store, I thought I'd look at the Text Online and twice today, I just get a message saying "Server is down or busy". Has anyone else experienced this??

I really want to get started.

Pat

It was available early this morning Pat. I did my reading there.

Joan

...be kind...and read all you can. Jude is obviously not a regular scholar, but something special--a true scholar. My sense is of a large soul trapped in a village where smallness of mind and spirit prevail. I think the well-shaft with it's shining disk of quivering water" is speaking to life. Books and water-both sustainers of life. Jude is perhaps obscure for the moment but I think he will seek his place in the world. More to the point, he will find it.

Unlike some of you, this is my first reading of "Jude". I am looking forward to the experience.

One of the background information pieces says that Hardy was so outraged by the barrage of criticism of this work that he turned to poetry and never wrote a novel again. Clearly in 1894, this was considered hot stuff.

Originally Hardy had assured his publisher that the new novel "would be a tale that could not offend the most fastidious maiden", but as he worked on it, it took on a life of it's own . Scholars then say that ,"an amazing sacrifice of art and credibility" were made in response to J. Henry Harper, publisher, who considered this to be unsuitable for a family periodical.. I'm certain we'll get into this in more detail as we move along.

I am trying to think of what current reading material in this particular area would raise that kind of storm today. Nothing comes to mind. Anybody got any ideas? Or does just about anything go now?

I can remember when my older sister was reading a book titled, "Forever Amber" back in the forties. She would put a paper cover on it so she could read in on the subway on her way to work. My, my how things have changed? Do you guys think that this has been for the betterment of society or no?

Hardy's cottage is at Higher Bockhampton near Dorchester; it is similar to the fictional Wessix area near the Channel.

At Marygreen. The piano was a burden to the schoolmaster " he had never acquired the skill in playing, and the purchased article had been a perpetual trouble to him--" gee I've done things like this - "enthusiasm having waned"

I know that I "felt the pricks of life somewhat before - time"

Reality "Bring on that water , will ye"

The well-shaft 'was probably the only relic of the local history that remained absolutely unchanged. The original church tore down and repaced by an "obliterator of historic records.

Obviously Jude likes the way things are and doesn't like change. Recently I stayed in a house in England built in 1547; Chestnut Tree House has gone through some modernization with the counsel attempting to keep the flavor of the past. My own emotions are mixed; sometimes we bulldoze something with no consideration for it's history. I feel there is a loss of continuity; if I go to a spot where my babysitter lived in San Diego and find a 4 lane freeway.

Hi, I started in the Othello discussion, but the high tech part of connecting got the best of me. So far reaching this point has been no problem.

Isent for and received "Jude the Obscure" through Amazon Books here on 'Books and Literature'. It is one of the Everyman's Li brary. The Introduction by J. Hillis Miller and the Postscript by Thomas Hardy were tantalizing analyses of the book. I suspect they will have influenced my own analysis as I read it. Does any one know who J. Hillis Miller is?

As for chapter one, I found Jude a charming, sensitive boy living in circumstances that force him to raise himself. The fact that the very first chapter ends in a cemetery portends unhappiness for our hero.

Kathleen

Although I am guilty of reading ahead a bit I still feel that I can analyze my thoughts at the end oc sub-chapter 1. (No I can't) The first part, up to about age sixteen leaves me with the overall impression of a TOO sensitive boy (He cries easily) and a slight "Artificiality". But then it IS fiction.

Best

OH, how you DAZZLE !!!!!!!

Your observations and insights will keep us nattering right on into Chapter II and II! We'll try two chapters for next week, if that's all right with everyone.

New Hardy Boy, Kingsbury !

New Hardy Girls, Joyce and Kathleen !!
... a big, warm welcome! We look forward to getting to know you and hope you become regulars. Since you have found your way here, you will probably enjoy the Book Club Online. Try it you'll like it!

Book Club On-Line Larry, will you help me (again) open a folder for the Hardy roster?

Remember that the first publication of this story was in monthly magazine installments, so the introductory installment had to both attract and hold the readership... I think this first chapter certainly sets the stage and the mood. I am so glad we are taking our time to ease into it.

Have some chores to do (and find my sun glasses!), but look forward to returning and discussing your observations.......!

I very much enjoy all the Thomas Hardy books I read about 20 years ago. I thought I had this one in my house, but couldn't find it. I must purchase it as I don't like reading it from the screen or from a hard copy. I was wondering if the story on your web site is the original text, or a synopsis. I thought that Hardy's English was a little more old English - but perhaps memory fails. I wonder if anyone saw the movie that came out a couple of years ago. I was amazed how modern it was.

Finally, a little time to spend with you!!! But where to start?

How about the title? JUDE THE OBSCURE. Ros likes to kid me about getting hung up on details. Well here I go again....

Jude. I read that TH named his character, "Jack", before her revised the name to Jude. He wrote that in one of his prepublication notebooks. What do you think of that? Jack the Obscure. Why do you think he changed the name? Does it sound too...obscure?

Obscure. "inconspicuous" , "of unidistinguished or humble station or reputation." Joyce, you expressed the thought that Jude was obscure in Marygreen, but that he would go on to make a name for himself. Would Hardy name the book Jude the Obscure just because of his humble beginnings if he did make something of himself? I'm guessing that he will remain obscure, or undistinguished.......

So our characters name is no longer Jack, but Jude Fawley. ( Fawley, by the way is the actual name of the hamlet which Hardy calls Marygreen in this novel.)

Why Jude I wonder? Was it a common or an uncommon name back in the 19th century? Is there a religious connotation here? Judas Iscariot? St Jude (patron saint of impossible causes)?

Ros mentions that Hardy doesn't moralize, or preach, but he certainly makes use of religious sources.

That quote from Esdras, preceding the first chapter, comes from a very interesting Biblical context. Just because I am interested in such details, I read the Book of Esdras (Hebrew =Ezra) for the first time last night. It seems that the people of Israel were being chastised for taking strange wives (not Jewish) and were told to rid themselves of such wives (and any children resulting from such unions). I think this is tidbit may be important as we proceed. It impressed TH enough that he begins his book with a quote from it...

Back after dinner...more details to follow, Ros, never fear.......

Blandford Forum is the city 15 miles Northeast of Higher Bockhampton, Hardy's location; maybe we can assume Christminister is similar to Blandford Forum. Sounds like Hardy is converting Christminister into Cambridge with it's religious overtones.

The word morose popped into my head as the mood layed out by the story and Jude.

Jude is not respected by the old woman who called him an "idle young harlican'.

Phillotson's reference to a university degree being a "necessary hallmark of a man who wants to do anything in teaching" and "being on the spot" is sort of a pragmatic choice that he is making.

As a male who has on occasion had a tear and a quivered lip for some losses in relationships I can identify with Jude.

As to ascribing allegorical meanings; I can do this and have done this at times to other novels but so far have not moved in that direction with Jude the Obscure.

The old woman (Aunt) was not only rude, she was cruel. The other old woman who spoke tragically on the most trivial subject reminds me of Walter Winchell (And occasionally Eric Severeid)

I also thought the Farmer's "Sharp blow upon his buttocks" was well deserved. After all, the birds were scavengers and Jude had become a sabateur.

I also thought that bit about the sensitivity to the pain of trees being cut down was a bit overdone, almost ridiculous.

Best

Good morning, LJ and Kingsbury I am enjoying your differing takes on Jude's characterization. Will respond to the "sensitiivity debate" after work this evening...

Kingsbury I am so intrigued by your geographical knowledge of "Wessex" and your name as well. Will you share with us a bit of your own history?

I think Hardy is modelling Christminster after Oxford, but not sure about that yet...

What? No allegories yet? Phoeey! I love allegories...always searching for them...

Patzy, have you read Chapter I yet? What do you think of it?

Joan G., oh yes, I knew you'd be a Hardy Girl. Your name is on the roster, which will appear here by the weekend, I'm sure...Glad to know you're with us now. Just know you will jump in and set us straight whenever we muddle up the details or the history. Reassuring......

Ginny, that's such a good question! What edition(s) are we reading? I will guess it is Hardy's 1912 revision. We will have to keep ears-and eyes open for specific differences in the revisions, so that we can watch out for them as we read...Here is a bit of something I read before dozing off last night (before 9pm!):

This is a quote from Chapter I describing the new church in Marygreen- from the first edition published by Osgood, McIlvaine &Co. published in London in 1895:

"In place of it a tall new building of German Gothic design, unfamiliar to English eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground."

What does your edition say?

That's not how my edition reads, so now I know a wee bit more about the edition I'm reading. Of course he probably revised the US copy in much the same way... Be patient, we will find more over the coming weeks. I find it so interesting to watch this man at work, trying to express his ideas in fiction, editing to make it say what he is trying to say, and then revising for publication, both in the magazines in England and the US... and then again for the novel publications, differing in each country. No wonder he gave up after this experience and turned to poetry!!!

Tennyson you say? Hmmm. We will have to read some Tennyson just for you one of these days, Ginny!

Kathleen! So good to have you back! I too hope that reading the preface and Introduction doesn't influence me as I read...Joseph Miller Tillis - an American critic who wrote a book Thomas Hardy:Distance and D (1970), which is now considered to be a classic in its own right.

Elaine! Welcome, welcome, welcome! So happy to have you with us! I do think the language we are reading is the same as Hardy wrote it with no modernizations. I remember seeing Jude on Masterpiece Theater, I think. Don't remember it though. Don't think I ever read this particular novel. That's the beauty of having a memory like mine. Everything is new to me each time! I do remember reading Return of the Native when I was very young...and that stuck with me......

Helen's back!!!!!!! So happy to read your posts again! Are you almost ready to go home?

Have been thinking about your question....what literature would raise that kind of a storm today? I recall reactions against...Ulysses, Lady Chatterly's Lover, Lolita...... Can any of you think of anything today, or as Helen asks, does just about anything go today?

Oh, Helen yes!!! Forever Amber!!! I was in high school when the movie version came out. One of my classmates, Janet Ferguson, was an usher in the local movie theater when this "banned" movie came to town. I guess it was banned by the Church. Janet would try to explain to us what she saw, but for the life of me, I cannot remember anything about it...although Janet did her best. As I recall, the banned part was thematic, rather than sexual, as it made no impression on the rest of us adolescents at the time!

Back this evening...can't wait to read your posts when I get in from work. Look forward to it each day.......

Dear Helen,

Yes, I too remember the hullabaloo over the "shocking" Forever Amber.

Also Erskine Caldwells "God's Little Acre". I remember my mother and all my Aunts' whispers and giggles at family gatherings. In my day such books were kept hidden from children which I must admit made them all the more intriguing. Every time my mother left the house I launched a search for the "forbidden" books.

As to what would create such a stir these days nothing comes to mind. Though it just occurred to me that one might feel the need to wrap with brown paper the BIBLE. What do you think?

Joyce

Joan,

I seem to remember a stir in my area of the country when Peyton Place was issued. Guess we have come a long way since then.

Larry

Dear Joan, I didn't mean to imply that Jude would go on to make a name for himself. As you suggest, the title makes it pretty clear that he will remain obscure. Perhaps the journey is all. It will be interesting to follow along. We all have our place in the world even if it may not be a very good place. How we get there is much more interesting than where we get don't you think?

Joyce

PS:"God is in the details" Keep on keeping on Joan.........

Joyce, yes I agree, what's the expression, (naturally it won't come to mind at the moment: about the journey being the reward, or something??)

Boy, brain is definitely fried this am.

Joan: Yes, that's exactly the quote about the Gothic design, "unfamiliar to English eyes..." that occurs in my edition. Why would Gothic be "unfamiliar?" Now, that is interesting.

I'd like to know the difference between "Gothic," say, and "Tudor."

I thought Salisbury was "gothic," but haven't looked it up, does anybody know?

Ginny

PS: Oh, and are we to do the next TWO chapters for Monday?? Where are we?? Who am I?? (No, that was another movie)!

Isn't "Gothic" German ?

Best

Rae, Thanks for the new Jude banner that is appearing on all of the RoundTable pages.

Larry

Rae, is that one yours? My goodness, aren't we lucky to have such talented people? Maybe we need a "banners" class. That's very fine!!

Thanks so much!

Ginny

And here I was all ready to praise Larry! Great job, Rae!!!

Ginny,

The class you ae taking, Beginner Graphics 2 teaches people to make these banners. You are sonn going to be able to do these too.

Love,

Joan

Oh my! Bad luck with servers seem to be following me! Changing from all my problems with aol to erols was supposed to end all that frustration, but I have been unable to get in here for the last few days due to a "corrupt password"...had to start all over with a new one and wait 24 hours for it to be activated (all this after listening to endless recordings I would be connected with a techician 'shortly"!)

You have said so much, and Rae! thank you!!!!!!!!!...I am going to post what I was planning to post on Thursday, then print out yours from the past few days and sit in front of a roaring fire, think about them and come back this afternoon (after tiling the upstairs bath)...

Yes, we'll try chapter two and three for tomorrow. I better send everyone an email so we're all on the same page...

Here's Thursday's post a wee bit late!..........

Oh yes, Peyton Place and God's Little Acre! I suppose today, we simply rate such material as "x- rated" (or PG 13)and leave it at that...

Joyce, thank you for that reassuring message on "details"...I hope Ros reads it...I also liked the quote from Chapter I you mentioned several days ago.."Be kind...and read all you can" I am putting that up top for a while...Good motto for the GB club!

Ginny you wondered why TH started with the schoolteacher leaving . I think that our young Jude had never considered a life outside of Marygreen...Mr. Phillotson had introduced him to the world of books. When he left, we can hear Jude thinking out loud..."But he was too clever to linger here any longer - a small sleepy place like this." And the seeds were planted for A rather good place to start, don't you think?

The piano problem was a way to introduce Jude and his aunt. We learn immediately that Jude is closer to this teacher than the regular day students who are present, but play no role. I think they were described as ' disciples', weren't they?

Ros, I don't get the feeling from this first chapter that Jude will have an unhappy life. I do feel he will not be mired in Marygreen. Kathleen, I hadn't noticed or attached any significance to the sad little cemetery at the end of this first chapter. Maybe I should have....what other clues did I miss that suggest an unhappy future for Jude? I suppose a dismal childhood with little education does not prepare one for future happiness.

But he is a curious, sensitive little fellow. LJ finds him to be overly sensitive in this early chapter. How old would you say he is here...ten, twelve? I will allow him to shed a tear or two at the loss of the only person who ever treated him with respect...or interest. I'm going to side with Kingsbury in the sensitivity debate...but I haven't read the next chapter, so I may change my mind if he gets sloppy on me ...

Let's read the next two chapters for Monday - Chapters 2 & 3 of Part One.

My favorite line in this chapter was from Jude when told by the teacher that someday Jude might understand his reasons for leaving. Jude says "I think I should now, sir"....and so Mr. Phillotson goes on to tell him!

I enjoyed Mr. Phillotson's plan to get into Christminster. Here we see him loading all his belongings...except that 'cottage piano'...to move to Christminster...with no acceptance or plan to get in other than to be 'on the spot'.It reminds me of my son's friend who wanted only to attend the college my son was attending. He was not accepted. Did he then go to his second or third choice where he was accepted...as every other kid in that situation did? No, he moved to an apartment off -campus...signed up for two evening classes...and two more in a local community college. He made many friends...played intermurals...and the second semester, applied again...and was accepted!!! There he was, Johnny on the spot! Kept his apartment and was nearly an average freshman.

Yes, that well-shaft was fraught with meaning...will we hear more about that as the story progresses? Poor, mean little Marygreen! This well being the only remaining landmark in the town...the church was the real loss, wasn't it? I find this interesting...it is the discription ot the former church grounds, that appears in our editions as "the site wheron so long had stood the ancient temple to the Christian divinities ...", but in the original text, before TH revised it, it read, "had stood as the ancient temple of God...." Now what was he thinking when he made that change?

Back later, as long as my password behaves itself!

Everyone,

I thought I would just add some information on Gothic.

In the late 11th century French architects began to build in a new style called Gothic. They overcame the structural limitations of of Romanesque architecture(heavy walls and low arches) by adding two things. On the outside, they built flying buttresses, or stone beams that extended out from the wall. These supports took the weight of the building off the walls and allowed walls to be thinner, with more windows . The ceiling inside was supported by pointed arches. made of narrow stone ribs reaching out from tall pillars. these supports allowed architects to build higher ceilings and more open interiors. The lofty spires of these Gothic cathedrals seemed to soar into the heavens. The sunshining through the seautiful stained-glass windows filled the interior with a rich, warm glow. That sums up gothic architecture.

The word Gothic can also mean the east Germanic language of the Goths.

From there you can draw your own conclusions about this reference quoted above.

Ginny, Salisbury is English Gothic. It has the same characteristrics I described above. However in English Gothic buildings the spires and vaulted ceilings are not as high as the French Cathedrals. The area of the insides of the buildings are not as huge.

Tudor architecture is characterized by flat arches, shallow moldings, and alot of paneling.

Joan Grimes

I realy liked that.

Best

Thank you very much, Joan. Gothic architecture sounds lovely...too lovely for little Marygreen...who would complain about such a soaring light-filled edifice erected on the spot of the original "hump-backed wood-turreted and quaintly hipped old church? Why did TH edit out the "German Gothic" from his original description? He was an architect, wasn't he? He couldn't have made such an error. Is there any such thing as German Gothic architecture? Somehow, I imagine the new church to be modern in the utilitarian sense (as Germans would have designed it) as opposed to the elegance of the French....

Joan, bless your heart! I had thought I remembered Salisbury as Gothic, and now your explanation is both picturesque and memorable. I don't think I'll forget it!

So Notre Dame is Gothic? With the flying buttresses? This is so neat.

Now I need to go look up more on English Architecture.

You know Henry's chapel and rooms at Hampton Court: those decorated hammer beams, while Tudor, were just breathtaking. Have NEVER seen anything like them.

Is Chartres the best example of French Gothic, I've not been there?

Ginny

Hi All:

Joan G. Thanks for the description of Gothic.

Joan P. Thank you for the welcome back. I have to get this out fast before my computer freezes up on me. It is going in for evaluation and probably some radical surgery. Has been getting increasingly unable to use because of it's malfunctioning.

Jerry, Jude and I are off to Puerto Rico early Tuesday A.M. for some much needed R&R. No we are not back in the house yet. I think it will be sometime around the middle to the end of December!

Hopefully will be back on when we return.

My best to you all.

"Kingsbury" is my middle name; I fouled up with "Frank" my first name. Have to hurry before I get disconnected again by my Server.

I spent the Summer of '97 in England and Wales; have a good map.

"and would never draw there anymore" could relate the Well to the social environment and the village.

"a tall new building of modern Gothic design" is in my '96 Barnes and Noble edition.

"be kind to animals and birds,and read all you can" is a message.

Kingsbury Walker , a Mariner on the Great Lakes and a relative was apparently admired by my great - grandfather in 1865 and hence the middle name in the family. My connection to England in genealogical lines seems to go through the name of Kimpton.

The prior messages on architecture are certainly pertinent to the author we're reading. Hardy 's father and grandfather were master masons, Hardy himself was trained as an architect skilled in designing a facade with a window here to match a window there. Hardy in his own comments on "Jude" stressed the symmetrical balance of elements that make the novel a study in contrasts. I took this information from the Introduction in the book I have. Kathleen

I felt in II and III we are beginning to see into the personality of Jude. His concern about letting the birds eat even at the risk of losing his job with Farmer Troutham and his concern not to step on the worms shows shows he had feelings for living things. I think his fascination with Christminister shows a dreamer.

I found the reaction of the great aunt to Jude losing his job of interest. She felt that maybe she had erred in letting Jude work for the farmer because Farmer Troutham's father was her father's journeyman. This seems to show signs of class distinction in their isolated society at Marygreen.

It is hard to image the feelings that Jude must have had to lose his parents and then have to live with someone who is very vocal about not wanting him there. And then the teacher, who has befriended him, leaves. Heavy baggage for a very young man.

In reading these two chapters I noted several really neat word pictures. Hardy could certainly write.

Larry

Yes Floyd, but still I thought the worms, twigs, and birds were just TOO contrived. Take that phrase "Nature's logic was too horrid for him to care for. That mercy toward one set of creatures was cruelty toward another sickened his sense of harmony" What do mercy and cruelty have to do with twigs and worms. I wonder how he felt about fishing. Did he eat meat when he could.

Does anybody know what the word "Sprawl" means ?? "There never was any sprawl on thy side of the family and never will be"

And again "He cried bitterly" when the Quack Doc didn't come thru with the books. It seems to me that anger would have been more appropriate.

Best

When I was walking along the Public Foootpaths of Upper Gravenhurst toward Meppershall in England this Summer I heard the retort of of periodic shotgun blasts ( automatic of course ) to keep the birds away from the fields; also I saw a kite shaped like a hawk that was fashioned to scare away smaller birds. Gee another job lost; no more Clappers.

Jude's difficulty with employment due to illusions and ideations is significant; the fantasies seem to be controlling his life.

Of course I will have to admit that some of my earlier employments were short in nature; my Troutham was a supervisor at General Electric that I openly confronted and he told me to go and pick up my closing check.

Clacking did not seem to jibe with the "attached associations" of the field. Temporary and permanent relationships in the cornfield in the past had no influence on "Jude nor the rooks around him considered. for them it was a lonely place." " They seemed like himself, to be living in a world which did not want them."

What pops into my head is timing; the same "spot" at different times in ones life can pull out many different emotions.

The "spot" of a tender kiss in the park before and after that moment does not have the same meaning; you can go to the spot and remember the moment but the impact is not there. A frozen moment in time that has limited access.

Troutham, whirling the child and yet the irony of being a contributor towards the building of the church, "to testify his love for God and man."

"What was good for God's birds was bad for God's gardner"-- "If you can't skeer birds, what can ye do?" Good question. - fantasize about Christminister???

Are you enjoying Hardy's characterization of Jude? His writing style? Use of the language to draw images, express emotion and mood? I must say that by reading the lines so closely to discuss these chapters with you, I am finding much more to admire and think about, than if I scanned through it (the way I seem to read everything else lately). Larry agrees with me I see and expresses it so much better...'word pictures'

Would be interested in your reaction to his style.

Kathleen, will keep an eye out for those contrasts...maybe start a list? Thanks for pointing that out.

Am really enjoying the comments from the Hardy Boys this morning. And the underlying differences of opinion regarding Jude's sensitivity...too much or just right.

Am planning to print out your comments and think about them on the train...

Ros, I understand your earlier post...those adjectives describing Jude's mean little existence in Marygreen flow in these two chapters...as we are let into his thoughts and reactions to his surroundings...

I was very struck by Hardy's presentation of Jude's emotional state. He had recently lost his father...and his mother previous to that. Yet as privy as we are to this thoughts, there is never a mention of father, mother or home. Such a psychologically traumatizing experience! And yet Hardy never mentions it...just shows him fretting over the birds, the worms, (the hurting trees!!) and the departing teacher...

LJ, I thought, this kid has my permission to shed buckets of tears!

I also thought of LJ's words...that this is fiction...so I thought that TH is focusing on the plot line, and moving on to Christminster, not a study of Jude's psyche and emotional state.

But I thought of Jude often yesterday...and my own experience. My mother died when I was seven. I was sent to a boarding school. I didn't cry for my mother, for my old life. I would not allow myself to think of it at all. Focussed on the people around me, dreamed of being a ballet dancer (!!!) and for some reason, owning a camera. This wasn't healthy, but who knew? Lost many precious memories forever! My mother's face, her voice...everything she had ever said to me...gone - somewhere. Like Jude.

I like the name "Frank", Kingsbury! What do your friends call you? Do you go by the name of Kingsbury in "real life"? King? What part of the country are you writing from. So happy to have you with us!

Will tune in after work! This is so much fun!

I have read too far ahead and now I'm going to go back and start over. I like the descriptions and and can really visualize the fields. Makes me wish I could go walking there.

Pat / IL

This book has really captured me. I am right in there walking in those fields. I love Hardy's style. His discriptions are marvelous.

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed his writing. I have not read this book before.

I have been reading online but I must buy this book!

Joan Grimes

Still with chapters 1-3. Simultaneously the author introduces the school teacher and what appears to be a good hearted little boy (about eleven years old?) The great aunt, with the responsibility to care for him, seems to display the cruelty to orphans typical of English literature of the time, of schoomaster, orphan home managers, reluctant relatives, etc. Even so, dosn't the aunt show some feeling for and pride in him when she asks why the boy didn't get the schoolmaster to take him along to Christminster? "I'm sure he couldn't ha' took a better one. The boy is crazy for books."

Whatever the symbolism of the birds, trees, etc., Jude esxpresses his own feeling of rejection (so devastating to small children) when he speaks of the birds who,"...seemed, like himself, to be living in a world that did not want them." And already his yearning for a higher education surfaces. But, as the introduction to my edition says, "...the Oxford theme is overtaken by that of the inflexibility of the marriage laws." But that's still to come in the story.

For what it's worth!

Russ

I am enjoying reading the posts as much as the book.Much food for thought!

Just got in and stopped to check the posts...and Russ is back!!! So glad to hear from you! Welcome home!

Yes, the great aunt is a piece of work, isn't she? I love the dialog...her country accent..."Goddy mighty...it keeps him out of mischty". Yes, she does seem to express some pride ...in her own way, but I'm afraid it's lost on Jude.

And Marge, our new Hardy Girl!
Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!

Have you been with us all along? Yes, the posts are great, aren't they? Look forward to hearing from you!

Joan, yes! By all means, buy the book. If you invest in it , we will certainly hear from you!

Going to fix dinner and come back to talk about this morning's dazzling posts!

One of the reasons I signed on to this discussion was the book choice. I had never read any of the "Hardy" books, but heard about them. I am so glad I did...he's fascinating. Jude continues to be a sensitive, intelligent 11 year old boy. Much of what we could assume was his thinking in Chapters 2&3 is actually TH. The best example is in Chap. 2 when "he lays down upon his back on a heap of litter near the pig-sty." Hardy is telling us how he felt after he grew up..."Growing up brought responsibilities," "sense of harmony," "if he could only prevent himself from growing up. He did not want to be a man." No way are those thoughts that of a child with his limited experience and background. The end of Chap. 2 again gives us a glimpse of what is to come..."descending into the same hollow which had witnessed his punishment in the morning........and climbing up the long and tedious ascent on the other side......ploughed land ended...all before him was bleak open down. Hardy makes Jude a charming child; if he wasn't I'd be depressed by the end of this chapter. In Chap. 3 at the end of the outside of the cottage where he lives, we are told "Jude had his outer being for some long tideless time. But his dreams were as gigantic as his surroundings were small." Pure poetry! And it helps explain where Jude really lives, enabling him to disregard his harsh life. I think his aunt realizes Jude is different, resents not knowing what to do, and it comes across as cruelty. I related to his passion for Christminster. I was only a few years older than Jude when I discovered Manhattan Island and its lights at dark. I thought then, and have not had any reason to change my mind, "That it would just suit me." The foundation Hardy is building gives us clues to the outline of the story brilliantly.

Yes, the "Word paintings" are excellent in transmitting real pictures into our minds. It seems that not a few of us are questioning the "Believability" of some of the characters at least some of the time, and someone suggested we "Step back" and see the "Big Picture".

My problem is that it was dramatic social commentary when it was writted. This is discussed in the synopses. Otherwise, At this point (Admittedly very early) it's like reading "Caesar's Gallic Wars" -- Dated, at least from a military point of view.

From the "Civilian" point of view I do see some philosophical thoughts wafting around (Mostly Allegorical) and the "Word Pictures" are simplistic, compared to those of "Gogol" so that's not the focus of the book --- either.

Best

Just a quote Magill and Beacham "Critical Survey of Long Fiction" 1983 -- Salem Press "In his unflinching confrontation with meaninglessness in the universe, Hardy embodied Albert Camus' description of the absurd creator in "The Myth of Sisyphus "(1942);he rebelled against the chaos of the world by asserting his own freedom to persist in spite of that meaninglessness.

trying to read a little Camus now. Camus came after Hardy.

Such eloquence. Hardy's prose Is poetry! I loved the passage about the "ancient cornfields". It was so evocative. As you said so well Larry--"word pictures".

"Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not himself bear to hurt anything." This reminds me of a book I read many years ago by Victor Frankel? "A Man's Search For Meaning? It was an autobiography and dealt with his terrible experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. Upon being released at the end of the war he made observations of the varied reactions of his fellow prisoners to a field of wildflowers. He could not bring himself to step on a single flower though others trampled them carelessly. As I recall some felt entitled to anything because of all they had been through. The thing that stuck with me was his ablolute reverence for life and the beauty of the flowers. He had been unspeakably hurt yet could not (like Jude)himself bear to hurt anything.

Yes obviously Jude is "the sort of man who was born to ache................" Does Hardy truly see this as "weakness of character"? I personally think not but future chapters will clarify. Respect and Reverence for "all things great and small" is to me a sign of good character. I really think Hardy is talking about Awareness here. Worms or wildflowers ought not be casually and indifferently trod upon. To bait a hook with a worm has a purpose.LJ I love fish. "As flies to the wanton Gods' are we" comes to my mind.

T.S.Eliot speaks of the "brutal indifference" of the world in his review at the top.

"No good deed will go unpublished comes to my mind. Who said that?

Jude's "truthful explanation" angered the farmer more than had he lied or kept silent. Aha! Truth hurts. Farmer T. testifies "his love for God and man" but perhaps this is just lip service.

Mistake above:"No good deed........." should read "No good deed will go unpunished. All this computer and keyboard stuff is new to me so I don't know how to correct things. My last typing was done on a Royal Underwood.

LJ: I'm guessing here but I wonder if Sprawl could mean they pretty much stayed put in the general area? Not moving on or up.

Kingsbury Thomas: I too love that name. And your touch of humor about the job loss.

I have tons more I'd like to talk about and ask but I have to go now. Be back later or tomorrow.

This is really fun. Looking forward to hearing all comments about this fine book.

Good thoughts

Joyce

Typewriters - How about the "Oliver" with a double shift and 3 rows of keys that helped me stumble through --

"Jude went out,and, feeling more than ever his existence to be an undemanded one" This takes me back to a 4 month stay in San Francisco ( many years ago ) ; a piece of art with a female's echoed stare pops into my head also discussing Hambos and drinking martinis in a record store pops into my head; I was bouncing around different relationships and writing for the Army at the time. Busy at the time;not settling at the time; at times feeling alone and undemanded.

"Natures logic was too horrid for him to care for. That mercy towards one set of creatures was cruelty towards another sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt yourself to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its circumference -- noises and glares hit upon the little cell called your life"

Sounds like dissappointment;possibly rejection - things don't always work out the way you plan them or dream them - I think harmony means control here - At times my existence has spun out of control, sometimes with strange consequences - Here I am staring at a wood cat that is sitting on my monitor.

I will agree that these introductory chapters are the calm before the storm. TH has inserted all sorts of insinuation of future disappointments for young Jude. As Joyce has noted, 'the sort of man born to ache'. If I had the time, I would quote them here. Kathleen has already begun with some great quotes. Did your "city of light" live up to your expectations, Kathleen? If anyone has the time or inclination to post one or two, I'll scoop them all up and include them in a new file - for future reference. I think it would be interesting to have a quick reference as the story progresses.

I will also agree with LJ, that the lovely word pictures are not indicative of Hardy's intent here...that he has messages that go beyond. Yet, let's enjoy them now...and recognize his power to provide a setting and communicate human response to these surroundings.

Social commentary? Yes, that's what we will be experiencing...and already are beginning to learn Hardy's views on religion, sexuality...and marriage...

Camus, Kingsbury? Oh my...We already hear our Jude 's assessment of his surroundings:

"a small sleepy place"...."This is a mean little place"

But he still has hope for a better life...he still believes in a life after Marygreen...he believes in heaven. Isn't Christminster portrayed as heaven?

"the heavenly Jerusalem"
"beautiful music everywhere"
the mist surrounding Christminster had the "mysticism of incense"
"a city of light"
"a tree of knowledge grows here"

And finally,and perhaps most importantly, he imagines the inhabitants saying "we are happy here".

"It would just suit me!"

I guess there's lots of time for Hardy to dismantle Jude's dream, but right now, I want to be simplistic...and dream along with him for a better tomorrow in Christminster. How else to get through the day!

Looking forward to this evening and your insightful posts! Joan

Hi,

Just wanted to correct my quote of yesterday. "As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods......

Sisyphus! YES! That was my thought too Kingsbury. The journey/struggle is all. Of course if I remember correctly Sisyphus was condemned to his struggle. We (Jude) choose ours. And persist in spite of the seeming futility.

Back in a little while.

Joyce

Just saw on Barnes & Noble that a film version of Great Expectations by Dickens will be released on December 31st. Does anyone have any infomation on this?

Russ

This is the first time I've posted in the Hardy discussion, but have been reading the lively and perceptive commentary with great interest. I read ch. 1 on-line, but the other evening I was in the library to hear some tales from the sagas, told by candlelight, and took a contrasting technological leap by using the computer to locate "Jude" down in the stacks. This is a two-volume edition printed in Leipzig in 1896, with an author's preface assuring us that "...the present edition (is) the first in which the whole appears as originally written."

"Jude the Obscure" was on a college reading list zillions of years ago, but I haven't read it since and can recall very little. but on rereading I find that some of these word pictures have been there in memory all the time, waiting to be evoked. The boy in the center if the ugly brown indentation with its undefined horizons; the glow of Christminster in the night sky, so luminous to Jude, but which the carter can hardly see. I can't agree that Hardy's visual imagery is vivid but superficial. Rather, as in a poem, the imagery seems to suggest and underscore thematic development.

Carolyn

Carolyn,

I agree with you about the imagery. I do not feel that it is at all superficial. I feel that it is very much suggesting and emphasizing the thematic development of this novel. Hardy was also a poet. He was capable of using the imagry in this way.

Joan Grimes

I am so emjoying the slow reading of Jude just the way it was intended, and just enthralled with all your magnificent posts; so much so, in fact, I hesitated to post, lest I break the spell.

I'm enjoying the word pictures, too. The similies: "feeling the impact of their glances like slaps upon his face," and "The fresh harrow lines seemed to stretch like chanellings in a piece of new corduroy."

I found the description of the shop window with its twenty-four little panes " almost Dickensian, and loved loved the English expressions: "though to every clod and stone there really attached associations enough and to spare--" and the child eating cake for breakfast (wonder if that was the same seed cake eaten in the Deep South which was served us for breakfast two years ago when we stayed on a plantation in Mississippi)?

The pubic footpaths, which almost have to be seen to be understood, we're starting to catch up here in the USA with our reconverted railway lines, (Carolyn: do they have public footpaths in Norway? So glad to see you again!)...

I actually felt the aunt did take up for the child, in a way. She said that she shouldn't have sent him to work for the man, says "Farmer Troutham is not so much better than myself, come to that," quotes Job, and says that "His father was my father's journeyman, anyhow, and I must have been a fool to let 'ee go to work for 'n.

I'd like to know more about the time this was written in, and the conditions of child welfare at those times. I have a feeling we'll get another dose when we read Dickens, and I'm looking forward to it heartily.

I thought Carolyn's point about the Carter hardly seeing Christminster when Jude did was really fine. I hadn't noticed that, and you can't read anything any slower than I read these two chapters. So glad to be reading it with all of you; I'll learn a lot.

Ginny

"girls had given themselves to lovers who would not turn their heads to look at them by the next harvest" this thought by Jude suggests temporary relationships. My own research into successful films found that one thread that ran through them was disposable people and other than permanent relationships; maybe this is what people want. I still can't figure out whether or not Sisyphus chose his yoke or not; "in truth, he acts as if he is free". From T.S. Eliot's Burnt Norton "In the knowledge derived from experience. The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies, For the pattern is new in every moment and every moment is a new and shocking valuation of all we have been" . -- Things change

Carolyn! Welcome back! So happy to hear from you! Thought of you and your little grand-daughter as I was preparing the Hardy Boys/Girls roster above...does she still 'go into the books when no one is around'?

I can just picture you listening to the ancient candlelight sagas...and then locating the early 1896 editions of Jude by computer!!!! Talk about contrasts! I have a feeling we will be calling on you know and then to check the unrevised passages.

I agree with you Kathleen. The narrator is none other than Thomas Hardy himself...in these early chapters...putting forth his social commentary. I have noticed that when TH really wants us to know what Jude is thinking, he seems to put it in quotes. Not only would a young boy be incapable of most thoughts expressed here, but so much of it he couldn't even know about - like this passage:

"Love -matches that had populated the adjoining hamlet had been made up there between reaping and carrying. Under the hedge which divided the field from a distant plantation girls had given themselves to lovers who would not turn their heads to look a them by the next harvest"

I doubt this passage appeared in the 1895 serialization in Harper's, a 'family' magazine. Is it in the 1896 edition, Carolyn?

Do you think it was shocking at the time of publication to find it in print? Do you think the concept of 'disposable people' as Kingsbury describes them, was novel and shocking at the time? Is this what people want in literature and movies. Is this what they wanted in Hardy's time?

Ginny, I paused at those 24 little panes too - but my imagination had presented them as diamond-shape. Only after I read your "almost Dicksenian" post did they turn into twenty four little squares.....and then there's the question of why Hardy bothered to mention the specific number of squares. It suggests to me that an idle child with nothing to do on one of those dreary rainy days might have counted the panes......

You're right! The aunt must have felt something for Jude - she kept him around, underfoot. I doubt there was much child welfare assistance - other than those infamous orphanages. She could have sent him there, couldn't she?

Speaking of Dickens...no, Russ, I know nothing of a Great Expectations production. Of all my adolescent reading, this one really stuck with me. I'm afraid no movie can compare with that wedding table in my memory. Honestly, I think about it whenever I dust the crystals in our little chandeliers (not often I admit, but whenever)

Would love to learn more details about when it is to be shown. If we all watch for it, we should find it in time!

Good day! Back this evening...
Joan

Hi EVERYBODY - ITS ME!!!

In case any of you have been wondering what happened to me - well my computer is down (I am over my sister house using her computer now). First, I had to get a new hard drive and now I am having a modem problem. Am waiting for a new software diskette from the manufacturer go set it up. I SURE HAVE MISSED YOU GUYS. I have, however, been keeping up with my reading and am ;looking forward to posting again.

Bye - be back soon

Beatrice

BEATRICE!!

We have ALL been wondering where you were, and are so glad to see you again! You'll make Jonkie's day when she looks in here tonight, and OOPS, I see by the above we're to have done Chapters 4 & 5, so will fix lunch in a bit, get a nice cuppa Coke, and settle down for some good writing!

Back in a flash,

Ginny

"under the sway of a polytheistic fancy" may not have been palatable In Hardy's time as it is becoming in current times. Who knows we may be brothers to "the insensate rock" - Bryant . Belief systems rise and fall as man needs them. I to muse over my curious supertitions.

Bea's back!!! Sort of...When the modem gets synchronized. Will be watching for you this week, Bea! What wonderful news! Should have known it would be computer difficulties........

So much to discuss in these two chapters! Can we cover it in a week?

Jude is a boy of twelve at the start of chapter four..."an ancient man in some phases of thought...much younger in others..." I guess I never saw him as an "ancient man', did you? Where? Show me!

But my heart went out to the "unsophisticated boy" when physician Vilbert arrived empty-handed a fortnight later and the expectant Jude was waiting with all the orders for the quack medicine.

And boom! the "gift of sudden insight which is sometimes vouchsafed to children showed him all at once what shoddy humanity the quack was made of... he turned and cried bitterly..." Let him cry, LJ, his childhood is coming to an end...

But as difficult as that was for Jude, the rude awakening when he realized he couldn't learn Greek and Latin with a special code...was so much worse!!!
"an utterly miserable boy"
"made him wish he had never seen a book"
"that he might never see another"
"that he had never been born"
...Jude continued to "wish himself out of the world."

This is pretty heavy stuff for a kid of twelve, although he does come out of it. By Chapter Five, he had become 'callous to disappointment" and focused on work, and learning...until he's 19! That was quite a sprint through adolescence, wasn't it? And for a book which shocked society at the time, an unremarkable period in a boy's life, when the hormones should be raging. Was Hardy trying to tell us just how absorbed Jude was in his desire to enter the ministry by omitting any reference to his......social life?

Ginny, have you read your chapters? That's a long lunch!

I put a schedule up top for the rest of Marygreen, which will bring us to Dec. 21. Would like to hear your thoughts on the best time to begin Christminster. Want to take some time off, but not too much. How about resuming the discussion on Dec. 29? What do you all think? Would also like your comments on the pace at which we are reading Jude. Too slow? Just right?

Will be back in the morning...hope to hear from you soon!
Joan

Well , I'm back sooner than I thought! Kingsbury has provided much to think about before bedtime. For one thing, I have to go back and find the context wherein lies the "polytheistic fancy", which I slipped right over...for another, to think about his own "curious superstitions", (please elaborate!), and finally, I would like to tie the whole thing to the "ancient temple to the Christian divinities" of Chapter I.

Joan,

First of all I think it is fine to resume on December 29 since the holidays are a busy time. I personally like this slower pace than we use in most of the other book clubs. It allows you time to read a couple of chapters and think about them.

I read the two chapters for this week last evening and really enjoyed them. In fact, I was sorry to come to the end of the reading for this week as I am finding Hardy's writing so interesting. The cites you made above also captured my attention. When I read the phrase
"an ancient man in some phases of thought...much younger in others..." it really stopped me and I went back to reread to see if Hardy was still referring to Jude. I do think it is possible that a lad or lass of 12 could, based on the experience of losing parents and probably other significant life events, have some very mature thoughts. For example, the loss of parents is an experience that I have not yet had to face in my life and Jude had lost both of his and experienced living in a rather hostile environment with his great aunt.

Jude apparently was able to go from abject failure, when he first got the books and realized his expectations were not to be met, to some success as he studied and learned during his bakery runs with the horse and wagon. I thought the contrast between the ancient writing and the concern for the "proper thinking" for someone who wanted to be a Christian divine.

I thought that Jude also showed maturity when he thought through what he would need to earn a living that would support him when he went to Christminster and took the actions necessary to learn the stone craft skills.

I just have the feeling that Hardy is starting to create a very rich tapestry and we really haven't yet met many of the characters that will be involved in this story.

Larry

I, too, like the slow pace, and think December 29 would be perfect.

I immediately thought of the phrase "old soul" when Hardy mentioned "an ancient man in some phases of thought," and also of "the child is father of the man...."

Since these two chapters are so taken with the child's study of Latin, I thought you might want to know a little more about Horace's Carmen Saeculare.

Horace (65-8 BC) wrote this poem in 17 BC by command of Augustus for the "celebration of the Secular Games (Ludi ). It is an invocation, in sapphic stanzas of the various gods of the Roman pantheon to grant their blessings to the State.

It was sung on the Palatine on June 3, the third day of the celebrations, by 27 girls and 27 boys whose parents were still alive. An inscription describing the ceremony survives. (The number 27, or three 9, is repeatedly met with both in Greek and Roman ritual; it was regarded as especially lucky)." The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature .

The lines loosely translated :" Phoebe silvarumque potens Diana!" are an invocation to Phoebe ("the bright one," in later mythology associated with the moon; according to Hesiod, A Titaness), and powerful Diana (or "master of" or "ruling over") of the woods. (potens with the genitive sometimes indicating "master of" or "ruling over").

Diana was a Latin goddess associated with the plebian class and with slaves..."perhaps originally a spirit of the woods...From her association with Artemis, Diana took over the character of a moon-goddess." Oxford Companion....

Bulfinch's Mythology also contains a charming if somewhat bloody story of Diana and Actaeon, also immortalized by Shelley's poem "Adonais," in which Diana is mentioned as the "huntress queen, and goddess of the woods."

And, of course, anyone from Pennsylvania knows the derivation of that name: silva for woods, thus "Penn's Woods," as land granted to William Penn.

As far as the book, I was so saddened by the child's despair, and rather more angered by the tutor than impressed. He might have sent a note on to the child. He might have included a little explanation of how the child was to proceed, and offered his help. I don't think much of the tutor, even though he DID send the grammar, and think that the child persevered at all is a tremendous tribute to the child, and not a little complement to the efficacy of those old Latin grammars.

Ginny

Okay I'm back in business . I have noted that you are now on chapters 4 and 5 this week. I have read ahead into Part 3 so I have to go back and review chapters 4&5 of Part 1 before I comment.

Beatrice

Fascinating background material Thanks Ginny.

Best

Thanks for the explanation of the 'Carmen Saeculare' , Ginny. Our young Jude had really made progress in his lonely study of Latin, no? I saw a bumper sticker yesterday:

Latin is long.
Life is short.
Start young. I thought of Jude. And the translation of 'Phoebe silvarumque potens Diana" - the shining Phoebe and the powerful Diana...

So Jude finds himself in the moonlight - repeating "under the sway of a polytheistic fancy that which he would never have thought of humouring in broad daylight", singing a hymn to heathen deities! And when he gets home he "muses over his curious superstition", which caused this lapse of common sense - and concludes that this has happened because he has limited himself to reading only the heathen Latin and Greek classics. He immediately abandons such reading and turns to Gospels and Epistles - and "patristic literature".

TH is conveying a message here, as he did in chapter I when he edited the words describing the Marygreen church from "the ancient temple of God", substituting "the ancient temple to Christian divinities."

More about this later...as adamantly as he denied that Jude is autobiographical, there is so much similarity...I will share some of this in my next post - material from Hardy, a biography, by Martin Seymour-Smith. Hardy's complex religious beliefs are explained at length here and clearly he expressed them in this novel.

Larry, loved your thoughtful post! I agree that losing both parents, with no support from the hostile environment had a great effect on Jude's development and forced him to think and plan in ways that younger boys did not. I was also intrigued at the manner in which he decided upon a means of earning a living. Why doesn't everyone make such an important decision in this careful, calculating way? It seems so simple. People in Christminster needed food, clothing and shelter. After eliminating the first two, he settled on providing shelter. Do you think TH decided on architecture in the same manner?

I read something interesting concerning those bakery runs in the cart, as he studied his Greek and Latin texts. I read this in the above-mentioned biography:
On his way to school as a young man, Hardy "did once meet with a youth like Jude who drove the bread-cart of a widow- baker, like Mrs. Fawley, and carried on his studies at the same time, to the serious risk of other drivers in the lane; which youth asked him to lend him his Latin grammar. But Hardy lost sight of this featful student, and never knew if he profited by his plan."

Just goes to show that every writer of fiction incorporates his own experience into his work. So often I remember writing instructors telling me, "write about what you know"!

Later!
Joan

Bea! Congratulations! You have conquered Technology!

Enjoyed your explanation Ginny.

Joan

Welcome back, Beatrice! Thanks to Ginny for the good research and to Joan for perceptive comments. "Every writer of fiction incorporates his own experience into his work", and "Write about what you know." It does seem likely that Hardy borrows from his own realities.

Joan and Larry! It seems that the author has Jude saying things beyond his age and experience in the early part of the book. This is also true of Trudy in the early part of Stones from the River. Could both of them have been that precocious? If this was to lay down background and information from which the story proceeds, was it a somewhat common technique?

Russ

Joan, You and Ginny make comments more interesting than the text itself.

Do you suppose that St. Jude, as the patron saint of lost causes, had anything to do with the title ?

Best

Thaks, Guys, and LJ: that is a very interesting thought, itself!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ginny

LJ: You are so right about the posts here. I have learned so much from Ginny, Joan, Ros, Russ, and you, LJ and all the others... The Odyssey drove me clear to Greece, which I really enjoyed.

Pat / IL

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, MY FRIENDS!

As we gather around the table and count our blessings this afternoon, I will mention you, who have added so much to my days this past year! This has been such an awesome experience! I wouldn't recognize you if we met in person, yet I feel I know you all so well...

Thanks for being there, right in front of your screens...

Joan

Joan, what a sweet note! Hope you all had a wonderful day!!

Yes, I think our Pat has taken book appreciation to its most desired height: a trip to the actual location! Talk about research!! I'm jealous...wouldn't it be super if we could do that? Well, I've just come back from England, though I must admit I didn't get to Dorset this time, but I sure know what to include next time: here's another looooooooooong list forming as we speak.

1999, here I come!!

Ginny

Now, if they choose the China book in the Book Club, I may have to go to China.

Pat / IL

I have the strange feeling that we are tearing through these chapters! Even at this pace! There is so much to check out and think more about!

Russ, I think you put your finger on it when you suggested that when a writer wants to 'lay background and information from which a story proceeds', he often tells you things such as the fact that Jude was as an 'ancient man in thought', rather than explain it. He wants you to have this information, without going into it. Yes, I think this is a common practice for many writers...but I don't like it much. I prefer a Hemingway...who in a few words of dialogue, lets his characters reveal themselves.......

I'm not saying that I think that Hardy does this often...but he does do it. He did a fine job depicting the "Physician Vilbert", I thought. In a few lines, we have a vivid picture of this "light footed pedestrian, non withstanding the gloom...watchchain dancing madly, as he moves through Wessex like clockwork" This "public benefactor" reveals Hardy's humor (or sense of the absurd), as he promises all sorts of cures to the gullible cottagers...and in the same way, promises Jude his magical grammars! This 'travelled personage had been to Christminster many times...impressing Jude with his knowledge of "dog Latin, cat Latin (???????pig latin?) and the "Greek taught to men "in training for bishops"(?????).

And LJ, I would like to know more about St. Jude of impossible causes. I do think that the name, Jude, may be associated with this Jude, but he needs some research...maybe later today......

I so admire Jude's singlemindedness. We have already admired his method of identifying a way of supporting himself in Christminster someday...and preparing for it years in advance. I liked the fact that he 'found this work as a free-stone working apprentice in Alfredston very interesting, although it was not his real goal'. Looked at Alfredston on the map of Wessex and noted that on the one included in the site above, it is spelled Alfredstone. It is also on a straight line between Marygreen and Christminster.

The same singlemindedness is evident as he abruptly switches from the Classics to the Gospels, and Epistles...and every Sunday when not working, he visits all the churches to decipher Latin inscriptions......

Yes Ginny, I was disappointed that Phillotson didn't include a note of encouragement or suggestions for Jude...just the two slender, marked up grammars...It is a wonder that he persisted!
There were some lines which I think, reveal Hardy's own outlook on our solitary condition:

"Somebody might have come along...who would have asked him his trouble...who might have cheered him...but nobody did come, because nobody does.

I must say here, that I was drawn to another character from this chapter, ' ...the hunch-backed old woman of great intelligence...who read everything she could lay her hands on. and she told him more yet of the romantic charms of the city of light and lore' . I find her a source of inspiration for Jude, don't you? I would like to be her...and share what I know with young Judes who really need people to take interest! Is Hardy trying to tell us that there really are people in everyone's life who provide motivation? Or is he even aware of what he is doing with characters such as this woman?

Pat W., is your passport current? You are ready to travel!!!!!!

Later! Read on...in spite of all the reminders that you are not ready for the upcoming holidays!!! Chapters 6 &7 for Monday.......

Passport is current... trying for an Elderhostel group to Tibet. Don't know if my doctor will sign the OK.

the hunch-backed old woman of great intelligence. I wished this character had figured more into the story. Jude needed a person like that to guide him. He was certainly focussed on what he wanted to accomplish.

Pat / IL

Oh my! I came out of Chapter 5 with the feeling that Jude had little or no social life by the age of 19...was that natural? Was there no "inclination"?

As Chapter 6 began, I was impressed with the amount of knowledge he had acquired on his own...and the authors he was looking forward to reading!!! And his enthusiasm for what was to come as he carefully, methodically, prepared for his life in Chistminster......

But as Chapter 7 progresses, I am filled with apprehension and dismay, as he experiences for the first time that 'involuntary flexing of muscle"..........Does he stand a chance? Reminds me of one of my sons...

Can't wait to get home tonight to hear your comments on this turn of events. Am afraid he will never get to Christminster...although I do know the name of Part II is called At Christminster......

Later! Joan

I too feel that Jude had an unusal teenage existance. His great thirst for knowledge and dreams of going to Christminister has driven him to indulge in readings of greek and latin in the belief that this will all be instrumental to get him into Christminster University. I also find him very vulnerable . He trust people but gets little notice and guidance as to how to go about life. In chapter 7 we get a glimpse of reality as he meets a girl and his selfdriven studies temporarilly gets set aside for more realistic happenings. However, he is very naive and is probably heading for more dissapointments in other people he trusts.

Bea

Well, I assumed the "Peeps" as in turning to observe the peeps of country, meant -- Glipmses.

Jude's familiarity with the Latin writers was astonishing in the face of the rural nature of the habitat, and one wonders where and how he learned the Hebrew alphabet, but at the age of ninteen to have only vaguely regarded the female sex as something outside his life and purposes, is difficult to fathom. Of course, it IS fiction.

I was also interested in his choice of advanced degrees. Not an earned degree such as a ThD. or PhD. but an honorary degree !! a D.D.

I found the frequent references to the New Teseament, rendered in greek to suggest more than a change in literature, but to imply that the life of Jude was taking on "A New Action" (Literal translation).

I had some qualms with the ease with which his (Soon to be) first conquest is depicted to be "Low-Life". How was she any different from any of the other girls ?? Later we learn that she'd been a waitress, but I'd look askance at that as a ticket to harlotry.

Best

Bea is back!! I too was struck by the incredible amount of reading-in Greek and Latin! ...not to forget the math and history...and "Patristic Literature...Jude managed to acquire on his own by the age of 19! Way out there in the country! No guidance in living a life, becoming a man...no teachers since Mr. Phillotson briefly back when he was eleven!

Vulnerable is a very good adjective to describe Jude, Bea...and naive. I was struck with just how naive and trusting he was when he concluded that he "won't make much further advance here from the difficulty of getting books. Once there I shall advance with the the assistacne I shall there get" Is this ambitious? Who will assist him? How does one get into Christminster? Pass a test? Pay tuition? Have a sponsor? Don't know, but it sure doesn't seem to concern Jude...

What makes you fear he's headed for more disappointment, Bea? Don't you think Miss Arabella is a good match for him?

LJ, I thought DD meant Doctor of Divinity, no? Is that not earned? Or honorary?

Have you any idea what this new Greek Testament title means? Hardy has taken trouble to show it to us more than once.
H KAINH AIAOHKH (don't have all the cyrillic symbols at my disposal)

Yes, I was uneasy at Jude's attidude toward Arabella - I think we can add another adjective to describe our naive, vulnerable Jude. he clearly regards her as a "complete and substantial female animal, no more, no less"- and further adds that she is "a woman for whom he had no respect"...just a "nice-looking girl". Not in his circle though...

What adjective would ascribe to this side of Jude?

Joan, 1. Its honorary, and 2. I translated it for you

Sorry to be terse but I'm literally running (Almost Amok)

Best

Terse? LJ, you? .

Okay, so it's honorary...a little Hardy humor almost lost on me, if it weren't for you...

Yes, I read back over your post, you certainly did translate it..."A New Action"...well, well, more irony! His meeting up with Miss Arabella does seem to be leading him from his path to Christminster toward a new action, doesn't it?

You are literally running? Jogging running? You'll have to join us over in the Walk, Hike,Jog, Run forum...you get to brag about how you're doing...

Walking, Hiking,Jogging, Running

I think I'd, more appropriately, be in the "Amok" folder.

Best

Amok? Can I help?

The old hunch back lady

Joan - Jude has already had several disappointments during his life so far, e.g. first when the quack doctor promises him some grammer if he would solicit for him. Jude does but the"physician" does not come through with his promise. Jude and being unsophisticated in his youth and no insight into " what shoddy humanity the quack was made of" realizes that he would have to look elsewhere for his grammars. "The leaves dropped from his imaginary crown of lauarel and he turned to a gate, leant against it, and cried bitterly. Another, when he finally receives what he thought was going to be useful grammar from his former teacher (Mr. Phillotson) only to received old , worn and outdated books . There was no translation as he thought there would be, and that every word in latin and greek would have to be committed to memory (or so he thought) with years of plodding.

It is only natural that Jude will encounte more disappintments during his life. Wait until he tries to get into Christminster University with no money. He thinks with all the knowledge he can acquire beforehand, it will be a cinch.

No I don't think Arabella is a good match for him- maybe sexually but not intellectually. She could be another disappointment to him.

How about "animalistic" as another adjective.

Bea

I keep that comment in mind that LJ made earlier (while he was still running in place) - that this IS after all, fiction.

BUT,I continue to read this huge Hardy biography (885 pgs). TH protested vehemently that Jude is autobiographical in any way. Here are some parallels, and I'll let you form your own conclusions...I will just include some highlights, not the pages of discussion...unless you ask more about some of the points:

1. Hardy developed rather late, compared to other boys of the time. In his own words, he "was a child until he was sixteen, a youth until he was five-and-twenty and a young man until nearly fifty." When 'puberty came upon him at 16 just as he was going out into the world to earn his living, he was overwhelmed by it.

2.) Hardy's continual speculation about almost every woman he meets and apparent habit of passing from one to another 'suggests imperfect development consistent with sexual curiosity - an attraction to the idea of love, without the power to fulfill it.' He remained sexually idealistic in the manner of adolescents, rather than just after lustful conquests.

3.) Hardy developed late in virility, while he was mentally precocious. He was a "hypersensitive" boy, well ahead of most others as an observer, and in his grasp of the world and its ways. He possessed a strong sensitivity toward nature."

4.) Hardy was well-read...Plato especially -really wanted Platonic relationships with women. He was forced to abandon formal instruction early and decided to carry on his eduaction himself. In the summers, he rose at four, in winters at five and would study til eight before leaving for work. He studied Latin and Greek. He worked his way through the Iliad with an "interleaved Latin crib")...also read Horace, Virgil and Ovid.

5.) Hardy had dreams of becoming a vicar one day. He worked as an apprentice with John Hicks, an architect and church restorer. Hicks knew the Greek that Tom wanted to learn. While learning Greek with Hicks, he met some young men who could rattle off the Greek original of any passage of the New Testament. He promised them he would give up reading "heathen authors." His authority was Griesbach!!! See the beginning of Chapter 7.

Another critic had said by the time Hardy set out to write this novel- after the serilization in Harper's, that he was tired of fiction-writing and planned simply to do his best on two general themes - marriage and education. The novel as it turned out though, says the critic, is not primarily about marriage and education, although the state of both and attitudes to them in Victorian England play an important part in its background.

What is your reaction to this parallel?

Bea, can you see young Hardy playing Jude's role? While he did not suffer the bleak childhood that Jude did, I think I can grasp what went on there with Arabella. Let's talk more about her. Is "animalistic" too strong for Jude's reaction to her? Let's look back at what went on there. Is she going to play a big role, or will she be a passing interest?

Sort of like a reality check while having lofty thoughts being hit with pig part that is used for greasing boots - boy , that's coming back to earth. Scheming girls that demurely put their mouths back into shape shows a negative attitude toward women.

"substantial female animal"- we had many terms for the same as male youths. Sort of seeing the body only; nothing else matters.

I go into my own curious superstitions when there is an abrupt and untimely death to a close friend - I make up rituals that I hope will help them in some sort of transition if there is one for them - I can remember touching an article and wishing a peaceful existenence to the person that was close to that article. Maybe it helped me in my transition from their loss to my own peaceful existence. Friends that have died in road accidents seem to commemorate certain spots on roads.

When Jude was willing to cooperate with shoddy humanity - get new clients if he got his books - I felt he was selling his soul The end justifies the means - Mephistopheles - Machiavellian etc.

LJ, thanks for the translation. One of the many small ironic touches which Hardy shares with the reader. And thanks to Joan for the illuminating biographical parallels. They seems to show us how Hardy acquired certain of the attitudes toward adolescence which come to light, even though there may not be any direct biographical reflection of actions and events. Beatrice, your "animalistic" term for Arabella seems very apt. What about Arabella -- is she primarily scheming to land a good provider, though the other girls warn her that Jude is a "nobody"? Or is the attraction on her side as physical as Jude's? Kingsbury, the Mephistopheles suggestion is very interesting. Must think about it some more.

Carolyn

Joan, PLATO was an entirely different kettle of fish. He must have been "Street-wise" by the time he was twelve. He was said to have been a *Professional by the time he was an adolescent.

(* I think the correct word is Catamite)

Best

Well, a couple of things just jumped right out at me in these chapters: Jude really HAS come a long way in his self education! It's hard enough to read some of those authors with help; he must have been quite a brain.

Joan: thanks for all the background info: why do you do the Griesbach in bold? Who is he and what did you mean?

Also need to look up Cochins in my chicken catalog: want to know what kind of a rich complexion the Cochin's hen's egg has: does somebody already know??

What is "dubbin" on page 31 (in my book) that they would make out of chitterlings?

I've never forgotten my first hearing of Radio Reader, in which he said, "Mama was in the kitchen making Chit ter lings."

In this area, which also has the "Chitlin Strut" they are pronounced "chitlins." How about where you are, LJ?

Have you all ever eaten one? Maybe LJ can tell us exactly WHAT they are. My idea is that they are pork intestines, fried.

Oh, and in the interest of accuracy, Hardy himself tells us that the Phoebe in the quote "Phoebe silvarumque potens Diana" referred to Phoebus Apollo and not Phoebe! Phoebus Apollo, was, in Greek Mythology (later taken over into Roman) the god of medicine, music, archery, and prophecy, light, and youth: "sometimes identified with the sun." (Oxford Companion to Classical Literature )

So to use the form "Phoebe" which is the Vocative of Phoebus) would be hailing the sun and the moon, which makes a lot more sense in the context than hailing Phoebe and Diana! At least to me. Now we know who DOES NOT have a good grasp of Horace! And who never had, but who thought Horace was long in the past.

I was also surprised at Jude's immediate knowledge that Arabella was no "vestal" virgin, and think maybe that speaks either ill of him or of Hardy, or of the time.

Also, Jude noted her people were not of his class, and, again, this does not say much for a poor young man at all.

I have a feeling Arabella's scheme to catch Jude is going to come a cropper.

PS: I really can't help but remark on the similarity of the hailing of the moon and sun and the works of EF Benson (you may have seen his "Mapp and Lucia" on PBS,) in which the characters regularly "salute" the new moon or "cut" the moon. I'm on a Benson List Serve, and think I'll write them and ask them the origin of this expression.

Ginny

My understanding from the folks who cook 'em is that "Tripe" is lung, "Sweetbreads" is Pancreas, "Brains" is brains (And might be a source of "Jakob-Kreutzfeldt" disease) and "Chitlins" is hog nuts. They have a bitter aftertaste like fresh caught Catfish.

Best

By sucking dimples Arabella is going through a seduction process - This would get my attention " a substanial female animal" that could produce dimples. Jude thought there was no premeditation in it.

Jude was held against his intention and the opposite sex came into his life and purposes. - sounds like he was turned on by Arabella.

Arabella felt triumph - this bothers me a bit - I have known women who sort of keep score of their conquests and relay them to their friends - sort of like a notch in a gun for a killing - I know at times males do this and brag to friends - but where does this leave the relationship?? A conquest for one may cause ardor in the other with a curious collapse into a corner of life goals. The missile that opened the attack on him caused Jude to think about fresh and wild pleasure.. Welcome to the Hedonistic roller coaster.

"catched un,my dear? - well he is to be had by any woman who can get him to care - catch him the right way "- the plot thickens.

"seized by the collar,in a direction which tended towards the embrace of a woman for whom he had no respect." - seems like he is not wanting to take responsibility for his impulsive behaviour - You look and the animal takes over "common sense there was something lacking."

My observation so far; that's life..

At this point, I was rather glad to see Jude was such a healthy, normal young man. Arabella is certainly typical of her background and feel badly that Jude met her for his first real encounter with girls.

Pat / IL

Carolyn - Jude is without qustion about to be reeled in by Arabella before he knows what hit him. I feels that most of her attraction to Jude is to get a husband but there is also a sexual attraction. However, Jude's attraction to Arabella is strictly physical.

( Watch out Jude, your dreams of attending the university is about to explode.) I believe Arabella will have quite an impact on Jude's future.

Beatrice

On the subject of fair Arabella, I called Murray McMurray Hatchery in Iowa, after noticing that their catalog has a whole page of Cochins: the Black Cochin, the White Cochin, the Buff Cochin, the Partridge Cochin, the Blue Cochin and the Silver Laced Cochins. Some of these date back to the 1870's. The very nice lady at Murray McMurrays said that doubtless Hardy would have been familiar with the breed, which is not your ordinary barnyard chicken. The Buff Cochins, for example, as well as the Partridge Cochins, were brought from China in the 1800's. They are sensational looking huge birds, and all the Cochins have feathers on their feet, so that they appear to be standing on sleds of feathers. Most unusual looking.

In reference to Hardy's "the rich complexion of a Cochin hen's egg," they said that the Cochin lays a "not real large egg for such a big hen, but that it is unusually smooth, with no blemishes or rough spots, a clear, pale light brown." Very remarkable.

Now, when we combine this with Hardy's other statement that Arabella was a "brown girl," I'm concluding that she had a healthy glow to her skin in contrast to the pale society girl's pallor. I'm not actually seeing a black person here...you know a suntan used to be considered the mark of the lower classes!!

Ginny

With all these sharp eyes, we're not going to miss a thing! Every subtle irony, every tossed adjective (Cochin hens' eggs complexion).......you dazzle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So the picture of this 19 year old country boy, with lofty goals, and determination to succeed becomes clearer... I agree with Kingsbury, Jude isn't perfect...he shows some lapse of integrity taking orders for quack medication in order to get his hands on those grammars. He shows the same character flaw in his desire to dally with Arabella, while acknowledging that he has no respect for her.

But let's not be too hard on our boy...YET. What has he done? He was on his way home, looking forward to his new Greek Testament, following Griesbach's text, Ginny, the same one Hardy himself used. That's why I highlighted it yesterday. He wasn't out cruising. He just happened to be walking by when this wet handful of pig flesh caught him on the back of his neck (is that right?) "Hoity-Toity". This sounds as if whoever threw it, had seen him before and knew him to be preoccupied with books and the like...unlike the local lads...

"Bring back what is lying there", commands the "brown girl". Bring me your manhood, your inexperience, your whole future, she may as well have said. And Jude did! Expecting some sort of explanation...some easy translation... And she took it from him...sort of like Delilah...and Samson. Wasn't that a nice touch having that picture on the bar room wall?
He never forced himself on her or tried to influence her in any way. He figured that this was living...and was new at it...so he followed her lead.

Pat W., I am sorry too that this was his first experience with the opposite sex. Think of all those 'heathen books' he grew up on...the antics of the gods and goddesses, the sirens, Circe etc. And now it must be his turn to experience what he has only read about.

His conscience seems to be telling him that this is not right. He is uncomfortable when Arabella's father thinks that he has come courting...because he knows he has no such intentions. He seems to be drawn to Arabella in spite of his better judgement...but he really doesn't seem to have any conscious plan to take advantage of her, does he? He tries to resist by telling himself that he has no respect for her, but the attraction is too strong.

But all he's done is kiss her a few times, right? Or did I miss something... And look how romantic he is, pausing at the spot of their first kiss almost as if it is a sacred place.

Maybe he will do something "animalistic' in the coming chapters, but I think for now, he's being human, and impossibly naive!

An aside to Ginny: I have failed you.. Did not realize that you would not know about Cochins... they are the chicks we always ordered each spring from McMurray or Nichols.. Also got a few Leghorns. But the Buff Cochins were the prettiest and even though their eggs were smaller than the Leghorns the whites of the eggs stood up better for cakes and meringues.

Pat / IL

Pat, what color was the egg shell? Be very specific!

The shells were a very pale brown, like the skin of someone with a tan. Not too dark, but not saleable as white eggs.

Pat / IL

How lovely to have a big barn with hay for the chickens with feather feet. We've got chicken yards and houses due to the awful predators.

I can't get over the snobbishness of Mr. Jude, a poor young man, who, nevertheless feels himself....maybe it's NOT snobbishness. Maybe he's got SUCH high ambitions and dreams, he can't see living there on the farm (and "farming" in England is not what you think of here in the US) at least the ones I've seen are not...and especially then....He's got drive and amibiton, and he doesn't want to get tied down. She, of course, sees it from her own point of view.

Now, if somebody will tell us what "dubbin" is, we'll be all set. Going to steal Ros's OED.

I apologize on my part for being so obsessed with incidental details, but before I can get the whole picture, and it's just ME, I want to understand as many of the background features as I can.

Ginny

Some women in my life have caused me to speak in Twaddle. In England there are many local dialects and you are socially classified according to your dialect.

Not having the book and seeing the context of the word, "dubbin", I'm not exactly sure but we use Dubbin to coat our boots and I know that my grandparents used Dubbin before I was ever thought of!

But I do not know if this is the same thing or not.

Sorry I'm so late with this week's comments, but I spent Thanksgiving in Russia, and to-day was the first day I felt as if I'm actulally back in my own world. Somehow even Jude's world is more like the one I live in than the Russian one.

What is the translation of the Greek Testament reading he had wanted to do that fateful Sunday afternoon?. I'm sure TH has a hidden meaning in selecting that for Jude's self-assignment. His rendition of two virgins exploring the possibility of losing their virginity is clear and revealing. I did however find it difficult to accept Jude's ready willingness to go to Arabella's house, to walk beyond where he had planned, to arrive home so late. After all this is a very serious young man with strong ambitions. I think he should have been portrayed as having a much more difficult struggle between remaining at home to read his book, and going to meet Arabella. TH certainly can portray the thoughts and feelings of both young people accurately. Kathleen

"- a void was in his heart which nothing could fill"

" she was not there "

" he's to be had "

" I'll try it "

Kathleen, Thanksgiving in Russia! This gives new meaning to "over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go." Were you visiting relatives? Would love to hear more about your trip.

If demands on your time are as pressing as they are on mine right now, I would understand if you want to wait til after the holidays. But I really would like to hear about your trip. How long were you over there?

LJ has translated the Greek Testament title as "Life in Action"...how do you like that? Some Hardy humor...Also, one of Hardy's biographies indicates that his own prized testament was the Greisbach version...the same one Jude was so looking forward to that fateful afternoon...

I agree with you...a young passion is easily aroused and powerful enough to suspend all other intentions and principles in the heat of the moment. Hardy captures that phenomenon very effectively here.

LJ, I gather then that Plato was not interested in having Platonic relationships with women? But Hardy was, so says his biography. At this point, our Jude seems to be interested in something more...but the story is just beginning. Would you expound on your idea of a Platonic relationship? My understanding is simply friendship.

Patzy, so good to hear from you. Think of you so often these days. I bet that's the same Dubbin...we are looking for the pig part which produces boot polish. Don't give Ginny a hard time for pursuing this seemingly insignificant detail...it caused quite a stir when the book was published...I hesitate to say what I think it was...or what I think it looked like, until I locate the source - but it was significant at the time...and those people back then knew exactly what it was when they read the account....and were shocked that Arabella threw it at him!

Carolyn, I think that Arabella finds Jude attractive enough, but really sees him as her ticket out of the pig farm...not much passion or dreaming of Jude's kiss. Remember the contrast as each passed the spot where they first kissed?

Bea, I fear you are right...Jude is in for more than the dallience he bargains for. He would have been better off in the long run if the physical attraction had been mutually powerful...

Kingsbury, your posts are so greatly appreciated here - even when they go unacknowledged. They often go straight to the heart... 'Twaddle' on!
I too share some of your 'curious supterstitions", especially when it comes to books which I know were read by the departed.

Back this evening, after reading Chapters 8 & 9...where we no doubt will learn more of Arabella's plan to "do it right".......

Ladies, the literal translation of the greek title for the "New Testament" is "A New Step" or "A New Begining"

I'm afraid that Plato's motives and attitudes are a bit beyond my full comprehension. I have often surmised that his youthful experiences as a "Bath-house Boy" soured him on sex for the pure pleasure of sex and had something to do with his distrust (Dislike ?) of the human body. Outside of the obvious meaning of Platonic relationships, one could try to analyze his "Feelings" but almost invariably the result would be coloured by one's own feelings, experiences and desires.

As we continue with the book, I was taken with the 180 degree turn from the lady in question being identified as first a prime speciman and now "Not worth a great deal as a speciman of womankind" I've never thought of people as "Specimans"

We now have a Denouement of sorts, with the gir's parental help in seduction, her attitude toward economics, her false hair, the exposure of the pregnancy as a fiction and the protagonists conclusion that "I made a mistake"

. T.H. then summarizes HIS purpopse in writing all that has gone before in the concluding paragraph of chapter nine.

The feeling with which I'm left at this point is one of interest on the commentary by the author about the state of society at the time. NOW next week we get to analyze the Pig-Killing incident.

Best

Kathleen: I, too, would love to hear more about your trip!

I thought these two chapters were remarkable for the slow realization of artifice and counterfeit on Jude's consciousness, and it's demoralizing effect upon him.

I liked the contrast Hardy used in "and the distant landscape around Christminster could be discerned from where they lay. But Jude did not think of that then."

So the mecca the child has been straining for is swept away unnoticed, as are the Latin and Greek texts, as Jude gets caught up in his passion, which he immediately realizes was a flash in the pan.

I also thought it interesting how caught up HE is in class: apparently he had thought of his scheme as "man's one opportunity of showing himself superior to the lower animals, and of contributing his units of work to the general progress of his generation." (WHAT is a unit of work?"

All to be caught in a "gin which would cripple him."

I guess the class system there and then was more important than I realized.....don't look forward to a hog slaughter. Wonder why Hardy is including these bucolic details?

Pat: I have a feeling that the Dubbin you speak of is a relative of the one in the 1800s...never heard of it, thanks!! Look on the box and see what it's made of??

Ginny

Hello everybody!

Though I haven't been around in a while,I have been keeping up prety well with all your wonderful comments. I do so enjoy this club. It refreshes my spirit. So stimulating.

"come into my den said the spider to the fly". Poor Jude(shades of the Beatles). Wait a minute, that was "Hey Jude". Oh well,close enough.

Arabella:Crafty, Cunning, Clever Jude:Naive, Nice, Noble Such is the stuff of great literature.

"he could not have acted otherwise while ordinary notions prevailed. But how came they to prevail?" This passage reminds me of Hardys thoughts of the "ancient cornfields" in chapter 2. "social rituals" are the glue that holds society together. But. some rules are made to be broken. A wiser, more experienced man would have acted differently. But then we wouldn't have the book.

"But the marriage remained". Thud!!!

She "played him like a flute".

The banns, the vows, the acceptance of the people of the parish; all a charade. One could choke on the hypocrisy. But,everyone was satisfied. Hardys indictment of society is so pervasive. And sad.

Good thoughts,

Joyce

Ginny, I'm going to put that image up top for this week when I get in tonight...Christminster visible in the background, but Jude unseeing...

That Arabella moves fast doesn't she? It becomes quite clear here that she is so preoccupied with seducing Jude that she has no time for any sort of passion. Fun to watch her early attempts though..."supine on the sod...form heaving and falling...face flushed...full red lips..." The works!!! And our boy jumps up to get a better look at the caterpillar! 'How stupid you are!' she says crossly."
"resentfully"
"with a supercilious affronted air"

and poor clueless Jude thinks he took "too much liberty" asking her to stand up and kiss him!!

She's not going to let him get away though...NO "sip here and a sip there". She'll pull out all the stops:

...there's the pale brown cochin egg (wrapped in pig bladder) tucked in her bosom...

"Why do you do such a strange thing",asks clueless - and gets his answer as he chases her up the stairs...

Only two weeks later, Jude is regretting that "things have got out of hand"...yet he is already on his way toward a new beginning.

What do you think Physician Vilbert told Arabella that made her smile after speaking with him?

Joyce, love your concise observations - right on target! Yes, Hardy's indictment of society is pervasive - and sad. Imagine its impact on his readers at the time!

The class system and societal customs seem to be all-important and come right into Hardy's line of fire!

I have printed out your posts to occupy my lunch hour. Will digest them (lunch and posts) and tune in this evening - with a biographical surprise too!

Have a great day! The snow continues! It's sticking - covering lawns and streets! I hope I get to walk to the train in falling snowflakes! The Capitol always looks beautiful in the snow.

What does the term "I must mizzle" mean in chapter VIII?

After he met Arabella, Jude apparently gave up his studies entirely as it says he had ceased to look into a book of Greek, Latin, or any other tongue. Jude was certainly smitten and fooled by Arabella (he "rushed at her heels"). The people of the parish thought Jude was "a simple fool..." at the time the banns were posted.

Once again the Great Aunt showed her true colors in saying it would have been better for him to have died with his Mother and Father rather than having him live to trouble her. What a sweetheart she was!

I continue to be entranced by Hardy's writing. What an artist with words.

Larry

Hello.

Joan;Thanks for your comment on my observations. Nice. Also must say I laughed out loud at your "clueless boy" remarks.

Larry: I see the Aunt in a different light. I think her actions belie her words. She had taken in her niece and her husband,and Judes cousin Sue had been born "within these very walls". And"... she made him a bride-cake, saying bitterly that it was the last thing she could do for him; poor silly fellow;.........." Of course this could be just another "social ritual". And perhaps I'm thinking of Jane Austen or Dickens.

Joan: The Capitol in the snow! You painted a pretty neat word picture of your own there. It is my fervent wish to see Washington D.C. someday. Though I would prefer the Spring.

Good thoughts

Joyce

Well!! No more full head of hair, sucked in dimples, baby, and innocence from Arabella Jude realizes he made a mistake. a BIG mistake. His thoughts go back to maybe , even tho married and apprantly always will be , attending to his studies and the University afterall.

Joan and Joyce - I too enjoyed all the comments on their courting strategies etc., etc.. As far as the Aunt is concerned, she never really wanted to keep Jude for very long anyway - it just turned out that way out of duty to her family. Baking him a "bride-cake" would be her last official duty to Jude. Now he is on his own.

Beatrice

mizzle. "I must mizzle", exclaims Arabella abruptly, as she rejects Jude's request for a standing kiss. Chapter VIII
"Here's your young man come coorting! Mizzle my girl!" Chapter VII

American Heritage dictionary:
mizzle Chiefly Brit. To make a sudden departure . [Orig. unknown]

Too bad our Jude didn't mizzle out of there when there was still time to mizzle.

Larry, I'm going to have to agree with Joyce on this one. If you judge auntie by all the things she DID - at her age, she really was a "sweetheart".

But, I can see why you are appalled at her WORDS! Imagine their effect on poor young Jude! Twice now (that we know of), he has heard his only living relative tell him he'd be better off dead. And on his wedding day (when he's doing his best to "idealize" his situation), he hears her tell him what a "poor silly fellow" he is - and effectively ends their long relationship! This bride-cake is the last thing she'll ever do for him...no help with any poor baby to be born of this union...nothing! Her words must go straight to his heart!

But Arabella is a far different story! I think her ACTIONS show that she has no feeling for Jude himself...as she schemes to get off the pig farm.

Bea, I went back and reread the passage where Jude begins to realize he has made a BIG MISTAKE. Didn't you love the way Hardy does this? It is a sudden, complete realization as he sees the tail of hair is not Arabella's own...

" a little chill overspread him...'It wasn't your own, he said with a sudden distaste for her.' "

He doesn't even know the worst deception yet....but he already knows she's not what she seemed to be.......

Larry, I'm really appreciating Hardy's writing too - not only the 'neat word pictures', but also his ability to convey human emotion and weakness.

Okay, here's that bio information that I think you'll find interesting.

Thomas Hardy's parents- Thomas II was a stone-mason from a long line of stone-masons and bricklayers. He earned a decent living. His mother, Jemina, came from a poverty-stricken family, and married his father when she was 2-3 months pregnant with him.

Hardy writes of her, "she was a woman of unusual ability and judgement, in spite of her stressful girlhood and youngwomanhood".

"Such matters as sex outside wedlock in rural England are in any case run-of-the-mill to realists, if not to moralists."

His biographer noted that such affairs were so common in rural Dorset as to arouse little talk. Some say she became pregnant to defy her father.

What effect do you think this experience had on Hardy's story?

WOW, Joan, how interesting. Art imitating life??

Here's something I stole from the Poetry folder: it's from Marie Click who says she does not care for Hardy's prose, but loves his poetry, and you can see why: yet another side of the man:

The Oxen
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in the hearthside ease.
We pictured the meek and mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel
"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Thanks to Marie for that, didn't know it existed.

Ginny

I've read these two chapters twice, and I still finish thinking Hardy is just giving us the facts with some intellectual introspection on Jude's part. It is as if he wants to be sure we do not think there is anything involved here except lust. He succeeds. Jude is portrayed as the poor, immature boy, who temporarily loses his dreams of the future by succumbing to a mature girl's advances. Arabella is the resourceful, conniving, female who takes advantage of a boy she finds attractive, and decides it is time she is married. Jude's aunt acts true to form...she is justifiably disgusted with her nephew's marriage, and not surprisingly again tells him he should not have survived his parents. By now Jude is used to her outbursts, so I doubt if he gives a second thought to what she says. Of course, she totally ignores the possibility that if she had given him any affection while he was growing up, he might have sought her thinking when Arabella announces she's pregnant. I think these two chapters are the next step in Hardy's building of Jude's life. They come across too contrived for my taste. By the way what does "in a gin" mean in the last paragraph of Chapter nine..."that he deserved to be caught in a gin which would cripple him...

Whoops, forgot to mention my trip to Russia. It was with a Travel Agency sponsored by the League of Women Voters. We were in St. Petersburg three nights, and Moscow four nights. It was more an adventure than a trip. I experienced cultural shock when I went to China, and I did again in Russia. I found it alien to all that is familiar to me. In a country with 850 years of history, there is much to learn and see. World War 11 is still very much alive, especially the three year siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg). Highlights were the two original paintings of the Madonna and Child by da Vinci at the Hermitage, being in the Kremlin, standing in Red Square within sight of St. Basil's Cathedral with its gold, blue, and, white domes,and the elderly women begging in a town outside of Moscow. If their ancestors had emigrated how different their lives would be. I was also very impressed by the Metro...Stalin wanted a system which would impress the West. He succeeded. Would I go back? Yes, if the trip was in conjunction with a tour of the Baltic states. Would I recommend seeing those two major cities....Yes, very definetly.

Kathleen: how interesting. I've heard that Russia is dangerous now; gangs and such. Do the people seem, (aside from the women begging), to be in a state of poverty, and did you get to speak to any citizens, or is that allowed?

I thought a "gin" referred to the cotton gin, but Eli Whitney may not have invented it by that time!

Ginny

He followed her like a pet lamb - and minded little where he was.

I like the seduction of the egg shell - growl.

"which made it necessary to save you" - this line hits my gut - so often a male wants to protect without checking out whether or not the female wants to be protected. I guess in any relationship one should check out if someone wants to be protected. I guess it's like sucking up someone into your own thing. You feel like a Knight in shining armor but really you are being parasitic and using anothers situation or feelings to aggrandize yourself.. been there ; done that.. Oh! my gosh.

Farming in England: went to buy a pig, with a friend, a few years back in England on a farm in England, that the fellow had just paid a million and a quarter dollars for. His family had been renting the farm for about 70 years.

Ah, Kingsbury, I so enjoy your posts! You always make me smile, even sometimes when I am not in the mood to smile!

That line, "which made it necessary to save you", had slipped right by me. I found your view on the male response to a female in trouble, thought-provoking. He is the Knight who wants to save- always when presented with a problem, he wants to solve it. I find that when I vent a problem, I am really getting it out of my system - sort of thinking out loud. My husband automatically thinks I am asking for a solution and attempts to "save me" He gets irritated when I don't follow his advice..."why did you ask me for advice if you're not going to follow it" kind of thing. Miss Arabella was counting on this male response...

Do you think it was that chalatan, Vilbert, who put the idea in her head to tell Jude she was pregnant at the start of Chapter 9? I know her girl friends told her that the 'right way' to get him was to get pregnant, but she was finding that difficult to do...until she spoke to Vilbert! I think he told her that all she had to do was seduce him, and then she could tell Jude that she was pregnant.

Was any of the 70 years rent applied to the selling price of that old farm? Should have had a good ' rent with an option to buy' clause written into the lease...

So, was the little porker driven or carted back to the farm?

Well, Kathleen, your trip sounds fascinating! Perhaps the fact that you were traveling with a group kept you safe from the teenage gangs that we hear so much about... How was the weather? Cold? Or has El Nino managed to warm up Russia as well?

Do you really feel that Hardy is merely presenting facts, without much development here? I'll admit that the story really progressed quickly in the last two chapters...but I thought that was a very effective way to portray how Jude's future, after years and years of planning and preparing, was changed in a few short weeks!

Do you feel that Hardy was providing facts on which to build his story...or to provide an opening to put forth his views on society, church and marriage? Or both?

I'll admit here that I'm having a difficult time with Hardy's underlying message ...that the Church is at fault for upholding the indisolubility of marriage.. Hopefully as the story progresses, it will become easier to deal with it. It's a situation that is still very much a problem today, isn't it? I have no doubt though, that this is one instance in which an annullment would be granted immediately........

"that he deserved to be caught in a gin which would cripple him..."

gin. 1.Any of several machines or devices. a. A machine for hoisting or moving heavy objects. b.A pile driver. c.A snare or trap for game. d. A pump operated by a windmill.
2. A cotton gin.

My guess is that it was either c or a, since he had experience as a stone mason and heavy slabs were probably lifted with such a gin.

Ginny, what a find! Say hello to Marie and thank her for the poem...thank you for lifting it to share with us! This shows us another side of Hardy. If the man was disillusioned with the institution of the church, he certainly was not hardened to the Christmas message...expressing the hope of one day seeing those oxen kneel on Christmas Eve. I loved that! I hope we can all find that special place in our heart to really celebrate Christmas!

Will be back this evening to hear from all of you on our last two Marygreen chapters! Can't figure how Jude is going to get to Christminster...With or without Arabella? It just occurred to me that we are reading this much like the folks in Hardy's time read it...in installments....

Mostly lurking, but following the post referring to the oxen kneeling on Christmas Eve, I post this piece entitled, simply, "Christmas", which I adapted from an anonymous source:

"If, as Herod, we fill our lives with things, and again with things; if we consider ourselves so unimportant that we must fill every moment of our lives with action, when will we have the time to make the long, slow, journey across the desert as did the Magi? Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds? Or brood over the coming of the child as did Mary? For each one of us, there is a desert to travel, a star to discover."

"So this is our Christmas wish for all of us: That behind the toys, tinsel, carols, cards, and convivial chaos, there will come a moment of quite reflection and peace. That it may be truly said of each of us that we know how to keep Christmas.

Russ

I honestly think that the whole of the first part of the book is summed up in the final paragraph of chapter nine. Of course this is indeed Hardy's point and probably the source of the early criticism. I do not think Hardy was so superficial as to have no more to say and I'm looking forward to a better understanding of the meaning of "Obscure" in the title as we read on.

Certainly at the time the book was written the social commentary must have represented a dramatic departure from the established standards of the day. Modern Mores and practices have dated the action and impact to some extent. It is after all a "Period Piece", but I'm banking that we'll find more than antiquated social commentary as we proceed.

Best

LJ, do you really fear that this will be an antiquated 'period piece'? Do you feel that now after completing Part I? Do you think it may turn out to be simply an analysis of the historical condition of marriage in late Victorian England?

I won't comment till I hear from you...and from some of the other Hardys.

Since Ginny brought us that lovely Christmas poem, I will share with you another snippet of Hardy's poetry. I think it sheds some light on the marriage theme.

This poem was written after the death of his first wife, Emma. The marriage had been an unhappy one, so he writes. But "the loss revives memories of the girl he had met on Beeny Cliff and he is haunted by both the fullness and emptiness of the past. Her death emphasizes the distance between early love and later division.

In this poem, the poet is bewildered by his sudden and unexpected grief. He wonders why that unloved, unloving wife haunts him now.

Why do you make me leave the house
And think for a breath it is you I see
At the end of the alley of bending boughs
Where so often at dusk you used to be;
Till in darkening dankness
The yawning blankness
Of the perspective sickens me!

What do you make of this?

LJ, everything I have read indicates that Jude the Obscure refers to the Epistle of Jude in the New Testament. There is much to prove this, especially the phrase, "the blackness of darkness" which appears in both works. I think it best if we save that discussion till - next year - as it deserves more attention than we have these busy days. I have been trying to get to that Epistle for several weeks now, but as Russ puts it so nicely, I've been trying to "keep Christmas".

Thanks for that Russ, it helps keep things in perspective.

Anybody care to comment on Chapters 10 & 11, or are you all doing as that robin did and flying away from the sinister scene?

I watched "It's a Wonderful Life" for the umpteenth time with son #4 last night...thought of Jude's half-hearted attempt to end all his problems in the icy water, just as George Bailey did...after drinking...the "regular, stereotyped resource of the dispairing worthless."

I really would like to consider the fundamental error of basing a permanent contract on a temporary feeling.... before we leave our Jude on the path to Chrisminster and spend "some moments of quiet reflection and peace..."

Joan, As should be obvious from my post, I do not think Hardy will leave us with no more than what has been covered, but on the other hand, what has been covered IS indeed but a "Period-Piece"

The first part of the next chapter is in itself a "Bombshell" of sorts, but that like the Epistle will await the coming of the "New Year"

I'm making a point of reading much "As we go". Do YOU think Hardy is so superficial as to require "Defense" ?. By the way the commentary I have is "MAX NOTES" and IT indeed IS so superficial as to be absolutely worthless. I guarantee no-one above grade school level would think of defending IT.

Best

P.S.

What is the upcpoming schedule ?

I expect everyone is hanging back over the hog slaughter. I have heard that a pet pig KNOWS when it's to be slaughtered, and acts differently. I would never kill one, pet or otherwise. Thought the scene very vividly illuminated the fundamental differences between them. She's just a product of her environment--he's from the same area, but is different, and more feeling.

I loved the way he found his old milestone...and he saw a nebula, and took that as a sign. Besides, she didn't want him along. That's possibly hard to swallow? Did anyone think that was a little too convenient for a girl dying to marry him in the first place??

Ginny: and now, it's so exciting: he's finally at Christminster...what will he find?? I can see this was a nifty serial!

Told Ginny I'd give my thoughts on pig slaughter.... Yes, Arabella was not concerned with the mechanics of slaughtering the pig; she knew how it had to be done; she had been in that environment most of her life. Pigs really are not pets and can turn on you as any animal will. But Jude (much too tender hearted to be an outdoor, farmer-type) had not experienced the farm environment that Arabella had and certainly botched the job.

On the farm when the gov't still allowed us to do our own butchering, it was quite important to kill the animal in such a way that it bled properly. However, we always felt it more humane to shoot it first and bleed it immediately. There was never any thought other than the animal was necessary to provide meat or income for us. That was Arabella's intent, but Jude went soft on her.

I like reading your posts and keep up each day, but I find I have little to add and very often learn more here than merely reading the book.

Pat / IL

Pat: Well, you've slaughtered a hog, which is 100% more knowledge than I have, and you've been to Greece, again beating me, so I think YOUR experiences are more important than those of ME who just talk!!

Ginny

Yes, but I stutter. Can't talk and can't hear, but love to travel.

I haven't learned to drive a motorcycle or fly an airplane, and now I'm too old.

I don't know about that too old stuff! You're not 122, are you?? If you can go to Greece, you can certainly fly a plane! My best friend intends to learn when she (if she) ever retires...Tell you what, you learn either a motorcycle (how hard can it be?)or take one flying lesson, and I'll learn to ski! And I have bad ankles. And we'll both sing a few choruses of Jude the Obscure which our Jonkie will have set to music, while doing it, so everyone will know another barrier has been quashed. But I'm not going to strap on a ski (hear you have to tell them your weight) till I hear YOU have done one of the goals!

Now, how about all you other Hardy Boys and Girls? What goals can we hardy types set for the new year, and Yes, Jonkie, I'll now shut up. Let's do it!! In a Hardy way, of course!

Ginny

Was in Russia when it was behind the "Iron Curtain"; saw the Rembrandts in the Hermitage- Kids learned three languages - In Petravadorks in Northern Russia they spoke Russian;A language of choice ( usually Finnish in this area ) and the local Karelian language - It was expected of them; Was out to 1 AM found a Subway home - they ran every 10 minutes for this Vodka laden soul..Since the wall came down Russia has found its path to illiteracy and gangs. Oh well--

The pig was slaughtered on site and delivered in pieces .

A no response no response - hmmmmm.

Arabella is pragmatic - Marry a man to get clothes and things; knows how to slaughter a pig.. I've never known a woman with pig slaughtering knowledge.

Used to ride a motorcycle ; many years ago - picked up a date at her house on my hot Ariel Red Hunter - Had my T shirt on etc. Needless to say her parents were not impressed; I don't think she knew how to slaughter hogs thou.

The Church in England were the primary record keepers; gave them a lot of clout in the communities.

When you choose a poor method of suicide such as dropping through the ice it indicates you are not too serious.

Permanent contracts on temporary feelings - Sometimes I have fantasized same; sometimes I have did same - that's life.

There is something in our blood that will not take kindly to being bound - Hmmmm - maybe it's genetic -

I guess under current thought it is healthy to burn the photograph - sort of a way of symbolically breaking the relationship - I find I can not do this kind of thing - I sort of want to possess all because they are part of the warp and woof of my life. I recently bought a motorcycle book with a picture of an Ariel Red Hunter.

Shall not return -- that hurts - There is nothing ,inclusive of drinking that can cover the empty feeling in one's gut. Gilbert O'Sullivan's song "Alone again Naturally" pops into my head. He expresses a sense of suicide etc.

By the way; thank you for being here ; I like to ramble on.

These two chapters were certainly action packed. They very clearly showed the characters of the two newly weds. Did TH think perhaps we hadn't got the picture? I could have done without the slaughtering of the pig, but I guess it was included as part of the local color as well as showing Jude to be a sensitive, resolute individual, and Arabella a farm girl dismayed at her husband's misgiving about slaughtering "a fellow mortal." We knew Jude was reluctant to see any living creature hurt from his allowing the birds to eat some corn in Farmer Troutham's field. Then Jude finds out the origin of why Arabella told him she was pregnant . His confrontation with Arabella results in a curious reaction on her part: "Every woman has a right to do such as that. The risk is hers." Where did TH ever get that impression? Many women do play that game, but I question they believe it is their right; they just think of what they hope to accomplish. Arabella throwing Jude's books on the floor caused him to show more emotion than we've seen so far. Jude's rapid realization that it didn't matter what he or she did, it was all over between them results in as insightful an analysis as I've ever read on the fundamental error of (a) matrimonial union: ...having based a permanent contract on a temporary feeling which had no necessary connection with affinities that alone render a life-long comradeship tolerable. So much truth in such a beautifully worded sentence. From that drama Jude goes to his aunt to find out the truth of the Fawley's marital problems. Of course she tells him plain and simple. What else could he do but attempt suicide on the lake and when that fails, gets drunk. Jude's reaction to Arabella calling it quits was rather sophistocated...not only does he give her all the money he has but tells her it might be to the advantage of both. Finally he manages to get back on track with his dreams of going to Christminster, but not until he finishes his apprenticeship.

I'm finding TH's writing style similiar to sound bites. There is a lack of emotional content that is disconcerting. It reminds me of a cold, sparse piece of land. Does anyone else have the same impression?

There you are! I was beginning to think that we were closing the discussion early and would resume on the 29th. (LJ, the schedule appears up top in the heading)...but you all crept in when I was sleeping and posted...like SANTA!

So many things to think about! I'm going to respond in abbreviated form, due to the frenetic pace (sorry Russ). But I do want us to leave Marygreen in style and some of your posts deserve more discussion; hopefully we can revisit them when we have more time.

Is Part One outdated social commentary? I was struck with the timelessness ...regarding the position of the church on marriage AND the manner in which this "permanent" social contract is entered. I can understand Hardy's cynicism back then, but those same conditions still exist, don't they?

The priest or minister listens to the young people swear "till death do us part". He proclaims, "what God has joined, let no man put asunder." So, 'what's done is done, right'?. Then the state puts 50% of these marriages asunder...Is Jude permitted a "civil" divorce at this time? Or is the religious vow binding?

Is there any difference between modern marriages entered into by today's 19 year olds - that 'permanent contract based on temporary passion'? Isn't this the basis for most marriages?

"What should I have done?" asks Arabella. "Given me more time", answers Jude.

Plenty of room for cynicism still, no? I don't think this is outdated or antiquated social commentary, LJ, but maybe you can convince me.....

Ginny and Pat, I have been reading with interest your pig slaughter/New Year's resolutions posts! I too felt the slaughter scene 'illuminated the fundamental differences between them". I thought the act was the end of the marriage for Jude. I felt the pig was the marriage itself...with Jude exclaiming, "thank God, he's dead!"

I readily accepted Arabella's desire to go off to Australia, even though she had been dying to marry Jude. That was before she discovered what it was like to live on an apprentice's wages...when she was dying to get off her parents' pig farm. I think it was really over for Arabella only when she realized that the talk of Marygreen was that she had set out to entrap Jude. Learning that, she lost it and Australia was a way to escape the wagging tongues...

Pat, I need you to explain something. You say that on your farm, ' there was never any thought other than the animal was necessary to provide meat or income.'...Yet you felt it 'more humane to shoot it first and bleed it immediately.' So you were a tender-hearted fool as was Jude? Here's the question...did the government want the pig to bleed properly (slowly?) so that the meat wouldn't be all bloody? This was Arabella's position, wasn't it?

I too loved that old milestone..."Thither" JF - Wish I could reproduce that pointing finger and make a 'thither' sign for the heading. Now as I understand it, just as Jude found that old marker, he made out on the north-east horizon, 'a faint halo, a small dim nebulousness, hardly recognizable, save by faith"......Christminster!!!!!!!1

I am making a serious effort to "keep Christmas" ...better than I have in a long, long time! Thank you, Russ! And now Pat and Ginny have got me thinking about some really wild New Year's resolutions. That will take some thought...I'll join in that discussion when we come back on Dec. 29.......there will still be time before the New Year begins.....It won't be motor cycling though...skiing is a possibility...hmmm

Kingsbury, ramble on...

I'd have jumped on your Red Hunter in a minute...T shirt and all...did you roll your cigarettes up in the sleeve? My father wouldn't have approved either. Come to think of it, he wouldn't have let me go...........

"The pig delivered in pieces..." Will you expand on the significance of this? We haven't heard the end of this failed marriage? Pieces will be delivered to other sites? Christminster?

"The church of England the primary record keeper"...How much clout? Could the civil government grant divorce?

"Something in the blood that will not take kindly to being bound" Genetic, you ask? Genetic to all/most males?

Do the "shall not return" words leave that empty feeling in the gut, even after the relationship has soured? That seems to be what Hardy was saying in the above poem at the death of his first wife...

Kathleen, so good to hear from you!

That beautifully worded sentence:

"the fundamental error of (a) matrimonial union: ...having based a permanent contract on a temporary feeling which had no necessary connection with affinities that alone render a life-long comradeship tolerable."

... causes me much concern...Who IS ready for such committment? I guess Jude got it right when he answered Arabella..."Give me time"

I think the sound bite problem may be due to the fact that the narrator (Hardy) speaks so much of the time...and we only actually hear snatches of Jude's dialog...

I would merely note that the divorce rate is over 50%, and Cohabitation is as much the rule as is virginity.

Best

It's that divorce rate that makes me uneasy, LJ. The vows seem to mean nothing! Why bother? Are the marriage vows simply a tradition? A civil ceremony seems more reasonable today.

I recently read that those who cohabit are less likely to have children after marriage, and much more likely to divorce...can't remember the rate, but it's way above those who wait till after marriage to live together. Think I'll surf around and find that statistic.

Indeed, that raises other questions such as "Do people get married because they're pregnant" Does this balance with those who don't marry because they can't get pregnant.

Analytically speaking, couples would be well advised to consider marriage a "Contract" with an initial agreement to re-contract at subsequent intervals. I realize this is shocking to those of you in my generation (Or even older) but everything and everybody changes always and if a couple dont change together they are destined to be miserable together or perhaps apart (Miserable or otherwise)

Best

Joan:

So you were a tender-hearted fool as was Jude?

Yes, perhaps, but no one wishes to see an animal suffer..

did the government want the pig to bleed properly (slowly?) so that the meat wouldn't be all bloody? This was Arabella's position, wasn't it?

Our butchering methods of bleeding the pig, by stringing it to the rafters and cutting it's throat was in insure the best edible meat, which I thought was also Arabella's position.

The government (USDA) regulations came later which forbid the home butchering of meat for sale... We continued to do our own butchering, but could no longer sell sausage. We had been grinding all the meat and sold "whole hog sausage".

Hope this answers your question.

Pat / IL

Ironic ; the girl's name was Joan and her last initial was P and we did not ride off into the sunset together on my Ariel - I saw fit after this rejection to race some fellows down the road. Joan you mean you would have ridden off with me on my scrappy old machine with my scrappy then young self not knowing where I was going nor what I wanted to be. Thank you..

"having disagreed with her" seems to fit my partings but not sour. Never had time to sour; just had eyeball to eyeball disagreements.

I do not know about the degree of church clout but I do think it was quite strong at that time.

I think there is validity in the statement that living together contributes to a higher divorce rate; havn't seen any studies on same but experienced it in myself and others.

Genetic?? some animals wander and some are loyal-- Homo Sapiens; some wander some are loyal - Me - I'm part motorcycle "yet I am a man" "inwardly fired" and I will go off to Christminister.The only problem is that Ariel Red Hunters are like the other old bikes I used to ride inclusive of my Indian with it's suicide clutch, they are getting old - gee maybe I am getting old.

Let us "move onward through good and ill".

I feel as if it has been ages since I last was a part of this group. We have just moved back home and now are busy setting things straight...that means all those boxes that were in storage are back in the house! I have however been following Jude and your discussion and hope to be back among you sometime after the new year. Want to wish all of you a very happy holiday season. Joan, as usual your leadership keeps it all going here. Thanks,just being able to read along has been helpful.

The girl on Beeny Cliff and "The yawning blankness of the perspective sickens me" - The baby does not go out with the bathwater - past good moments remain good moments regardless of current emotion and thought - "I see at the alley of bending boughs " - Yes in the minds eye the person can be there - I try to think about the good moments..

Climbing a fence together - Screaming at an ocean wave together - Jumping on an Improvisational stage together - rousting in the sand together - walking through desert sage together late at night - swimming clothed in a corporate fountain together - all moments , but not lost because the other party is gone..

In terms of relationships it seems that timing comes into play ; who happens to be there when you are both ready..

Like that song at the end of the "Hippie" era. "If you can't be with the one you love, Love the one you're with" ????

Best

Oh Helen, you are back! What a lovely surprise! Your are always part of this group, no matter how far you roam. So you are back in your house. Looking to hear of all the restorations. Computer all set up again. Glad to hear you have been keeping up with Jude.

Look forward to your insightful posts as he makes his way to Christminster....

Kingsbury, no, you are not getting old! I can hear the boy in your ruminations...

You have brought up two questions which will follow Jude to Christminster:

"Some men wander, some are loyal." Which category does Jude fit into?

"I do not know the degree of church clout, but I do think it was quite strong at the time." How strong? Strong enough to prevent Jude from divorcing Arabella?

Oh, and then that Poem which Hardy wrote about his ex-wife (with whom he had a very unloving relationsip at the end) - I had to look at that again after reading your latest post:
Why do you make me leave the house
And think for a breath it is you I see
At the end of the alley of bending boughs
Where so often at dusk you used to be;
Till in darkening dankness
The yawning blankness
Of the perspective sickens me!

I think I understand a bit better how Jude must be feeling now... Arabella's presence still felt, and the emptiness he must feel, no matter what has just happened between them...

You are such an optimist, preferring to remember only the high points of past relationships, rather than dwell on loss. Do you think Jude will ever look back fondly at any memory of Arabella?

LJ, I am not really as much of a cynic about marriage as I may sound. I recognize there are many who still make those marriage vows with every intention of living up to them for better or for worse...till death...without periodic recontracting at intervals.

I prefer to think of marriage as a sacrament, a sacred vow, not entered into lightly, not dissolved without a real attempt to save it. I think that a waiting period (a cooling off ) would help and good pre-marriage counseling should be mandatory, if the marriage is to take place as a religious ceremony. It is the swearing before God to stay together and then moving on if a more attractive mate comes along...that bothers me. Jude didn't do that. Jude has been duped.

Pat W., thanks for the graphic explanation on pig butchery. It certainly helped me understand Arabella's dismay on how Jude was going about it...this was something she really understood...and these two really needed the best, most marketable product, considering their economic situation.......

I came in here this morning to post a Christmas greeting, and found all these posts to think about. Time is up... Must go work on the market list, the Yule log and wrap a few more, and then I'll be back....

It was my feeling from reading these last two chapters that Jude was left and did not do the leaving. Arabella even left the country, which certainly seemed like desertion by her from Jude. It seemed that he felt a great sense of relief that she was gone and was certainly generous to see that she had all of the money that they had as she left the country.

Larry

MERRY

CHRISTMAS!

to all our Hardy Boys and Girls and our Moderator, Jonkie. Do you notice anything different about the heading??

Ginny

(Design courtesy of Megan Breen)

I like the new design. It really loads fast.

Pat / IL

JOAN, Although I'm reading as we go, I DID read an "Afterword" commentary by A. Alvarez which points out that Arabella was, after all, the only one who REALY wanted Jude (even in the end).

Food for thought.

Best

What a Christmas surprise! I wished for:

,

... and find it waiting for me on Christmas morning!!!!

That's my Christmas wish to all of you...may you always find a sign to direct your feet!

Thank you so much for that, Megan...and thank you, Miss Ginny, for putting her up to it...I recognize your fine hand at work here!

merry 1.full of high-spirited gaiety; jolly. 2. marked by or offering fun and gaiety; festive

To all of you:

MERRY CHRISTMAS

If you are marked by fun and gaiety, (no matter how you feel), you will offer others the same...it's contagious. You'll find you actually feel festive too!

I'll talk to you all when I get back from New York.

Celebrate!

The January 1998 issue of Conde Nast Traveler has a luscious article on Hardy's Wessex (Dorset) entitled "In the Steps of Tess (of the d'Ubbervilles)."

It is just gorgeous, with many photos and comparisons.

It includes the information that Hardy and his first wife, Emma, had squabbled over Jude the Obscure when he wrote it in the 1890's, "and, disillusioned by this and other criticism, Hardy gave up novels for poetry. But after Emma's death, he discovered an adoring record of their courtship that she had written and he was stricken with remorse. On his death, his body was interred in Westminster Abbey, but at his request, his heart was cut out and buried in Dorset alongside Emma."

Ginny

How Gory !!

I wonder whether they did something with the Pig's heart in the early drafts of that chapter ?

Best

You know, LJ, it IS gory, isn't it, yet we used to hear a lot about bleeding hearts in older literature. I don't think Hardy was the first to do that?

Ginny

GORY? Dare I tell you the rest of the story?

"In the interests of his immortality the nation wished him to be buried in Westminster Abbey, but Hardy himself had left instructions that he should be buried in Stinsford churchyard with Emma. After discussion a British compromise was reached. Hardy's heart should be buried at Stinsford, and the rest of him in the Abbey. Florence (present wife) didn't like this; but she was overridden. A surgeon arrived to remove Hardy's heart; it was placed in a biscuit tin for safe keeping. The tale persists that a cat got at the tin and ate the heart. Indeed a Satire of Circumstance! Had he been able, Hardy would certainly have written a poem about it."

An exercise in frustration and unfullfillment. Follows yhe plot of Jude rather nicely.

Best

First of all, a HAPPY, HEALTHY, NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!

Can someone translate the Latin quote by Ovid on the Chapter Two page? My high school Latin can't do it!

I had to go back to check our assignment for this week. I had read the postings, but my reading of Chapters 1 and 2 did not leave me with any thoughts of Arabella any more than they did TH.

I was entranced with these two chapters. Jude's meanderings through Christminster, and his increasing delight in it reminded me of my first few years wandering in Manhattan. I only wish TH had given us the names of the poets, authors, scientists, philologists, etc Jude thought about on his tour. I've been to Oxford, but unfortunately did not have the opportunity to wander around at night (not that it occurred to me either.) Had I read this book before I went, I certainly would have tried.

In Chapter two, Jude settles in. He is carefree, and again his books take precedence over all else. I found curious the part in the description of how he arranges his room in order to study at night "that nobody should know how he was curtailing the hours of sleep." Was a young man in those times so conscious of what people thought about what he did or said? If that isn't TH's reason than what?

Then there's the quote Hardy gives us: "For wisdom is a defence........that wisdom giveth life to them that have it." It is so true. There is much in Western Lit about wisdom, but this for me is particularly illuminating because in so few words money, knowledge, and wisdom is covered.

Who would have thought it would be Jude's aunt who unwittingly gives him the information he needs to find Sue? And Jude's analysis of his aunt sheds light on their relationship that was puzzling. It comes shortly after the ALLELUJA: "She had used him roughly but she had brought him up:....."

Hardy's genius comes through as he takes Jude through "Thus he kept watch over her." Again it is all intellectual, but so very insightful. How many of us have had a dream of someone, if only a movie star, that we "wove/weave curious, and fantastic dreams " about.

Jude has rationalized his interest in Sue as a member of the family, but only because "it is not well for cousins to fall in love." Aha!!

Although I am not personally enough of a classicist to identify the authors and passages about whom and over whose writings, Jude meditated, contemplated, hallucinated, and dreamt; It is reasonably certain that Hardy did not invent them. These multiple allusions, although obscure to me, certainly imply in Jude a classical education, which we have thus far been led to believe, would have been impossible for him to attain. Of course it IS fiction and thus everything doesn't have to compute.

The narrative does make a dramatic picture which flows and conveys a surreal realism (Or realistic surrealism), quite out of keeping with the clumsy and affected dialogue which characterizes the human interactions portrayed in the book.

I wonder what bell rang 101 times; I wonder who the "Great itinerant preacher, hymn writer and zealot, shadowed like Jude by his matrimonial difficulties" was.

I was confounded by the phrase :...ebony crosses that were almost crucifixes ..." Now a Crucifix, as opposed to a cross has a "Body" on it unless it uses a monogram instead of a body, in which case I assume one might call it an "Almost" crucifix. Seems like a point needing clarification.

Please help me find the "Ovid" quote to which the above posting refers.

Thanks

Best

Having spent the last two days in New York, the streets of Manhattan all day yesterday, Kathleen, I can report to you that you would be heartened by the improvements in recent years...da mayor knows what he's doing....and that it is still the breath-taking, vibrant sea of humanity and diversity that it ever was! The Christmas decorations are breathtaking! Lord & Tailor's window displays were outstanding...all animated Dicken's Christmas Carol...Times Square and surrounding neighborhoods all cleaned up...and ready for New Year!s Eve...let me be among the first to wish you all a

Happy New Year!

I loved Jude's quiet, careful entry into Christminster...he didn't even want to come in with the cart (and horse?), but preferred to walk in, as he had always intended. What do you suppose happened to his "stuff" in the cart...and the horse? I'm guessing he sold them and carried the stuff...

"It was a windy, whispering moonless night"...feeling with his fingers the contours of mouldings and carvings"... I"t seemed impossible that modern thought could house itself in such decrepit and superseded chambers"

I remember spending two days in Paris alone when I was Jude's age...he's about twenty three now, right? I was overwhelmed to finally be in the place I had only dreamed about...hearing all around me the language I had studied for so many years (and not understanding much of what I was hearing!!!)...I felt that I too was "one who walked but could not make himself seen or heard...seeming also his own ghost"

We then are introduced th the "worthies who had spent their youth within these reverent walls." I was very frustrated...unable to identify any of the great Oxford graduates which Hardy alludes to...and assumes his readers recognizes...

Shall we have a contest, Ginny? Who can identify the following. You have until next Monday. Ginny will announce the prize...

1. friend and eulogist of Shakespeare

2. him who recently passed into silence

3. musical one still among us

4. founders of the religious school called Tractarian (?)

5. the well-known three, the enthusiast, the poet and the formulist

6. the smoothly shaven historian so ironically civil to Christianity

7. he who apologized for the church in Latin

8. the saintly author of the Evening hymn

9. the great itinerant preacher, hymn writer and zealot, shadowed like Jude by his matrimonial difficulties.

10. the spectre who mourned Christminster as the home of lost causes

11.the sly author of the immortal chapter on Christianity

12. the poet, the last of the optimists

13. the author of the Apologia (this one is do-able)

14. the 'second' who wrote:
"Why should we faint and fear to live alone,
Since all alone, so Heaven had will'd, we die."

15. the genial Spectator

16. a gentle voiced prelate who wrote the rhyme:

"Teach me to live, that I may dread
the grave as little as my bed.
Teach me to die."

Never have I felt so clueless...and I, the one so eager and confident we could make sense of Joyce's allusions in Ulysses!!!!

Will print out your posts and take them to work today...love to spend my lunch hour thinking about them..

Oh, LJ, I want to include here the two quotes which appear on the introductory page to Part Second...those of you reading the text on-line, may not see these:

"Save his own soul he hath no star." -Swinburne

"Notitiam primosque gradus vicinia fecit;
Tempore crevit amor." -Ovid

I am confident that you will help with the translation.......

Later!

Joan

I must perforce (As I have no Latin dictionary) defer to Ginny who is the superior scholar among us, even if at times I have qualms about her ablative forms.

Best

Cluck cluck cluck!! Deferring is chicken, Mr. LJ!! ahahhahahaha

Ginny

But I must admit I, too, have been avoiding it like the plague, but will attempt it.

I can now see why Hardy is not on everyone's lips! These incessant, yet obscure lines and hints of writers of whom we know not!

It used to be you read and steeped yourselves in the Classics so that WHEN literary references came along, you'd be "up" on them, but a more obscure bunch of quotes and allusions I've never seen.

It's obvious I require a Cliff's Study Guide for this thing, and will call them asap to see if they have one.

When I think of Shakespeare, I think of Coleridge (a poet) and Lamb and Hazlitt. The only person writing something literally called Apologia that I know of was Aristides, but cannot find ANY of the quotes in my two books of quotations, save the "Pale Galilean," which I DID find, and it's by Swinburne.

The Latin in my book is exceedingly poor: it has NO accent marks, reading simply:

"Notitiam primosque gradus vicinia fecit;
Tempore crevit amor."

Although this looks like a single quote, it is not. The "Tempore crevit amor," is from Ovid's Fasti (an obscure piece in itself) and IN that context means "The love grew daily" (over time, as it were)

But it's not preceeded by the first line, and I am totally unable to find its source. So can only attempt a pitiful literal attempt, made without the help of the accent marks.

It MAY be saying that "His surroundings or neighborhood brought him knowledge and the first steps."

But here several problems present themselves. "Notitiam" also means "being known, fame, and acquaintance." If "vicinia" has, in the original, a long mark on the last a, we would have a completely different meaning... "Fecit" can mean, with the double accusative, "change into, or appoint." And, to top it all off, vicinia could actually refer to Arabella, I suppose, but I digress...we could actually have someone changing acquaintance for growth or something?? Am not good at extrapolating without the original.

Since I have no idea to what the line referred in its original context, I can only hazard a guess. Sorry!

I actually made it a point never to translate epigrams, loose quotes or mottoes, as they almost always mean something different from their literal translation.

Once, in my first year, before I knew better, a student brought me a motto found over the girl's dorm. In front of the class, I gladly seized it, and saw, to my horror: "Non Sine Pulvere.."

Looks simple enough?

Not without????? Pulverized???? DUST???

The Girl's Dorm has the motto NOT WITHOUT DUST??

Later, after consulting with the TRUE geniuses of the Department,( who looked it up!~!) I learned that:

1. It was a quote from Horace, taken out of context.
2. IN context it referred to a gladitorial combat.
3. The point was that nothing in life is accomplished without stirring around and raising some dust!!

THAT was the last time, until now, that I've attempted any kind of out of context quote.

Now, somebody with an annotated Hardy, straighten us out, as my curiosity is getting the best of me, and I MAY, if this keeps up, have to go to the LIBRARY!!

Hahahahhahaha

WHAT Ablative Absolute, LJ?? You're never produced the proof!

Does no one have an annotated Hardy which will identify the source and what Hardy meant by putting it there??

I read ahead by mistake and have lots of questions, but will shut up and wait to hear from others.

AH, Joan, the Great White Way at Yuletide!
Glad you're back, we missed you! Did you see The Lion King ?

Ginny

At one time I had painted on my Den door (When I was in school) "ILLIGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM"

Happy New Year

Best

They don't, LJ! Happy New Year!

Ginny

Happy New Year Joan and Friends!!

We have just learned that Joan Grimes' husband passed away unexpectedly on New Year's day and wish to extend our thoughts, prayers and support to her in the difficult days ahead.

Our heart-felt sympathy.

Joan , so glad you touristed to the Capital of the World ( no longer just the Big Apple). I agree with you about the Lord & Taylor windows. I hope they use it for a few years. What did you think of the Rockefeller Center tree? We think it is one of the best yet. And did you make it up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Neapolitan Tree? Some how the holidays aren't complete for me unless I make it up there to see it. I must disagree with you about giving Giuliani credit for the improvements you noticed. The gentrification of the Times Square area had already started when he was elected...and it is going very well indeed. Maybe he can claim the cleanliness of the streets, but the crime rate would be the same even without him...just as it is in the rest of the country. I'm going to the theater to-night. I wonder if the tourists are still there.

"one who walked but could not make himself seen or heard" pretty lonely.

absurdity of the incoherent words of the wanderer -

"free access to the food" " no desire to gratify ambition" been tried - people melt into the system- a downward beat on motivation.

"coarse conjugal life with her" - Where is the joy and fun of being hit by a pig part - Seems like when a relationship is sanctified by the state and/or the church there is a possessiveness that occurs that destroys it - Lawyers and judges and juries don't help to perpetuate a moment of joy. The moments of joy and fun are more important than the "furniture" and real estate that has gone away from me.

Seems to me there was a song about breaking your heart in many places then rattling off the cities - Would have to cut the heart in many pieces if the cat didn't get it.

Stir the dust a little and maybe love will grow daily. I have to ruminate about loyality - " changing acquaintenances for growth" -

My server keeps popping me off. My condolences to Joan for her loss.

At our family's New Year's dinner, we each toast the coming year with our hopes and expectations...Son #2 offered, "more of the same" as his toast. We all reacted...told him to reach higher...he repeated, "more of the same". We all reflected. It had been a good year in many respects. Maybe we should count our blessings and hope for more of the same........ HAPPY 1998 HARDY BOYS & GIRLS!

...and here's to "more of the same".......

Ginny, I intend to go out and look for an annotated Hardy this afternoon after taking son #3 to the airport in Baltimore. Two more are still at home enjoying their break from school for another week.

Don't feel too bad about being unable to identify the obscure references in Chapter I. I stumbled across one of them while reading something else and suspect that like Matthew Arnold, the others, even if identified, would probably ring no bells. (Although I would like very much to see who they are and know that for sure).

Remember that this chapter appeared in serial form in Harper's magazine for the general public though. I think it is safe to assume that the readership at the time recognized the references.

For what it's worth, I'll tell you what I read about Matthew Arnold. He was the one who mourned Christminster as "the home of lost causes". He was an Oxford graduate, a contemporary author. Hardy met him in 1880 and frequently dined with him.

Arnold wrote of Oxford (Christminster):

"Beautiful city! So venerable, so lovely , so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene! Her ineffable charm keeps ever calling us to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection."

Let's just say about Chapter I that Jude has finally arrived, he has read of the Oxford (Christminster) graduates and is overwhelmed to find himself there, communing with their ghosts on that first "windy, whispering, moonless night."

I very much appreciated your discussion of Ovid's quotations found on the introductory page to Part Second. It really helps to know that the two quotes are not found consecutively in his writings. My problem was with the meaning of "tempore". My own feeling for the meaning of the quotes when I thought they were to be considered together was that getting to know someone happens gradually, slowly over time, but that love bursts forth all at once.

But if he wrote the lines separately, I suppose he could be repeating the same sentiment...that both acquaintance and love grow gradually. This is wiser, I suppose. Didn't happen with Jude though...

Non sine pulvere!

Will return with an attempt to clear up my computer table with all these notes I've been meaning to post...Kathleen and Kingsbury...good to hear from you. Happy New Year! Back to you later today.

Joan

ps. " Illigitimii Non Carborundum" Bastards don't smoke? LJ,Help me with this.

I wonder how many magazine subscriptions were cancelled after people read Chapter 1 of Part II. However, glad to see Jude finally get to Christminster. I found the description of what he did to his little room interesting and hiding the light from the view of those outside. He was an adult and why would he care if others knew he wasn't sleeping a lot.

I was also curious about his great aunts admonition about him not contacting his cousin. Don't think I understood why.

Larry

L J and Joan, "Don't let the bastards grind you down." In Michigan that famous motto is usually attributed to the late and great Walter Reuther and is supposed to refer to struggles between management and labor. "Illegitimi non carborundum" is not precisely classic Latin, is it? (Too bad this isn't a nostalgia folder or I'd ask how many GB-ers remember the old Carborundum radio commercial with the Indian drums and the roaring of Niagara Falls.)

Ros

Joan: You sly dog, you didn't tell us you were such a translator! If "vicinia" has an accent over the a, and Ovid did repeat it somewhere other than where I found it, it's entirely possible that it means just what you say!

I gave up when I found it in the "Fasti" in the Library...did not continue to look thru the book. Nor did I read the "Metamorphoses," had had enough of Ovid by that time.

I love Matthew Arnold! He's about as famous as you can get, which quote was his??

Ginny

PS: I expect you're 100% right in that the people who were reading his chapters knew who he was referring to! Wonder why we don't?

Kathleen, you brought up the irony of Aunt Drusilla producing the information which led Jude to Sue. I agree, but also wonder if there is more to the story. Larry wonders why she didn't want him to contact his cousin. Does she fear they will be attracted to one another? OR, is there some family history, something between their parents auntie doesn't want to revisit?

Obviously this girl means something to this rough old woman - she keeps her picture on her mantle. Why then did she send it to Jude, just because he wrote and asked for it? Especially since she doesn't want him to contact her! and then she writes to him again requesting he not try to contact this cousin, while providing all the information he needs to locate her! Irony or something else? What do the rest of you make of all this?

Kathleen, I think the tourists never really give up in NYC, but the Christmas crowd should have exited this weekend. Did you take in a show? We were there for family gatherings, and not long enough for such fun. Not even Lion King, Ginny!

Ginny, I don't really translate, I just sort of feel around for the meaning - which often leads to error as the carborundum translation will tell you! Ros, someday we must meet! You are such a source of delicious information, flavored with a twist of humor and a hint of lemon! I hope you know how much your tidbits are appreciated here!!!!

Now I understand why LJ had Illigitimi non carborundum painted on his door! Was this to become his life-long motto?

I was unsuccessful in my attempt to locate the annotated Jude yesterday...local mall bookstore woefully inadequate...didn't even have the little yellow Cliff Notes copy - jumped right from the Illiad to Julius Caesar. We'll have to limp along without it! One hundred years separate us from Hardy's contemporaries...it really isn't surprising that we are unable to readily identify those references, Ginny. Don't feel bad! You are familiar with Matthew Arnold at least. He was the one referred to as "one of the specters (who afterwards mourned Christminster as " 'the home of lost causes'), though Jude did not remember this. 'Beautiful city! so venerable, so lovely so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene!...Her ineffable charm keeps ever calling us to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection.' ".

Larry, I'm guessing the subscriptions weren't cancelled because the references were so well known to the readers. They weren't clueless and frustrated as we were!

I read the next two chapters last evening and was glad to see Jude finally meet his cousin, although I sort of wanted to shake him and say "get on with it." It finally was her action that caused them to get together. I also found it strange that Jude waited so long to contact Phillotson and that he found him to be a recluse. Then he manipulates the situation so Sue and Phillotson will be working together.

I was stopped in my reading by the following sentence referring to Sue: "She was so vibrant that everything she did seemed to have its cource in feeling." Since you can't see feelings, does this sentence make much sense?

I suppose we were to begin seeing a worldly side to Sue when she purchased the two figurines and then tried to disguise them from the house mother. It seems that Miss Fontover exceeded her rights by smashing Sue's property.

One other thing, what is an erotolepsy?

Larry

Larry! You are up and posting nice and early!!!!!! I just came in to post before leaving for work. Now I can print out you post and take with me to think about during my lunch hour!

Kingsbury, as usual, your one-liners pique the interest and provide much food for thought - and relate the story to one's own experience too! What more could one ask for in a post? "More of the same in 1998!"

You keep reminding us that "the joy and fun" in a relationship never really disappear; the memories of those times persist no matter what follows...

I have "bookmarked" in my brain LJ's comment that Arabella may turn out to be the only person in Jude's life who ever really wanted him.

I hope that before the story is over, Jude is able to look back fondly at those times of "joy and fun" he had with her. Do you think he will? If you had written this book, I'm sure he would have........

I must be off to work! Big day! Will be back this evening to tell you about it and to search for your reactions to Chapters III and IV. Jude must meet up with this puzzling cousin of his, don't you think? What do you think of her? Will share with you some biographical stuff on Hardy's relationship with his own cousin.

Later!
Joan

Joan, You are a real optimist. I bet the book ends up with NOTHING but frustration, failure and misery.

You picked up on what I consider a major gaffe on the author's part or an integral part of the story, i.e. the Aunt aided and perhaps abetted the meeting of Jude with his cousin whilst saying "No no". Jude pursued the "Damzoel" unremittingly while saying it was out of the question for all the listed reasons. Jude and the girl, we can understand. They was under the influence of irresistable hormones, but the Aunt's participation in the "Cabal" is incomprehensable.

Speaking of those hormones, I honestly believe an organ pedal, surrounded by those psuedosymphonic sounds of a fine instrument (a word picture well painted by our author) is often pornographic to those who (like me) are susceptible. I guess that's how monks get their kicks.

Sue's encounter with the pornographic statues and her activities somewhat akin to a boy with his "Playboy" magazines was entertaining

For Ginny's benefit, I had trouble with the Greek. First it's transliterated, Second it's classical greek and thus after dropping all the "H" sounds at the begining of words I came up with an incomprehensible something about "God, the father himself, and Jesus Christ, himself".

I'm just going to have to invest in the GOOD (expensive) Greek dictionary.

Best

I also appreciated the brief divergence into humor when Jude, thinking his passion might be cured by "Knowing" Tess, realized that perhaps he did not want to be "Cured".

What did youall decide was the definition of an "Erotolepsy"

As things unfold with Phillotson, we begin to see parallels between him and Jude. Sort of like blurred or double vision.

Waiting to be enlightened, I am yours always,

Best

If you all can stand one last gasp:

I found it!! I found it!! I found it!!

AND Joan and I were both right, so how's that for a happy ending??

Ovid used it AGAIN!! He used it in the Fasti where it does not have the preceeding line, but used it AGAIN in the Metamorphoses , and there it WAS!!

Just as you see it in the book, from the Metamorphoses, Book IV, line 59, referring to Pyramis and Thisbe (and probably, the way this is going, 100 other places)....and it means, it means....hahahhahahha

"Neighborhood caused acquaintance and the first steps;
Love grew with time." (translation by Z. Chaffee, Jr.)....

I did manage to get a Cliff's Notes for Jude, but it tells nothing of the references or the quotations, and got an evil look from the bookseller for buying it, too!!

Am calling Cliff's to see if they have a Study Guide now.

Ginny

Well, dead ends all around. Cliff's doesn't have a Study Guide for Jude and the Cliff's Notes, as I said are clueless about any literary allusions or quotes or references, just referring you to a book by Weber. Will see if bibliofind has it.

Had to fall back on the Britannica: "In all of his novels Hardy is concerned with one thing, under two aspects; not civilization, nor manners, but the principle of life itself, invisibly realized in humanity as sex, seen visibly in the world as what we call nature. He is a fatalist, perhaps rather a dererminist, and he studies the workings of fate or law (ruling through inexorable moods of humours) in the chief vivifying or disturbing influence in life, women. His view of women is more French than English; it is subtle, a little cruel, not as tolerant as it seems, thoroughly a man's point of view... he sees all that is irrespoinsible for good and evil in a woman's character, all that is untrustworthy in her brain and will, all that is alluring in her variability. He is her apologist but always with a reserve of private judgment....Jude the Obscure is, perhaps, the most unbiased consideration in English fiction of the more complicated questions of sex. There is almost no passion in his work, neither the author nor his characters ever seeming able to pass beyond the state of curiosity, the most intellectually interesting of limitations, under the influence of any emotion. In his feeling for nature, curiosity sometimes seems to broaden into a more intimate communion."

I'm not sure I agree that there's no "passion."

And, so far, I'm impressed with Jude's determination to succeed.

Ginny

Way to go, Ginny!!!! That's persistence!!! You are awesome!!! I think Hardy's use of Latin and Greek are further proof that Jude is Hardy or that Hardy is Jude!

More questions:

What is Tractarianism referred to several times? I've started a list of the religions mentioned here: Anglican, Catholic, Evangelical and now Tractarian. My dictionary says that Tractariansim is a system of High Church principles precisely set forth by the Oxford movement in a series of pamphlets called Tracts for the Times circa 1833.

My understanding so far is that Aunt Drusilla is Evangelical. Don't exactly know what that is. That since she raised Jude, he must have been reared in the same religion. Sue seems to be Anglican. I sense that there exists some suspicion surrounding this, as the crosses seem like crucifixes, the hymnals resemble missals. Does this all mean that the Anglican artifacts too closely resemble Catholic artifacts? I assume the High Church referred to here is Anglican. So the Tracts of the High Church which have made their way to the countryside where Aunt Drusilla is an Evangelical are in conflict with her religious beliefs or practices? Can anyone clarify this?

Real irony here...Jude concludes in Chapter III that Sue was probably a frequenter of this place, (church) and steeped body and sound in church sentiment as she must be by occupation and habit, had no doubt much in common with him."

And then we find Sue with her "heathen load" (I agree Larry, the landlady was really out of line - first when she made a hole in the package to see what Sue had wrapped...and then when she smashed them!!!!) and saying of her Venus and Apollo figures, "Anything is better than those everlasting Church fal-lals". And she so quickly lied saying the figures were Saint Peter and Mary Magdalene! Is there any significance to her choice of saints? I think Hardy has shown us very clearly, that Sue really really doesn't "have much in common" with Jude!

I find the whole religion thing baffling. Jude wants to become a minister, right? Maybe even a bishop? And yet we are told: "as Jude was rather on an intellectual track than a theological...". What "track" do you understand Jude to be on? Personally, I see him as a stone mason with many skills. But what are his goals...to get into Christminster and study what? What college would he enroll in- if given the opportunity?

Larry's question: "what is erotolepsy?" Not a dictionary word, but I pulled it apart and came up with a seizue of eroticism, from which Jude does not wish to be "cured" ...his interest in her was unmistakeably sexual What do you think, LJ?

I meant to go back and read what Aunt Drusilla had told Jude of the relationship between his parents and Sue's. She says here that there is no reason they can't be friends just because their parents quarelled. Does anyone remember what that was all about?

Will take your posts to work and consider them with my lunch. Yesterday was too nice to stay inside. It was nearly 70 degrees and I strolled around the Capitol grounds with no coat!

Later!

Joan

Joan: what an interesting post!

"High Church" seems to mean different things to different people when applied to Anglicanism. Some people seem to take it to mean the incense and bells and other things used in a very formal setting, which an evangelical would not like. Some people more closely associated with the Anglican clergy seem to feel "High Church" simply means celebration of communion as the main service. I'm not an expert on either.

The Cliff's Notes does make a point of contrasting Sue's reading of the "agnostic" Gibbon with Jude's solitary reading.

Here are the names of three commentaries on Jude . Amazon has two, but one is on back order.

Maybe your libraries are better stocked than mine, the best of all seems to be Hardy of Wessex by Carl J. Weber. It's not available here.

Then there's:

Jude the Obscure : An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism (A Norton Critical Edition) Thomas Hardy / Paperback / Published 1978 Our Price: $13.13

which looks awfully good, but it is back ordered, and probably won't come in. I am not familiar with the Norton Critical Editions.

Then there's:

Jude the Obscure Notes by Frank H. Thompson (Editor) List: $4.50 Our Price: $3.60 You Save: $0.90 (20%)

And that one is available, so have ordered it. Lately when I order standard mail from Amazon, they send it priority at their expense, so may get that one soon.

Ros: is there nothing you don't know? Thanks for that Reuther background on carborundum. Spent an entire afternoon happily looking up the derivation of the word "carborundum" named by Edward G. Acheson in 1891 while he was trying to make artificial diamonds. Because he thought he had prepared a new compound of carbon and aluminum oxide, he called it that, as "the natural form of fused alumina has the mineral name of corundum."

Corundum "is believed to be derived from Hindi (Karundi ) the mineral first being identified in India."

Thanks to you and to all of you for such exciting forays out of the book...this is what really makes a book discussion FUN, to me!!

Ginny

Ginny, thanks so much for finding that translation. I suspected it would give us an idea of what Part Two is about, and it does. Now, referring to the end of Chapter 3, what is Griesbach's text, and any chance of finding the translations of those Greek(?) " inexplicable sounds?" As long as I'm on the 'finding clues to what TH is thinking' track, since Venus is the goddess of love and beauty, and Apollo of archery, prophecy, and music (think sensitive, intellectual) is TH steering us into thinking these two figures that Sue bought from the peddlar, are symbolic of how she will see (probably subconsciously) herself and Jude? I don't see Jude being religious at all; he's like so many people who were raised in a certain religion, and just accept whatever was/is taught without thought in carrying out their duty. To read these two chapters is to read the male side of the anatomy of a love affair or an obsession or unrequited love. Which will it be? Will TH walk us through Sue's thinking as well? That one commentary you quoted, Ginny about TH does not write about passion's emotions so far is very true. Indeed TH writes as a stone mason would...step by step by step.

Well, since the field is open to conjecture as to the definition of the neologism, I think that erotolepsy implies paroxysms of lust.

I also think the iconography boils down to the simple comparisons of Jude's contemplation of the forms of intellectuals and church fathers, with Sue's contemplation of "Nekkid" people.

I guess thats a bit mundane, but it makes an interesting balance of Jude's salacious paroxysms of lust against his background of intellectualism and christian piety compared to Sue's pornographic purchases against her background of church work/upbringing.

Best

Kathleen and LJ: What super posts!! I do think I must reread this part again!

If the Notes come, (am pacing to the mailbox in anxiety daily) and they tell anything about anything, I'll let you all know.

Ginny: off to read it again.

I think that we are getting closer each day to what TH was trying to put across. It is so much more difficult for us to understand than it was for his readers one hundred years ago...they were familiar with existing situations in the religious and educational institutions which Hardy is trying to expose. Aren't you glad we are taking our time with this?

My husband thinks I should be just reading the story for enjoyment, but to tell the truth, I don't think I'd be enjoying it half as much if I didn't understand it. I'd be scanning through the plot line and that's about it. Thank you all for your contributions.

Kathleen, I went to the library today and perhaps I will find the Greek translation in one of the books..if not, we will just have to be patient til Ginny's annotated copy arrives.

I can tell you about the Griesbach text referred to in chapter three, though. It is yet another example of the Hardy/Jude character. The author's library was sold in May, 1938 (a very good month and year I must say) - His own copy of the Griesbach translation of the New Testament was among those books. He had acquired it in 1860 while he was studying architecture with under John Hicks. In Jude the Obscurewe read that Jude had received "by post from a second-hand bookseller" a copy of the New Testament in the Greek..."Griesbach's text". This was the text he was looking forward to the night he first met Arabella..........

I loved your explanation of the significance of the Apollo and Venus figures..and agree with it! Do you care to take on the significance of Sue's choice of saints-Peter and Mary Magdalene, the ones she said she had wrapped in the parcels...I think that is just waiting for you!!!

I have such a stack of Hardy stuff here, (none of the books seem to translate the Ovid or the Greek, however. Did read something rather interesting about Hardy's own cousins though:

Two of his Sparks' cousins (on his mother's side) emigrated to Australia, just as Arabella did. His feelings for his cousin, Martha, six years older than he was, "seemed to rouse both mothers to active opposition, ostensibly in the grounds that the two were cousins, but essentially because each thought her child could make a better marriage."

The youngest Sparks cousin, Tryphena was eleven years younger than Hardy. At 16, she was "pretty, lively and intelligent...fun...determination in her subsequent career as a schoolteacher. There is said to have been a passionate love affair when she was 16. There was some sort of engagement between them, but Grandmother Sparks intervened on the grounds that it was against the laws of the Church, but in fact marriage between first cousins was not forbidden by the Church of England's 'Table of Kindred and Affinity. Tryphena was not really interested in marriage at the time...there was simply a gradual erosion of intimacy, an eventual relapse into the friendly and cousinly terms of the past."

But Hardy later came to regard her as his "lost prize". He published poetry - Thoughts of Phena, remembering her....

So cousins could marry. Perhaps, the real obstacle on his list of three reasons Jude couldn't marry Sue, was the Fawley history of disastrous marriages....does anyone remember what went on between their parents? I am going to go back to the beginning and reread that tonight!

Will peek in in the morning before work and tell you what I find. All I remember is that somehow Jude's mother died because of it.

Will also think some more about LJ's excellent observation:

"I guess thats a bit mundane, but it makes an interesting balance of Jude's salacious paroxysms of lust against his background of intellectualism and christian piety compared to Sue's pornographic purchases against her background of church work/upbringing."

Ties in nicely with what Kathleen was saying about the Venus/Apollo statue, don't you think?

Joan, I would have "Jumped" on the Mary Mag and Peter line, but it was there just to stand for "Good Christians" so I thought better of getting sidetracked by it.

Best

Come on, LJ, you know that Thomas Hardy doesn't just throw in names to fill space. He takes advantage of every opportunity... Work with me on Peter and MM...more than just good Christian saints'names...Peter, the humble fisherman, so much a follower that he became the "rock" on which the Church was built. Yet he was the first to betray, three times as the cock crowed. And the Magdalene, the town prostitute, certainly a woman of the world, comes to repent when confronted with her conscience...

I searched the early chapters last night to read of a quarrel between Sue and Jude's parents...nothing! There was a falling out between Jude's parents up at the barn (forget the name...but the same barn from which Jude used to view Christminster as a boy), which led to Jude's mother's suicide and his father taking him from Marygreen, never to return. And there was a falling out between Sue's parents, which resulted in Sue's mother taking her daughter to London, never to return to Marygreen. So the first we hear of a quarrel between the two sets of parents is in the present chapter, where Sue tells Jude that just because their parents quarrelled is no reason they can't be friends.

My imagination ran wild on this one! Why is auntie now so upset that they may meet, yet she provides him with information to find her. Think about it and then tell me if you come anywhere near the idea I came up with last night before I fell asleep!

I shiver to think what idea you came up with last night, but I didn't recall the conflict between the parental pairs (Shades of Romeo and Juliet) either.

I guess that if Shakespere could telescope "Time Intervals" then Hardy could telescope "Plot inferrences" as if they'd been narrated. (That's pretty far out, but a professor of literature would love it)

Now, for Mary M. and Pete. As I recall (past the platitudes), Peter was essentially asexual (Parental figure), and Mary was the (Child figure). The olny plot-line, more than superficial stuff, that occurs to me is preciously convoluted. Commentators suggest a "Hardy/Jude" comparison. Second(First, comes next) If the "Book of Jude" is related to the title, what does that say about the Author/protagonist.

And First; since the child (Uninhibited adult) was nearly stoned . The Adult Figure (another child? No, this is transactional analysis) probably was killed, do they "Kill" the Author/Jude too. Also Do you notice, that pursueing this track, makes this a simple Human,Sensuous,Sexual series of dichotomies with Establishment,Spiritual,Asexual and rigid("Stones") antitheses??

Best

Now, LJ, I'm going to say that that last sentence was a true SENTENCE! Now, that's something!

Ginny

Admittedly, one set of parentheses should have been quotes, there were a few typos and I may have either left out or put in an extra, comma.

Best

Hello, may I join you? I'm new to the group but I've caught up on the reading and all the back messages. I appreciate the comments and the research as well as everyone's personal observations. Ginny, thanks for the stuff from Britannica, especially the remarks about Hardy as a fatalist ( I'm comfortable with that!)and his lack of passion and tendency to see woman as the root of folly (I don't completely agree with either, but perhaps the Britannica critc/writer has more recent acquaintance than I have with his other works). This story is compelling for me because Jude and the others are following their own natures and circumstances so inevitably. Jude is tragic because his life is energized by dreams and passions that are out of his reach. Time doesn't change the way human beings react to life. If Jude were a contemporary hero, he might be ignoring any strictures that the nineteenth century hero must respect, but a 20th century Hardy would be finding more boulders to plant in the road. The combination of his own nature and society would still get in the way. I love the part about Sue and the statues of Apollo and Venus. Jude loves a woman who is stretching to see over the walls. The walls themselves have been Jude's Holy Grail! Now what will he do? I'm up to the discovery that Phillotson is smitten with her, so I'm agonizing for Jude. (Can't help it - I always agonize!)

JM!! Welcome, welcome!! Our Joan is hard at work at the Folger Shakespeare Library, and this will just MAKE HER DAY!!

Love all your comments, well said! I agree...I find myself reacting to Jude this time around the same way I did when I first read him...I can really empathize with his yearnings for something better, always have.

What a great point about Sue looking over the walls, and the walls having been Jude's goals! Fabulous!

That Britannica is a 1968 model, so I have a feeling your acquaintance with Hardy is a lot more recent experience! I love that old Britannica, tho, it's really good for past authors, lots and lots of info not found in recent volumes which have to condense, there's been so much history!

Have just received notice from Amazon that they are sending the TWO Hardy books of annotations, both the Notes and the Critical Analysis, so hope to have something to say about those elusive references he makes: that kind of thing drives me crazy!

I now see by Joan's schedule at top (love the new quote, Joan) that I'm behind again, so will go read and return.

Ginny

Ginny was right! I just got in from work and was checking my messages when I found the good news...
WElcome, JM!!!!!!!!!!

As soon as I get my shoes and stockings off, feed my kid and send him off, I want to address your post! What fresh new ideas you bring to us! So happy to have you join us. Are you a Hardy Boy or a Hardy Girl?

Before I go, I can't resist sharing this one little item by a Hardy critic, Irving Howe, which I read during my lunch hour:

"As a writer of novels, Thomas Hardy was endowed with a precious gift: he liked women. There are not quite so many other 19th century novelists about whom as much can be said."

Later!

Joan

p.s. LJ, you're right...remove a few commas from your last post and I'm sure we'll understand it better..............................

JM Good to see your fresh blood on board. If you "Agonize" too much this is the place to come to for a "Transfusion"

Best

JM, I join with all of the others in saying how delightful it is to see you posting here and hope you will join us in some of the other Books and Literature Discussions.

Joan, I don't think I understand your quote from the Hardy critic, Irving Howe.

Larry

Larry dear, please forgive me for tossing in bits and pieces of notes here and there. My days for the next three weeks are to continue as the past month...so hectic, so many demands on my time, that I must rely on you to question when my posts don't make much sense...and I will make the time to clarify...

The Irving Howe quote on women was pulled out of context. I tossed it in after reading Ginny's Britannican view of Hardy's attitude toward women, and then JM's agreement with the idea that "Hardy tends to view woman as the root of folly."

I'll include a bit more of what Howe had to say about Hardy's view of women, other than the fact that he liked them and that could not be said for most nineteenth century novelists.

"With some (19th century novelists), the need to keep returning in their fiction to the disheveled quarters of domesticity causes a sigh of weariness, even at times a suppressed snarl of discontent; for by a certain measure, it must seem incongruous that writers intent on a fundamental criticism of human existence should be sentenced to indefinite commerce with sex, courtship, adultery and family quarrels.

Hardy, by contrast, felt no such impatience with the usual materials of the novel. Though quite capable of releasing animus toward his women characters and casting them as figures of destruction, he could not imagine a universe without an active, even an intruding, feminine principle. The sexual exclusiveness of nineteenth century American writing would have been beyond his comprehension...

...Hardy found steadily interesting the conceits and playfulness of women...
...he liked the changefulness, sometimes even the caprice of feminine personality
...he marveled a the seemingly innate capacity of young girls to glide into easy adaptations and tactical charms
...he had a strong appreciation of the manipulative and malicious powers that might be gathered beneath a surface of delight..."

So what do you think? Did he like women or not? I find much of what he "liked" to be backhanded compliments. Perhaps we can come up with a better word to describe Hardy's attitude toward women. It certainly differed from his 19th century contemporaries...

Oh, and Ginny, the copyright date of Howe's book is 1967, which coincides with your Britannica....

OH my, oh my, I have now made the acquaintance of the "Norton Critical Editions," and all I can say is: "Oh, my."

This thing has the original text nicely presented in paperback format, with each and every reference, quote, or allusion FOOTNOTED and explained! I now can tell the players, I've got a scorecard!

Then the end of the book is critical essay and analysis after critical analysis, author after author.

Had never HEARD of Norton's Critical Editions, and, had it not been for this folder, would never have.

So, if you've been wondering about all those references, here's what the reader of Hardy's books would have known:

In Part II....I...

"A bell began clanging..." This is "The Great Tom," in Christ Church (which was called Cardinal College by Hardy) one of the largest bells in England...tolled every evening at 10 minutes past 9, one hundred and one times, at the closing of the college gates."

I just added a new town to my next trip to England.

"crocketed pinnacles" a little further down: "Decorated with Gothic ornaments."

"oriels," Projecting rooms or recesses with windows.

"the friend and eulogist of Shakespeare," Ben Jonson (1572-1637) Hardy put a key to this name and the next eighteen names in a letter to Mrs. Henniker, dated November 10, 1895!! SO we're not the only ones who need KEYS!! Too bad he didn't do it for US!

"him who has recently passed into silence:" Robert Browning

"and that musical one of the tribe who is still among us:" Swinburne

"the founders of the religious school called Tractarian; the well known three, the enthusiast, the poet, and the formularist:" John Henry Cardinal Newman, John Keble, and Edward Pusey, leaders of the Tractarian Movenent.

"in the full-bottomed wig, statesman, rake, reasoner, and sceptic:"Lord Bollingbroke

::the smoothly shaven historian so ironically civil to Christianity:" Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

FLASH!! Hardy himself forgot who one was!!!

"he who apologized for hte Church in Latin:" Hardy's key has "can't remember!" against this reference. The most likely candidate is Newman. His autobiography Apologia pro vita sua has a Latin title but is written in English.

"the saintly author of the Evening Hymn:" Bishop Ken

"the great itinerant preacher, hymn writer and zealot:" John Wesley

"One of the spectres...:" as Joan has noted, these words appear in Matthew Arnold's Essays in Criticism: First Series,(The Preface)..

"the Corn Law convert:" Sir Robert Peel

"Then the sly author:" Edward Gibbon in Chapter 15 of The Rise and Fall...."

"Then the shade of the poet:" Browning in By the Fire Side

**********

I think I'll pause for breath, and do the rest tomorrow and look up that word, LJ.

Having spent many days in three county libraries just to find a translation of the Latin, only to see it here translated with ease, and with a different translation even yet: "Closeness (vicinia...neighborhoood) led to awareness and the first steps: love grew with time."

I have now become a firm believer in Critical Editions, and don't think we need to excoriate ourselves for one SECOND for not having recognised these men, altho Newman is truly well known, as are a couple of the others, but KEEP IN MIND that Hardy himself didn't know one!!

Ginny

Ginny,

Where do you get the Norton Cricital Editions?

Joan G

I got mine from Amazon, Joan, have you ever heard of the Nortons? I hadn't. I sure am glad to see you posting here again, by the way. The full title is Jude the Obscure
An Authoritative Text
Backgrounds and Sources
Criticism

Ed. Norman Page

468 pp.

Ginny

Ginny to the rescue! I've already copied and will paste and print out all those identities. I feel our Latin translation was close enough...comforting to know we will have to agonize no further if he throws any more our way. How did he translate that bit of Greek which Jude was reading or singing during the church service he attended while stalking sweet Sue? I'll bet it was something apt to the occasion........

Joan, welcome back. You are in our hearts and prayers and it is good to know that you can turn to us for some distraction and hopefully, comfort.

I came in with bits I've been noting from the critic, Irving Howe...if it seems heavy, just scan it for what it's worth, or skip it...

JM comments that "Jude is tragic because his life is energized by dreams and passions that are out of his reach" and that since he is a 19th century character, rather than a 20th century hero, he is unable to overcome his situation...

Here is Hardy in his 1895 preface explaining his larger purpose in composing the book:

"...to deal unaffectedly with the fret and fever, derision and disaster, that may press in the wake of the strongest passion know to humanity; to tell, without a mincing of words, of a deadly war waged between flesh and spirit; and to point the tragedy of unfulfilled aim."

The above-mentioned critic, Irving Howe had a few things to say about this as well.

"Jude the Obscure> is Hardy's most distinctly "modern" work, for it rests upon a cluster of assumptions central to modernist literature: that in our time men wishing to be more than dumb clods must live in permanent doubt and intellectual crisis; that for such men, to whom traditional beliefs are no longer available, life has become inherently problematic; that in the course of their years they must face even more than the usual allotment of loneliness and anguish; that in their cerebral overdevelopment they run the danger of losing those primary appetites for life which keep the human race going; and that courage, if it is to be found at all, consists in a readiness to accept pain while refusing the comforts of certainty."

While our Jude has not reached such depths as yet, there is the constant reminder that this is a "tragedy", and that Jude's future is not bright.

Howe states that "a tragedy in any classical sense Jude is not, for it directs our attention not to the fateful action of a looming protagonist, but to the inner torments of familiar comtempories. In classical tragedy, the hero realizes himself through an action. In the modern novel, the central action occurs within the psyche of the hero."

"Jude Fawley is a man whose very being constitutes a kind of battlefield and who matters, consequently , more for what happens within him than for what happens to him. He is racked by drives he cannot control, drives he barely understands. Powerfully sexed, drawn immediately to Arabella's hearty if somewhat soiled physical life, Jude is in constant revolt against his own nature. That revolt comprises a major portion of the novel's inner action behind its visible action."

"And Jude in the last analysis, is a novel dominated by psychology....Awkward, subjective, overwrought and embittered, Jude the Obscure contains moments of intense revelation....Mixtures of psychological veracity and crude melodrama are characteristic of Hardy, a novelist always better in parts than the whole."

So, my reason for quoting all this is two-fold. Hardy is not your typical 19th century novelist. He broke new ground with this novel. And to agree with LJ. We are going to see more agonizing before we're through. You have indeed come to the right place for agonizing, JM! But, as LJ has said before, I am an optimist. We all experience peaks and valleys. When it's all over, no matter where we find ourselves, there were those peaks which made it all worthwhile. Certainly Jude had a sad little childhood...but he didn't seem to dwell on the loss of his parents...and dreamed of better days...took steps to fulfill the dreams. Certainly he had some memorable moments with Arabella. He didn't seem devastated when he lost her..I thought he handled that very well. He seems happy in his pursuit of cousin Sue...for the time being anyway. Let's save the agonizing for when things really get rough...

"...he could not imagine a universe without an active, even and intruding, female principle." (Howe, courtesy of Joan.) Perhaps whether or not Hardy "likes" women is not the most productive approach. He really seems to acknowledge them as a force of nature to be reckoned with, which is what Howe seems to be saying. (Historically,have writers noted as thoroughly the truth of the reciprocal principle - women dealing with the male force?) Do you read Howe that way, Joan? Human existence is larger than the force of any single principle, and if we are victims,we're victims of the whole design; I think this is what Hardy thinks - at least that's what I think today!

Sue is different from Jude in that she looks back into time before Christianity to note with interest and appreciation the gods - Venus, Apollo - and the cities of antiquity: "I fancy we have had enough of Jerusalem . . . . There was nothing first-rate about the place,or people, after all - as there was about Athens, Rome, Alexandria, and other old cities."

For Jude religion, intellectualism and aestheticism all seem to be in one bundle. I don't think religion was the primary attraction in his early enthusiasm for Christminster. As a child he knelt in the moonlight and prayed to Phoebus and Diana almost as if they were the patron saints of his yearning to be in that city. He has not dealt with the paradox yet, but later chapters suggest a change in his views of several things. I wonder how Hardy will deal with his discoveries and changes. I am grateful for all the research Joan and Ginny have been sharing. The only identification of a "litany" person I was able to do on my own was Ben Jonson! Thank you, thank you!

Bravo Ginny. Now we'll get some answers, I think the "Joanses" have kept an interesting commentary runing, and J.M. notes an equation between "Religion, intellectualism, and aestheticism" (Perhaps also asceticism)

I rather noted a balancing series of contrasts between these (representing Jude) and first, Sue: e.g. Church Icons and Jerusalem versus Naked Greeks and Athens.........Then between Jude an Phillotson: i.e Young, sacred orientation, related, married, and failed in wedlock versus Old, secularly oriented, unrelated, unmarried, and untried in wedlock. They both exhibit identical courses in their "Life Plans" i.e. Jude follows Phillotson's pattern when he, like Phillotson, throws in the academic towel.

In the Aunt's description of Sue the comparison between Jude's recitation of Latin and Greek are juxtaposed with Longfellow and Poe (Both, American Poets) as recited by Sue.

LJ, did you notice the poem Sue chose for her childhood recitation? "The Raven," with its "night's Plutonian shore" and "pallid bust of Pallas." She's a pre-Christian. She is not to be bound by any of the Christian strictures Jude accepts.

Good point JM, and with EXCELSIOR She implies a Lone, unremitting dedication to (higher) goals. We (at least I) might be getting a bit carried away

Best

....and JM, did you notice that both the poems Auntie Drusilla remembers Sue reciting are American ...Poe and Longfellow? Isn't this a bit strange out there in the country village of Marygreen?

EXCELSIOR

THE RAVEN

Why did Hardy choose these two poems?

I really don't feel up to commenting on Longfellow, but I think Poe's allusions and images are really pagan, which is how I see Sue! The fact that they are Americans might seem exotic to a nineteenth-century English lass. . . did Hardy think so, I wonder? Did nineteenth-century folks in English villages think of all of us as a wild-eyed gang, even the educated, literate, creative Americans? After all, look what we did with their tea (and their troops)!

Love the posts here! Just finished Book 6, and feel, for once, "up" with the group.

The main problem, as I now see it, with the Norton, is that everything I now say you'll say, O she got THAT from Norton!! hahahahaha

Haven't had a MOMENT to get to the criticisms, the Exchange takes every speck of my time, but do have some thoughts of MY OWN on Jude:

I have noticed throughout, and am really enjoying, his use of language, which Larry commented on. I love his technique of personification, in which the past "announces itself" in II-2, and an "accent that agreed with his appearance," in II-3, the trees which "dripped sadly upon" Jude in 2-V, and the "psysiognomies which "seemed to say to him..." in 2-VI. The book is full of these examples in which trees, which to my knowledge don't feel human emotion, show sadness, etc., and I think that it lends a welcoming and joyful familiar quality to his prose. I love it.

I love his persistence. Many would have given up long before him. Don't you feel for him, in his constant trying?

No wonder SchoolMaster Phillotson has not achieved! He's rude to the point of ignorance: doesn't remember Jude, is rude in saying so. As a former teacher who has had totally unrecognizable grandmothers come up to me whom I taught at 8th graders, you'd never say such a thing, ever. If you think, you can remember. Bad marks for Mr. P, all around.

Heck, he's only 45.

So we don't need to ask why HE failed.

How about the phrases "sweet Sue" and "town and gown,"?? We need Ros with her OED to tell us if they originated in Hardy!

I didn't understand Jude's sentence "How it carries one back, doesn't it?" in 2:V, upon seeing the model of Jerusalem??

Also paused at Sue's remark.

Sometimes I think some people still see America as cowboys and Indians.

Ginny

And now, Norton comes to our rescue with these tasty morsels of info on all those things you've been wondering about: from Book I to VI:

In Book I

"The second of them, no polemic....."Why should we faint and fear to live alone,
since all alone, so Heaven has will'd, we die?'" is from Keble, The Christian Year .

"the genial Specator: When I look upon the tombs of the great...." is Joseph Addison, and the sentence is quoted slightly inaccurately .

"Teach me to live that I may dread
The grave as little as my bed.
Teach me to die..." is from Bishop Ken, from his famous "Evening Hymn"

Book 2-II

"read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest," is from the Book of Common Prayer

"For wisdom is a defense, and money is a defense..." from Ecclesiastes 7:12

"mummeries" is a contempouous term for religious rituals. The original meaning is "play acting." Think of the Mummer's Parade.

Book 2-3

In Chapter 23 of The Decline and Fall.... the Roman emperor Julian announced his conversion to paganism in 361...Sue displays a certain daring in reading this particular chapter of Gibbon.

"All hemin heis Theos..."

A verse from the Greek New Testament: "But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him." (I Corinthians 8:6)

Book 2-IV:

"erotolepsy" literally a "love seizure" Hardy appears to have invented this word.

"the spot of the Martyrdoms" of Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer, put to death in 1555-1556 during the reign of Mary I.

"Ward" was a theological writer.

Book II-5

"the king of terrors" a phrase normally applied to death.

Book 2-VI:

"genius loci" spirit of the place

" Crusoe over his big boat" in Defor's Robinson Crusoe the hero builds a boat with great toil, only to find that it is too heavy for him to move to the water.

"Above the youth's inspired and flashing eyes..." from Heine's "Gotterdammerung"

"a singularly built theatre" The Sheldonian Theatre, designed by Wren, is not a theater in the usual sense but a building in which university ceremonies take place. It is the scene of the annual Commemoration, at which degrees are granted.

"TETUPHENAY" the author of the letter to Jude: It has been suggested that Tetuphenay --whose name is based on a Greek verb meaning "to have struck" was modeled on Benjamin Jowett, famous classical scholar and master of Balliol College, Oxford. It has also been claimed that the letter received by Jude is a transcript of a letter sent to the young Hardy by Jowett!!

I'm sure I missed some we'd want to know, so if there's something I can look up in the first part I didn't get, do mention it!

Ginny

I am noticing a developing pattern and wonder if you are experiencing the same thing. On Sunday evening, or Monday morning, I read the scheduled chapters...following the plot and enjoying the writing... Then I just let it sit there all day Monday... I've noticed that there aren't many posts from Hardy boys and Girls on Mondays either...

And I really do appreciate the writing, the descriptions, the word pictures.Ginny, I did mark off the"trees dripping sadly" and included that passage as the "quote of the week" up top...

On Monday night or Tuesday, I go back and look at the chapters more closely...noting observations and questions. Then I check in and see what you have noted. By Tuesday and Wednesday, you begin to post and I just love to read what you have noted...often things that I missed altogether....

I just went back and reread the passage Ginny questioned - the one containing Jude's question to Sue when looking at the model of Jerusalem, "How it carries one back, doesn't it?" I'll bet Sue didn't know what he meant either...(this was reciprocated by Jude's lack of understanding of Sue's criticism of the model of Jerusalem - or even the consideration of Jerusalem...even though he said he knew what she meant.) Does it mean that Jude was carried back to the roots of his Christian beliefs by looking at the model of Jerusalem?

Jude's persistence is admirable, Ginny, but not practical...he's not really in touch with reality. Probably because he is so alone, so without guidance. He does make an effort to get some objective advice in Chapter VI though. For the first time, there is some evidence that he is realizing the reality of his situation:

"It was decidedly necessary to consider facts a little more closely than he had done of late."

"I ought to have thought of this before...It would have been better never to have embarked in the scheme at all than to do it without seeing clearly where I am going, or what I am aiming at..."

"This hovering outside the walls of the colleges, as if expecting some arm to be stretched out from them to lift me inside, won't do!"

I was encouraged to see him finally admit this, although he still persists with his goal by planning to get more information. At least it won't be such a shattering experience if he doesn't achieve his goal...he's preparing himself...

You know, I don't get the feeling of impending tragedy yet...disappointment, yes...unfulfilled dreams, desires, and ambitions...come to think of it, that is a tragedy, isn't it? An unfulfilled life...

Joan: No, I don't see it as tragic at all, right now, in Chapter 6: it's hopeful. His whole world is ahead, he's made the most impressive steps to get there, he's tried when many others wouldn't, and success is just around the corner. I must admit I do the same things, and think the same way! (Except I probaly would have given up, and turned to something else by now, so I admire him for "keeping on)." I guess you could say I identify with him a lot: "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Ginny

Ginny, Is there any comment in that commentary of relationships between "Jude" of Hardy and the book of "Jude" in that fictional classic the New Testament?

Best

LJ, you point out the balancing act Hardy is performing - contrasting Jude and Sue, Jude and Phillotson...can you just imagine how much work went into this novel? The beautiful writing as Ginny and Larry keep reminding us, the literary, religious, architectural references, the psychological implications, his own bibliographical references, the social issues..(divorce was quite the controversy at the time...more on that later)....all the while maintaining the simple plot - a country boy trying to get an education and fulfill his dream.

Without Ginny's Norton, we'd be lost. Thanks for sharing so much of that with us, Ginny So many things were slipping by, making no sense. I couldn't figure what Jude was talking about when he counted the 101 bells that first night. It is a bit curious still that the bells tolled 101 times at 9:10, the closing of the gates. But we now know what Jude hearing. Do you want to go to Oxford some day. Shall we all? (We can dream!) Shall we gather at Christ Church(Cardinal Church in Hardy's Wessex) at 9:10 and see if the bells still chime?

I have printed out all the reference notes. the famous Oxford graduates...recognize several...Browning, Newman, Wesley, Gibbon, Ben Jonson, Swinburne... Must keep the notes beside me from here on in...no more hunting...thanks again, Ginny!

LJ, I don't think you (we) are getting carried away - I think Hardy was carried away with this novel! Every single reference is "fraught with meaning" (like to use that phrase once with every selection we read). And the closer we examine them, the more we understand his intent in including them.

Look at Excelsior again. Did you read the clickable for the poem? I tried, but could not correct the William Wadsworth Longfellow...Will copy and paste it out again here...I think the lad holding the Excelsior banner is Jude...that he will go down, tossing away all chance of earthly happiness for the sake of his highest ambition and principles...

Excelsior By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device
Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a faulchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!

"Try not the Pass!" the old man said;
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"
And loud that clarion voice replied
Excelsior!

"O stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"
This was the peasant's last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air
Excelsior!

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device
Excelsior!

There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!

No wonder Hardy was exhausted and turned to poetry after completing this novel!!! Curious that Shakespeare did the same after completing Othello. Much less complicated! Should we listen to Ginny and do some poetry next? Do we need a break?

Later!

Joan
ps - LJ, I have found several references to New Testament Jude when he speaks of Job, which Jude supposedly personifies...apparently there are references to the NT Jude as being "obscure" and several quotes from the NT are to be seen in Hardy's work. We haven't reached them yet...

...also several references that Hardy was aware that the name would bring to mind Judas Iscariot...and he was comfortable with that association as well. Will quote you some of that when I get home tonight.
Today is the first day at new job! Still at Folger...this is a Wednesday only job for the next three weeks. 11-7! Will be exhausted when I get in...but will try for tonight...

JM, I wanted to respond to your post about Hardy and women, Sue and the Raven ...but ran out of breath

and time...

Later!

Joan

To think I almost didn't log in this morning! How much I would have missed! I read every word, including "Excelsior," and have a greatly increased appreciation for the work Hardy did for this novel. I also identify with Jude, and am struggling not to become too despondent over his frustrated aspirations. Fascinating to think he may have received the letter(Tetuphenay)as Jude did! I hope it isn't tragic in the end for Jude, but things seem to be heading that way.

Last night I was skimming and back-reading to see if I could find any details I may have missed about Sue's life. Is there any explanation of why she winds up working in Christminster while her father is in London? Such an independent career move doesn't seem typical for a young woman of the time.

Absolutely, let's meet in Oxford or Wessex!

JM: I agree, Oxford or Wessex it is in 99: am going to England anyway, it'll give us time to get up a Book Trip!! hahahahahah

I wondered that about Sue, too, I didn't go back, and didn't see anything the first time, will wait and see what you come up with.

LJ: WOULD YOU BELIEVE so far I can't find a reference to his name? But I do see there are 141 pages of commentary and criticism and contemporary reviews and chapters like "symbolism and sources" in the back of the book, so it's possible that there IS something, but, since our Jonkie has already got the "goods," I want to hear what she's found, if she's still alive after her 11-7 stint yesterday!

Ginny

I thoroughly enjoyed these two chapters. They could be considered Chapters 1&2 of the book. Although the previous chapters provide descriptions of localities, and some insight into Jude, he comes alive for me in these two...5&6. Sue is developing as a very different character than what Jude is becoming obsessed over. Her comments attraction to the figures of Venus and Apollo, the understandable annoyance with the housemother, her comments on Jerusalem.."we have had enough of Jerusalem yet being able to replicate it so easily on the blackboard, and her response to Phillotson..."I hate to be what is called a clever girl." She is a sensitive, intelligent young woman, and so far the only main character that shows expresses any emotion. I don't recall TH using any exclamation marks with anything Jude says. I felt for Jude in these two chapters. The crash of reality in losing his dream, and the sight of Phillotson putting his arm around Sue's waist in such a short space of time is devastating, I'm sure. I found it interesting that it was to his old aunt he turned for some insight into Sue. She gave him the best advice he's received so far...do not become serious over Sue. Since this book is considered to be autobiographical, it is fascinating to follow how TH weaves in what he wants to say. Did he send Jude to Aunt Drusilla so he would receive the advice TH might have wished he'd had about his cousin? I laughed out loud when I saw Heine and Job actually identified with quotations attributed to them. Why didn't TH do that with previous ones? Maybe even the readers of the weekly chapters were also frustrated, complained.

Kathleen, what interesting observations! I thought about the !! point all night! You're right, and I'm gong to be looking out for ! from Jude. Wonder WHY there aren't any?

It's interesting, isn't it, how many !! we use on SeniorNet, I think somebody in the Book Club Online made reference to it once, may have been Ros....

Now, I need to go to the back of Norton, and read Hardy's letters which are printed there, to see if, indeed, he wished he'd have had his Aunt's counsel, or if he did have it, thanks for that thought, also!

Ginny

Just because I haven't posted in the last two days, doesn't mean I'm not following your posts (and loving them!!!) I've been doing heaps of research...and got carried away with reading all the criticisms and sources - just like I used to do when writing a research paper...didn't know when to stop taking notes and get down to the writing...

Something tells me I ought to quit reading and just post!!!! It's all LJ's fault with his questions on Jude (of the New Testament)...that led into all sorts of other interesting articles on divorce in Hardy's time, and much on Sue's character...and I don't really want to get into the story because I honestly don't know what is going to happen next...so I'm sort of reading all this stuff up to a point...then I stop because I don't want to know anymore just yet...

This afternoon, after work, my Bruce will not come home...he's going to a basketball game. I will have the evening to myself, and I promise to be a better host...and respond to your posts with some of the information I have found.
Besides, these books are due back to the library today and since they have already been renewed once, they are not renewable...they all have little pieces of paper markers stuck in them...I mark passages at work, and then can't get to the computer after work because of other demands on my time...

I am going to repost an earlier post of mine, where I mentioned Grandmother Sparks giving Hardy a good talking-to...he listened to her counsel...and always regretted it, I'm afraid.

"Two of his(Thomas Hardy's) Sparks' cousins (on his mother's side) emigrated to Australia, just as Arabella did. His feelings for his cousin, Martha, six years older than he was, "seemed to rouse both mothers to active opposition, ostensibly in the grounds that the two were cousins, but essentially because each thought her child could make a better marriage."

The youngest Sparks cousin, Tryphena was eleven years younger than Hardy. At 16, she was "pretty, lively and intelligent...fun...determination in her subsequent career as a schoolteacher. There is said to have been a passionate love affair with TH, when she was 16. There was some sort of engagement between them, but Grandmother Sparks intervened on the grounds that it was against the laws of the Church, but in fact marriage between first cousins was not forbidden by the Church of England's 'Table of Kindred and Affinity. Tryphena was not really interested in marriage at the time...there was simply a gradual erosion of intimacy, an eventual relapse into the friendly and cousinly terms of the past."

But Hardy later came to regard her as his "lost prize". He published poetry - Thoughts of Phena, remembering her.... "

There was more on this grandmother's counsel, but I lost the source. Hardy also had a close relationship with his own mother (which Jude did not), and sought out her advice on many matters. I'll bet she had a few things to say about Tryphena, just as she did about his earlier relationship with his older Spark's cousin.

Later! (I promise)

Joan

ps LJ, this is for you. It is the only epistle of St. Jude that appears in the New Testament. Notice that there is no reference to Job. I was mistaken about that appearing in Jude's letter, although I did read much about the influence of the Book of Job on Hardy's Jude. The Epistle appears here as it was translated from the Greek in 1582. I'll share later all I was able to find associating this epistle with Jude the Obscure.

New Testament Epistle of Jude

How was your Friday? We seemed to be getting ready for snow...but nothing yet. I talked Bruce into leaving all those little white lights in the azaleas (1000 of them, minus the ones which have burned out) until the first snow. They look so pretty then......

Okay, I solemnly promise not to overwhelm you with the information I found regarding the Jude in the title. I will give you the skeleton and hopefully we can fill in the missing parts as we go along.

This morning I posted the entire Epistle of St. Jude from the New Testament. There's not much...only one chapter. I'll include it again here:

Epistle of St. Jude

Not much is known of St. Jude...he was one of the twelve apostles, a brother to the apostle, James. He is said to have written this epistle after the death of all of the other apostles, except for St. John. There is much disagreement about this apostle...and he has been referred to as Jude the Obscure. I know that, but I can't find proof!!! So that needs to be verified at some point.

All of the critics I read (with the exception of Irving Howe, who doesn't mention the title source at all, I don't think) refer to Jude in the New Testament as the name source. Michael Millgate, Frederick McDowell, Cedric Watts and Harold Bloom. I'll just quote two of them, Watts and Millgate.

Watts tells us "the title is ominous. The General Epistle of St. Jude (in the New Testament) is itself "obscure" - short, easily overlooked and rather mysterious, for it was written to some unknown community in the primitive Church."

This epistle offers warnings against Christians who allow themselves to be corrupted by fleshly lusts, 'these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise domination and speak evil of dignities" - a verse which adds resonance to Jude's seduction of Arabella.

Hardy's sense of social injustice led him to underline in his own copy of the epistle the verse which denounces those who command admiration 'because of advantage'.

St Jude, (a martyr clubbed to death), patron saint of lost or hopeless causes, therefore being ironically appropriate to his namesake who strives in vain to realize his ideals in an inimical world."

Here's Millgate on St. Jude:

"Although Jude is of 'dark complexion' with 'dark hormonizing eyes', 'black beard', 'black curly hair', Hardy clearly intends the 'obscure of his title', the exclusive sense of 'to Fame unknown'. The General Epistle of St. Jude in the New Testament contains the famous phrase in verse 13 about the 'blackness of darkness' and within the novel itself, the 'predestinate Jude' is not only designated 'the obscure', but caught up in the dramas of sin, guilt..."

Although I am convinced, that Jude is St. Jude's namesake... I would really like to have before me the passage in Hardy's book containing the phrase "blackness of darkness". Ginny, can we offer a prize for the first person who finds it and posts it here. We like prizes in the Book Clubs!

Well, By modern standards Jude could hardly qualify as laschivous and just barely libidinous.

Best

Good morning, LJ!

Well, maybe whenever one gives in to one's base instincts in any way that goes against his own principles or standards of ethics, he has "corrupted himself by going after strange flesh", quoting the Epistle And perhaps we are to witness more of Jude's libido...

JM, you bring up the picture of Jude "kneeling in the moonlight praying to Phobus and Diana". And that you see Sue as "pagan" in her preferences. I came across this Hardy poem, written in 1893 at about the same time he was making his notes for Jude
, which might interest you.

He somehow always found the time to return to architecture. At the time he wrote this poem, he was the architect and supervisor of the renovation of St. Peter's, a little church in West Knighton in the Frome valley...his brother was the contractor. He was in the habit of assisting his brother in what he regarded the family business.

His treatment of the windows in the renovation imitated old forms in a fashion quite contrary to the "official doctrines of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings". Apparently they were giving him fits, as he expresses in this poem.

The Young Glass Stainer

These Gothic windows, how they wear me out
With cusp and foil, and nothing straight or square,
Crude colors, leaden borders roundabout,
And fitting in Peter here, and Matthew there!

What a vocation! Here do I draw now
The abnormal, loving the Hellenic norm;
Martha I paint, and dream of Hera's brow,
Mary, and think of Aphrodite's form.

And JM, you also state that "Hardy recognizes women as a force to be reckoned with". I like that...it makes more sense than Watts' statement that he liked women. This characterization of an independent woman was unlike his contemporaries'... Think of Dickens. He seems to be treating women "in a fashion quite contrary, imitating old forms" as he did the windows he was restoring.

Sue was quite the modern woman, living on her own. Will we ever learn why she didn't go to London with her father? At first I thought she was left under the guardianship of Mrs. Fontover, but she certainly moved out on her own easily enough.

And Kathleen notes that she is " intelligent, yet expresses emotion"...So now we have an intelligent, independent, young woman, on her own, who expresses emotion. This is certainly the modern woman of Hardy's time!!! No, Kathleen, I hadn't noticed the exclamation points before you pointed them out. But I have noticed them in the posts...I have noticed myself using them more than I ever have in my life!

But I don't feel comfortable calling her "pagan"...She continues to conform to her Christian upbringing. I think the choice of "Mary Magdalene" as her fib about the Greek statues to Mrs. Fontover is an indication that she will "repent" for her own choices in the future...

She seems to prefer the preChristian culture and ethics, without the stifling restrictions of Christianity - as a form of defiance of convention, which she likes to do.. up to a point. Then she retreats to what is familiar, or comfortable. It's lonely out there in the forefront.

"...with her little curls blowing, one of a file of twenty moving along against the sky...All boys except herself; and then they'd cheer her, and then she'd say, 'Don't be saucey boys," and suddenly run indoors. They'd try to coax her out again. But 'a wouldn't come.'

"...I hate to be called a clever girl."

" I only meant - I don't know what I meant!

"I fancy we have had enough Jerusalem", dismissing the model, and then "skillfully drawing in chalk, a perspective view of Jerusalem with every building shown in its place"

And to me, this was the most curious, most telling comment of all:

" 'But dear girl, consider what it (Jerusalem) is to us!'
She was silent, for she was easily repressed."

What do you make of Sue Brideshead?

Joan,

I find Sue a refreshing character in comparison to Jude. Sue seems to live in a real world while Jude lives in a surrealistic world. He sets himself up for disappointment with unrealistic goals and plans. I have to wonder how much of this is the result of the lose of his parents and the upbringing by his aunt, who appeared mainly to tolerate him.

I thought the section dealing with the letters he wrote to the colleges very telling. After working one them several days and then mailing them, he immediately has misgivings and doubts. He wanted a reply, but wasn't surprised that he didn't hear for a long while.

Larry

Joan what a wonderful poem to include here - how appropriate to all the internal ( sometimes external) warfare of Jude and Sue. I shot from the hip with pagan; I meant it in the sense that she is perChristian in her sensibilites, seeming to prefer the Roman and Greek art forms, architecture of those polytheists. She's certainly not pagan in her "easily repressed" nature. She would prefer to fit in with the environment created by Christian sensibility, not always drawing undue attention to her personal differences. She does seem unique in the strength she shows, for that time, in being on her own in Christminster. She is interesting, I agree Larry, but Jude is interesting and sympathetic, surely, in his unrealistic (?) dreams and plans, partly for the very reason you refer to: his barely tolerant aunt as his only protector. In addition, he evidently had little education, and no real mentoring (Phillotson didn't even remember him until he mentioned the Greek grammars the teacher had sent)or experience wide enough to help him plan realistically; hence the unrealistic dreams of an imaginative, bright child - a romantic temperament. Is he boring or annoying? Not to another hopeless romantic!

Do we pity Jude, or do we find him admirable? It seems we do both...his sad upbringing, lack of education, lack of a mentor, unrealistic dreams...make him a sympathetic character as you both have pointed out. His ambition, his persistence are admirable, as Ginny points out. But is he boring to another hopeless romantic such as yourself, JM ? How does he appear to cousin Sue?

How do we feel about cousin Sue? Larry finds her " refreshing", and JM finds her "unique and strong". Tell me, what does she see in Phillotson? It's clear that he admires her, but why is she dallying with him? Is she using him to better herself? Does she see him as a protective father figure? Or is she just inexperienced with men and flattered at his attention? None of these three possibilities describe the actions of a refreshingly strong independent character, do they?

Twice Hardy uses the word "gentle" when describing their interactions...

"He looked so gently at her that she was moved."

"Jude saw Phillotson place his arm round the girl's waist; whereupon she gently removed it; but he replaced it; and she let it remain, looking quickly round her with an air of misgiving."

Joan, Very provocative questions! Jude definitly does NOT bore me. I think Sue is fond of Jude but finds him not too exciting. I believe she was glad to get the teaching position with Phillotson, but I don't uderstand why she encourages his advances. He doesn't seem as if he would interest a young, attractive woman of independent spirit, so maybe she isn't independent at all! Perhaps being alone in Christminster has not been wonderful. I recall she sought out Jude when she found out he was living and working there, a sign that she was anxious for some friendly or familial contact. I need to go back and reread a bit and think about your questions again tomorrow. Good night 'til then!

I went back and reread the section we are supposed to be discussing now and then reread "At Melchester." I don't think Hardy provides sufficient evidence of Sue's feelings or intentions before this third section. Before the Melchester events he presents just enough to make us wonder about her ("Christminster," chapters 5,6, and 7). Jude makes no effort to distract her from Phillotson because of his own marriage to Arabella. The section is devoted mainly to his disappointment over the discouraging letter he receives from the college and to his return to his Aunt's home, where he hears about Sue as a child. In ch. 7 he admires the manual toilers of Christminster, seeming to regard them as the real backbone of the place rather than the dons and the students. Interesting, because two pages later he reviles their ignorance before he leaves the tavern. When he goes to Sue's lodging in a drunken state she seems eager to give him comfort as well as shelter, but he's so ashamed of himself that he sneaks away the next morning. Sue has no opportunity to let Jude or the reader know how she feels. I have comments to make about her intentions and their relationship based upon events in the third section, but I suppose I have to wait until it is scheduled ?????

Gosh, what interesting posts and comments, am enjoying all of this very much.

Thanks so much for the research, Joan! The Epistle and the Watts, particularly, so interesting to learn what Hardy himself had underlined, and yes, we MUST offer a prize to the finder of "blackness of darkness," except I think we've already passed it?!?

Now, we're to be in Chapter 7?? Will try to get back later today with it, and also see if there is any reference in my pages in the back of Norton.

On Jude's aspirations: well, you know the saying, A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for? Think that's been my major problem! I'm always reaching for what's just beyond my grasp!

Ginny

"Deprived of the objects of both intellect and emotion, he could not proceed to his work." An ominous phrase, suggesting a terminus or at least a new beginning about to dawn. After all, some would define sanity as the ability to love and to work.

This is juxtaposed at the beginning of the chapter (7) with the conclusion to the chapter that offers the ministry as an "Out" but this is predicated on a resolution of sobriety which Jude makes contingent upon "Hope" i.e. "I could avoid that easily enough if I had any kind of hope to support me."

Surely Hardy had this point in his story in mind as a "Watershed" of sorts.

Best

Yes, I thought so too, LJ, and am, for some reason, severly disappointed in our boy: giving up. Of course, I wonder how many of us would keep on under the circumstances, and Jude is allowed, I think, a little set back and self pity.

I do note the Church saving the day with the possibility of a "licentiate," which Norton explains is "one holding a license to preach, as opposed to an ordained clergyman."

On the stuff which needs translating, Norton is of the opinion you are all good Episcopalians, as it simply notes that the references are to the Apoltle's Creed and the Nicene Creed! No translation, and if you're a Buddist reading Norton, you're dead, unless you look it up! Hate stuff like that.

Anyway, the translation is (and this is the Nicene Creed which was originally in Greek): "Credo in unum...." I believe in one God, the Father almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

"Crucifixus etiam pro nobis"...Crucified also for us, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was buried. And rose again, on the third day, according to the Scriptures.

"Et in Spiritum Sanctum..." And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets.

"Et unam Catholiam ..."And I believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church, I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Norton says the word "gownless" at the end of the third paragraph means "Undergraduates were required by university regulations to wear academic gowns after dark."

The reference to "a poor Christ he made," when he sits by the well is a reference to John 4:6 where Christ sits "on the well," according to Norton.

The Laocoon reference is to the famous sculpture of Laocoon showing Laocoon and his two sons struggling with snakes...am going to see if I can find a picture of it to post here, very powerful.

Laocoon's story is an interesting one: when the Greeks were beseiging Troy and built the Trojan Horse, and appeared to have left it as a gift, the Trojans were unsure what to do with it: whether to bring it in, or be afraid of it. While they hesitated, Laocoon, a priest of Neptune, uttered the famous statment, "I fear the Greeks, even when they offer gifts," and told them it was madness to consider doing anything with the horse. He then threw his spear at the horse, and a "hollow sound reverberated like a groan" from the inside....just at that moment, when they might have listened to Laocoon, a crowd appeared dragging what appeared to be a terrified Greek who, under pressure and promise of a saved life for the truth, informed them that the horse as a propitiatory offering to Minerva, made so huge for the express purpose of preventing it being carried into the city!!??!! for Calchas the prophet had told them "that if the Trojans took possession of it they would assuredly triumph over the Greeks."

The Trojans completely changed their minds about the horse, and were trying to figure out how to drag it into the city when an omen appeared in the form of two immense serpents advancing over the sea. They came up upon the land, the crowd scattered, and the two serpents "advanced directly to the spot where Laocoon stood with his two sons. They first attacked the children, winding round their bodies and breathing their pestilential breath in their faces. The father, attempting to rescue them, is next seized and involved in the serpents' coils....he struggles, but they overpower all his efforts and strangle both him and the children." This event, depicted in the famous sculpture, was taken as a clear indication of the displeasure of the gods at Laocoon's irreverent treatment of the wooden house, which the Trojans then prepared to regard as a sacred object, and to bring into the city." And, of course, we all know what happened next. All quotes from: Bulfinch's Mythology.

The orginal statue is in the Vatican in Rome, I will go there this summer!! MUST see this, will find it on the internet and put here. Lord Byron wrote of the statue in "Childe Harold,"

" Now turning to the Vatican go see
Laocoon's torture dignifiying pain;
A father's love and mortal's agony
With an immortal's patience blending: --vain
The struggle! vain against the coiling strain
And gripe and eeepening of the dragon's grasp
The old man's clinch; the lond envenomed chain
Rivets the living links; the enormous asp
Enforces pang on pang and stifles gasp on gasp."

Off to find Laocoon, to THINK I'll see it in June!

Ginny

And here is the very famous statue of Laocoon, to refresh your memory of it, by Agesander, Athenodorus, and Poydorus of Rhodes
Laocoon
First century B.C. to first century A.D.
Marble
8' high

This statue is in the Vatican, and before anybody gets upset, that IS a fig leaf or cloth covering, I have a larger photo at home.

Check the next post by Jona (!!?? !!) to see the photo, haven't a clue as to why mine did not display!

Ginny

LAOCOON PHOTO

Wow! What posts!!! Just got in from work, must walk the dog, and then will be back to read again! Ginny, your Norton's answered half of the questions I noted when reading this chapter!

Back in a bit.......Doggie can't hold it!

Oh, I see why now, I had saved it as HTML, but tried to display it as IMG SRC !! Interesting. Now I've learned someting. Even tho it was a photo, I saved it as HTML. So should have used the A HREF. Joana you are very smart!

Ginny

Good Job Ginny,

Best

JM, do you think that Hardy intends to keep Sue's thoughts from us? That her motives are to remain as obscure to us as they are to Jude? Will we have to observe her actions and statements and then reach our own conclusions about her motivations?

If you do read ahead, please don't reveal any plot...this is a personal request...similar to the one I made to the doctor after he saw the sonogram of my fourth child; I told him I didn't want to know the sex of the baby (this, after having three sons before that pregnancy)

Suddenly I am aware of Hardy's use of the word obscure. Is he overdoing it do you think? Let me hunt for a minute on something I read about Hardy's writing...

Here it is...from the critic, Irving Howe:

"Like too many nineteenth century English writers, which may really be a way of saying like Dickens, Hardy assumed that if it was amusing to notice the idiosyncracies of a character, it would be all the more amusing to notice them over and over again."

Not exactly the idiosyncracies of the characters yet, but the use of the word, obscure over and over again...perhaps it is a bit amusing... what do you think?

LJ, at what point does Hardy intervene and move his story along? What can he do to save Jude?

no love, no work > no hope > alcohol > no success in ministry > no love no work.........

You are so right, this is a Watershed chapter...Jude intends to go ahead with the "licentiate", (thanks for explanation, Ginny)...

He's going to need the work (more work as a stone mason might help), he's going to need love too. It looks as if it all depends on Sue. And it doesn't look as if she is thinking about her cousin "in that way" right now...

Ginny , I am trying to figure out what Hardy's purpose was in including the Nicene Creed here...I understand he wanted to horrify Jude that he was reciting a holy prayer in this lowly tavern for the entertainment of this crowd...in his drunken state...but why did he choose this particular prayer. Does Norton say anything about this, besides translate it? What's the difference between the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed...the Apostles' Creed is shorter...but I'm fairly certain there was some significance to all this...

Got so hung up on this, that I haven't thought about Laocoon yet...but tomorrow is only Wednesday, so there is time...

Thanks so much for the explanation and photo. There was a big ? in the margin next to that...

Tomorrow! Going to go delve into the Creeds!

Joan, the Nicene Creed was originally in Greek, the Apostles' Creed in Latin. Jude was reciting the Latin translation of the Nicene. Hardy of course omitted much of it. Here he sketches in very few words the pitiful situation of the alcoholic scholar pulling his rags of learning about him in search of his lost dignity. My impression was that Jude had both sunk below and risen above the whole sorry procedure and was proceeding in a purely mechanical way. I interpreted the remarks of the undergraduates as a sophomoric attempt to display their own knowledge. And Jude? How hollow must have been the echo of his drunken recitation within his own heart at this point where all his learning and all his strivings seemed so futile.

Ros

Also, Norton does not give the text of either Creed--(another gratis translation). Will await your further info on the two Creeds.

Ginny

I finally found time to read posts I should have read two weeks ago. Ginny thanks so much for copying Norton's notations. They give the content more depth. I hope to read more of Hardy's books so I'll be sure to have Norton at my side. Do libraries have it listed as "Norton's Notations?"

I agree Chapter 7 is a Watershed for Jude. He is forced to face the reality not only of an impossible dream, but an impossible love, with a hangover yet! Between the references to religion in the last chapter and even more in this one, Hardy seems to have decided there should be more influence of religion in Jude's life. Joan, have you come across any reference to what role religion played in TH's life? I don't remember reading it, but if you've already noted it, I'll go back over the posts.

I found of interest a sentence in the paragraph of Jude hastening down the lane leaving the bar. "Onward he still went, under the influence of a childlike yearning for the one being in the world to whom it seemed possible to fly--an unreasonable desire, whose ill judgement was not apparent to him now." It would seem he's going to a mother figure for comfort....is this to be the bottom line in his relationship to Sue? Why else does he seek out the woman he is falling in love with to comfort him? That sentence is loaded with Freudian implications.

My computer was down for several days and I'm catching up on posts - enjoying everything, including the statue and all the great info. Ginny, why did the gods punish Laocoon for throwing a spear at the statue when Neptune was on the side of the Trojans? If Laocoon's action had spoiled the Greek plot by having the Tojans discover what was inside that horse, then they wouldn't have dragged it inside, and then perhaps many Trojan lives would have been spared??? Have I misremembered? I don't mind appearing ignorant if I have an opportunity to end the ignorance!

LJ, I like the definition of sanity as the ability to LOVE and WORK! Makes sense!

Joan, you know I have read ahead! I won't tell, except to confirm that I belive Hardy does intend to keep Sue's motives - if that's the right word - obscure for a while. In retrospect, many things seem clearer, though. I think I can safely promise that!

Kathleen, I don't think the recitation of the Creed in the tavern was in any way religious. Jude was demonstrating his scholarship; if anything, Hardy was slipping in an ironic comment on the lack of religious intention on Jude's part, and perhaps on the part of many of the Christminster scholars, and - knowingly or unknowingly - on the author's own lack of religious interest.

Isn't the function of a lover or a mate partly nurturing, comforting, parental???

So many interesting comments and food for thought. Ros, so good to hear from you. You always seem to know just when to appear and elucidate!

JM, I wondered where you were! Should have suspected computer problems...a frequent explanation for silence. Now, where is Kingsbury?

This cold, rainy Friday morning is my last regularly scheduled day at the Folger, although I have committed enough odd days in the future (aren't they all odd days, though?) to keep me on the roster.... I will be able to spend more time with you. Right now, I am totally frustrated because I am unable to explore all of your comments, and they deserve so much more response! I am really enjoying them. Should have more time now...

Kathleen, those were very interesting observations...spent all my allotted time on them. Let me tell you what I found, which may in some way, answer your questions and explain Jude's behavior a bit.

Hardy is often described by his critics, as a JANIFORM writer. I think that understanding this will help explain both Hardy and Jude. Janus, the two-faced god, looks in opposite directions at the same time. Think of "January", which looks back at December and the old year, while looking forward toward the new.

Jude is considered to be a carefully constructed Janiform text. Both the author and his characters experienced the uncomfortable position of yearning for the old, while striving for the future.

Jude is physically attracted to Sue, yet admires her from a distance. He wants to remain just friends, yet he wants to be her lover. He turns to her for comfort, yet cannot stay to accept it. Is he capable of a relationship with her...with anyone?

Your question about Hardy's own religious beliefs is so important here, because they help explain Jude's grief in this scene. Jude is so very autobiographical. In his early years, Hardy, the sensitive, artistic, country boy, a builder, a restorer of churches...aspired to the ministry, studied his Latin, his Greek...but never attended university...and always regretted it, felt inferior because of it, even after his great accomplishments...

His fame brought him into contact with the great minds, the intelligentia of British and American society. He became a pessimist, a cynic attacking all established institutions which curtailed individual freedom...especially religion. According to one critic, Cedric Watts, "he was on the one hand agnostic, atheistic, antitheistic, yet always nostalgic for the 'churchy' days of his youth when he believed in a personal God." This is his Janiform personality loud and clear!

Here is a Hardy quote, which well explains his agnostic view, I think:

"I have been looking for God fifty years, and I think that if he existed, I should have discovered him."

Later!
Joan

Gracious, what interesting thoughts!!

Kathleen: No, the Norton's remains somewhat of a mystery! It appears Norton's publishes more than 15 works starting with the words "The Norton Anthology...." or "The Norton Introduction," but this one was under "Jude the Obscure," and is titled "Jude the Obscure
An Authoritative Text
Backgrounds and Sources
Criticism
A Norton Critical Edition

So it appears to me that individual volumes are out there, written by various professors, like this one was, and there's no list (???!!!???) you just look under the title of the book. Not too organized, one might think.

I loved your take on Jude's longing for a mother figure, of course, as per usual, got so caught up examining the bark of a tree, I completely missed the forest, but what else is new??

Love to examine bark!!

JM: hahahahaha!! You've put your finger squarely upon it! Was hoping nobody would ask as I don't remember!! Never fear, will look it up (do love a book club that forces you to look stuff up) and report back: meanwhile, if any of you find out WHY Neptune wanted to punish Laocoon (not to mention Cassandra: remember her??) go right ahead and tell all!!

Jonkie: WHAT?? Last day at Folger?? So you DID quit?? Tell all?? Wonderful research, too!! Thank you for that!! I, too, thought he was enjoying his scholarship, and I do think his choice of text wonderfully revealing. Perhaps, like so many atheists, he was continually hoping for illumination?? Anyway, why NOT in a bar?? I would think that an admirable place, myself!

Ginny

Joan, Great post. Between you and Ginny, we're getting the equivalant of a college level course with real exams. We get out on a limb, say what we think, and then, you tell us what the experts say. TERRIFIC.

Best

Larry, I couldn't agree with you more. Discussing a classic with a group like this, and group leaderss like Joan and Ginny results in a much deeper understanding, and therefore appreciation of great works.

Joan, the info on religion in TH's life is revealing. I must remember the category of Janieform (spelling?). I think in Chapter 7 at least, since we don't know what's coming, TH is toying with the idea of allowing Jude to have the religious faith he himself lost. Do you have the feeling there is something of a detective story in such analyses?

Ginny, thanks for sparing me the embarrassment of asking for "Norton's Notations" at the library! If I read you correctly, once I decide on a Hardy book, I ask for readings, articles, etc. that have been written about it, correct?

LJ: Aren't you the kindest thing? Yes, this is a lovely group, find my self thinking of what new you'll come up with as I'm going about the day.

Kathleen: I had gone to my local library and looked under Jude the Obscure, and they had ONE annotated text, not available. So I went to Amazon.com, and there they all were.

So on your suggestion, I went back to amazon.com, typed in Hardy, Thomas, and after a million books scrolled past this is what started turning up:

The Collected Novels of Thomas Hardy : Farm from the Madding Crowd/the Return of the Native/the Mayor of Casterbridge Vol 1 ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Thomas Hardy / Hardcover / Published 1994 Our Price: $14.70 ~ You Save: $6.30 (30%)

The Collected Novels of Thomas Hardy : Tess of the D'Urbervilles/Jude the Obscure Vol 2 ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Thomas Hardy / Hardcover / Published 1994 Our Price: $14.00 ~ You Save: $6.00 (30%)

Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hardy : Human Shows/Winter Words/Uncollected Poems Vol 3 ~ Ships in 2-3 days Thomas Hardy, Samuel Hynes (Editor) / Hardcover / Published 1985 Our Price: $80.00

The Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hardy : Satires of Circumstance, Moments of Vision, Late Lyrics and Earlier Vol 2 ~ Ships in 2-3 days Samuel Hynes (Editor), Thomas Hardy / Hardcover / Published 1984 Our Price: $158.00

The Distracted Preacher and Other Tales Thomas Hardy / Paperback / Published 1980 Our Price: $7.96 ~ You Save: $1.99 (20%)

Far from the Madding Crowd ~ Ships in 2-3 days Thomas Hardy / Mass Market Paperback / Published 1996 Our Price: $4.76 ~ You Save: $1.19 (20%) Read more about this title...

Far from the Madding Crowd ~ Ships in 2-3 days Thomas Hardy, Julie Christie (Narrator) / Audio Cassette / Published 1995 Our Price: $16.77 ~ You Save: $7.18 (30%) Read more about this title...

Far from the Madding Crowd ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Thomas Hardy / Mass Market Paperback / Published 1987 Our Price: $3.96 ~ You Save: $0.99 (20%) Read more about this title...

Far from the Madding Crowd ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Thomas Hardy / Hardcover / Published 1988 Our Price: $18.87 ~ You Save: $8.08 (30%) Read more about this title...

Far from the Madding Crowd ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Thomas Hardy, Julie Christie / Audio Cassette / Published 1987 Our Price: $11.89 ~ You Save: $5.10 (30%) Read more about this title...

Far from the Madding Crowd (Cambridge Literature) ~ Ships in 2-3 days Thomas Hardy, Pat George (Editor) / Paperback / Published 1997 Our Price: $10.95 Read more about this title...

Far from the Madding Crowd (Everyman's Library) ~ Ships in 2-3 days Thomas Hardy / Paperback / Published 1993 Our Price: $3.16 ~ You Save: $0.79 (20%) Read more about this title...

Far from the Madding Crowd (Penguin Classics) ~ Ships in 2-3 days Thomas Hardy, Ronald Blythe (Editor) / Paperback / Published 1989 Our Price: $6.36 ~ You Save: $1.59 (20%) Read more about this title...

Far from the Madding Crowd (The World's Classics) Thomas Hardy, Suzanne B. Fakck-Yi (Editor) / Paperback / Published 1993 Our Price: $3.96 ~ You Save: $0.99 (20%) Read more about this title...

Far from the Madding Crowd : An Authoritative Text Backgrounds Criticism (Norton Critical Editions) Thomas Hardy, Robert C. Schweik (Illustrator) / Paperback / Published 1986 Our Price: $13.13 Read more about this title...

Note that the Norton is just ONE of the volumes available...then I looked up Dickens, Charles, and got the same effect:

Bleak House ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Charles Dickens / Mass Market Paperback / Published 1995 Our Price: $4.76 ~ You Save: $1.19 (20%) Read more about this title...

Bleak House ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Charles Dickens, Ronald Pickup (Narrator) / Audio Cassette / Published 1997 Our Price: $16.77 ~ You Save: $7.18 (30%) Read more about this title...

Bleak House ~ Ships in 2-3 days Charles Dickens / Mass Market Paperback / Published 1989 Our Price: $5.56 ~ You Save: $1.39 (20%) Read more about this title...

Bleak House (Everyman's Library Series) ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Charles Dickens / Hardcover / Published 1991 Our Price: $16.10 ~ You Save: $6.90 (30%) Read more about this title...

Bleak House (Everyman's Library) ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Charles Dickens, Andrew Dr. Sanders / Paperback / Published 1994 Our Price: $4.76 ~ You Save: $1.19 (20%) Read more about this title...

Bleak House (New Oxford Illustrated Dickens) ~ Ships in 2-3 days Charles Dickens / Hardcover / Published 1987 Our Price: $10.46 ~ You Save: $4.49 (30%) Read more about this title...

Bleak House (Penguin Classics) ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Charles Dickens, et al / Paperback / Published 1997 Our Price: $8.76 ~ You Save: $2.19 (20%) Read more about this title...

Bleak House (World's Classics) ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Charles Dickens, Stephen Charles Gill (Editor) / Paperback / Published 1996 Our Price: $6.36 ~ You Save: $1.59 (20%) Read more about this title...

Bleak House : An Authoritative and Annotated Text, Illustrations, a Note on the Text, Genesis and Composition, Backgrounds, Criticism (A Norton) ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Charles Dickens, et al / Paperback / Published 1985 Our Price: $19.38 Read more about this title...

Bleak House/Audio Cassettes ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Charles Dickens / Audio Cassette / Published 1992 Our Price: $11.87 ~ You Save: $5.08 (30%) Read more about this title...

Now I'm beginning to have the feeling that there's a LOT of these, and that somebody somewhere knows a whole lot more about these Nortons than I do, so I think I'll just write them for a list!

If you'd not mentioned it, I'd never have thought of it,

Ginny

WE NEED YOUR COMMENTS IN SENIORNET BOOK REVIEW. CHECK IT OUT.

Ginny, so glad that you have discovered the Norton annotations!! I hope you find some time to contact them for a list of books which they have annotated. Hopefully they have done Dickens, Hard Times, so we will be ready for his obscure references, although I doubt that he's as difficult as Hardy. I remember how great it was when many of us had the Cliff Study Guide for Othello.

I am aware that our next scheduled selection is Light in August, but plan to reexamine that in March due to recent reservations and concerns communicated to me. Who knows, we may decide to go ahead with it after some discussion, but I wouldn't purchase the book or an annotated guide for that one just yet.

Does your Norton mention/identify any of the names of Jude's drinking buddies? Tinker Taylor, who says he's "heard of Jude's fondness for books "- ( where would he hear that? I thought Jude was taking great pains to cover up his studies.) Uncle Joe, who "knew that Jude aimed at the Church" (how did he know that?) Bower of Bliss? I assume with a name like that, that she and Freckles are local ladies of the night.

This scene demonstrates how far down the ladder of Christminster society Jude has fallen.

Remember what he said about drinking back in Marygreen after his failed suicide attempt? Let me find it...
"What could he do of a lower kind than self-extermination...Drinking was the regular, stereotyped resource of the despairing worthless."

Directly after this drinking bout in an 'obscure' public-house in Marygreen, he made his plans for Christminster. Quite resilient I thought. After making those plans, "he returned to his lodgings in a better mood, and said his prayers." I hope he feels better as he makes new plans to pursue his licentiate. All he needs is a bit of hope............

"....The futility of hope"" I read it in one of the commentaries.: Its looking more and more like a Shakesperian tragedy. We already know its autobiographical, social commentary.

I'd say in a town that size, just about everybody knows just about everything about their neighbors, and it IS fiction so we needn't worry about "How come" somebody knew something.

I wonder whether he intended all this, in depth meaning? How much was he aware of the autobiographical nature of his work? Or was it just a good story, written to sell books???(I wonder whether he truly was "Hurt" by the public clamor? It's probably what made him famous.)

Best

LJ, I read that this is both tragedy AND social commentary...it's that Janiform thing again. I don't think he was consciously trying to write an autobiography...through his second wife, he put out a denial that it was autobiograhpical in any way...but it clearly was. JANIFORM

And I don't think this book and the ensuing furor made his reputation and brought him fame. It was his last novel. He wasn't happy with it, many of his readers were outraged by it. He went on to write well-received poetry and I think that and earlier novels brought him the honors he later received...

I have a few more notes about the Janiform nature of his writing - will put them up in a few minutes...

Let me "paste" this first:

Thanks for the Laocoon photo and all the accompanying information, too, Ginny I didn't know that you were going to the Vatican this summer! What about Oxford and the 101 bells at 9:10?

JM, here's how I understood the Iliad story...

Laocoon, a priest of Neptune (who favored the Trojans), warned the Trojans to beware the Greeks bearing gifts...be wary of that Trojan horse. They refused to listen to his warning because a captured Greek soldier told them that the Greeks wanted to burn it as a sacrifice to Minerva, assuring a win for the Greeks. They were intent on getting it inside so that this wouldn't happen. So the serpents attacking Laocoon and his sons were only an OMEN to show the Trojans what would happen to them and to their offspring if they did drag the horse into the city despite Laocoon's warning. BUT the Trojans took it as a sign that the gods were displeased because Laocoon had mistreated the "sacred horse"...and took it inside anyway.

What does this have to do with Jude? Here's the passage referring to Laocoon...

"...he clenched his teeth in misery, bringing lines about his mouth like those in the Laocoon, and corrugations between his brows.

I examined the "corrugations" between his brows, and can picture Jude in his tormented state. I thought it interesting that Hardy brings in the Greek reference to the Iliad and the "poor Christ" at the well. A constant reference to the Greek and Christian...

This is the same well that he stared into with such hope those many years ago, the day Phillotson left...

Joan: Thanks for the Laocoon stuff, and you were right, there IS a Hard Times in the Norton:

check it out:

Hard Times : An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, Sources, and Contemporary Reactions, Criticism (A Norton Critical Edition) ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Charles Dickens / Paperback / Published 1990 Our Price: $10.00 Read more about this title...

That's Amazon.com...

Ginny

Joan , thanks for the Laocoon story. Is it clear to you why the Trojans made such an interpretation of the omen? Did one of the pro-Greek gods confuse them or cloud their vision? I did the Iliad a few years ago with my class, but I don't remember this part well. I'll try to look up the story in the resources I have.

Hardy and Jude, whom we are begining to think of as one, subtly criticises the "Church" by comparing first Jude's present course with his past ambitions; Then this is enlarged to comparing ecclesiastics with intellect. Later a comparison of intellect with altruism suggests a dichotomy between good intentions and good sense.

The widening gap between Jude's hormones and his "Propriety" with regard to Sue are balanced with her "Kittenish" toying with him.(I.e. Come/Don't come)

Best

Before we pack up our few belongings and head off to Melchester, I have a few notes to leave behind.......

JM, I don't think you'll find the Laocoon story in the Iliad...(that's why you don't remember reading it with your group)...in fact the whole story of the Trojan horse is not included there. So where is it? The Aenead? The Odyssey?

LJ, I am happy about your enthusiasm for hearing what the critics have to say.

But, we don't want to get into a college lecture format...I think we are at our finest when we are free to relate our own reactions to Hardy's writing and ask our own questions of one another. No exams, no right or wrong answers.

However, those critics sometimes come up with observations and information on aspects of the story we have been struggling with. Sometimes Hardy himself explains his intentions in his own words. I think those things are worth sharing with you.

For example, Ginny gets hung up with the language describing the trees. Larry has commented on these word pictures. I like the personification..."the mournful wind"..."the windy, whispering, moonless night"...and then came across this comment by Hardy himself:

"I cannot help noticing countenances and tempers in objects of scenery, e.g. trees, hills, houses."

Shall we start a list of such descriptions? If you post them, I'll include them up top.

The JANIFORM aspect of Hardy's writing is the other phenomenon many critics refer to quite often. This is Hardy's tendency to view his characters in two ways at the same time. Nothing is black or white. Nor is there gray between the two. They are simply black and white at the same time. LJ, you've noted these contrasts several times. So, here are some examples of Janiform, and I'm sure there will be many more.........

Jude the Obscure is social commentary; Jude is a tragedy...

Sue is an independent, modern woman; Sue is an "easily repressed" old-fashioned girl.

Jude is a scholar; Jude has no education.

Sue is the object of Jude's sexual desire; Sue is Jude's ideal madonna - even a mother figure, as Kathleen has noted.

Jude is a stone mason; Jude is an intellectual.

Hardy is a builder; Hardy is a writer

"Jude had both sunk below and risen above the whole sorry procedure", as Ros has stated.

One critic writes that Jude's recitation of the Articles of Faith in the tavern represents Jude's finest and lowest hour in Christminster.

Jude was reciting the Nicene creed in Latin at the time. But the gownless students wanted the Apostles' Creed. (I'll paste here what I found about the Creeds last week. It seems the gownless student who claimed the Nicene Creed was the most historic was in error...To be honest, I don't know what "historic" means...oldest?

One last boigraphical note about Hardy's own religious beliefs:

As a very young man, Hardy went to Dorcester to work as an apprentice. He met another young man named Moule, the son of a local clergyman who had been raised as a good Anglican. Moule was the one who taught Hardy Greek and encouraged him to read essays and review which assailed the dogmas of the church of England (also gave him Darwins's Origin of the Species)

After meeting Moule, Hardy's idea to prepare for the Church was forever abandoned. He would always love the old religious rituals for their aesthetics.

Well, at this point in the story, Jude has had no such change of heart. He will go after his licentiate. Is this why we find him in Melchester in this next Part? I checked the map and Melchester is well south of Marygreen, as Christminster is north. Is this symbolic of his descent from his original intentions and expectations?

I look forward to hearing from you and your reactions to the next two chapters. I hope that an increased awareness of Hardy's own biography, his personality and writing techniques do not divert us from this rather simple, yet complex story......

And I promise to be still and let you talk...my desk is clear until the end of Melchester...and then I'll empty it all over your screen again...

Before we pack up our few belongings and head off to Melchester, I have a few notes to leave behind.......

JM, I don't think you'll find the Laocoon story in the Iliad...(that's why you don't remember reading it with your group)...in fact the whole story of the Trojan horse is not included there. So where is it? The Aenead? The Odyssey?

LJ, I am happy about your enthusiasm for hearing what the critics have to say.

But, we don't want to get into a college lecture format...I think we are at our finest when we are free to relate our own reactions to Hardy's writing and ask our own questions of one another. No exams, no right or wrong answers.

However, those critics sometimes come up with observations and information on aspects of the story we have been struggling with. Sometimes Hardy himself explains his intentions in his own words. I think those things are worth sharing with you.

For example, Ginny gets hung up with the language describing the trees, the trees which "dripped sadly upon Jude" And Larry has commented on these word pictures. I like the personification..."the mournful wind"..."the windy, whispering, moonless night"...and then came across this comment by Hardy himself:

"I cannot help noticing countenances and tempers in objects of scenery, e.g. trees, hills, houses."

Shall we start a list of such descriptions? If you post them, I'll include them up top. Keep examining that bark, Ginny!

The JANIFORM aspect of Hardy's writing is the other phenomenon many critics refer to quite often. This is Hardy's tendency to view his characters in two ways at the same time. Nothing is black or white. Nor is there gray between the two. They are simply black and white at the same time. LJ, you've noted these contrasts several times. ...and again this morning so I see! So, here are some examples of Janiform, and I'm sure there will be many more.........

Jude the Obscure is social commentary; Jude is a tragedy...

Sue is an independent, modern woman; Sue is an "easily repressed" old-fashioned girl.

Jude is a scholar; Jude has no education.

Sue is the object of Jude's sexual desire; Sue is Jude's ideal madonna - even a mother figure, as Kathleen has noted.

Jude is a stone mason; Jude is an intellectual.

Hardy is a builder; Hardy is a writer

"Jude had both sunk below and risen above the whole sorry procedure", as Ros has stated.

One critic writes that Jude's recitation of the Articles of Faith in the tavern represents Jude's finest and lowest hour in Christminster.

Jude was reciting the Nicene creed in Latin at the time. But the gownless students wanted the Apostles' Creed. (I'll paste here what I found about the Creeds last week. It seems the gownless student who claimed the Nicene Creed was the most historic was in error...To be honest, I don't know what "historic" means...oldest?

Nicene Creed

Apostles' Creed

One last biographical note about Hardy's own religious beliefs:

As a very young man, Hardy went to Dorcester to work as an apprentice. He met another young man named Moule, the son of a local clergyman who had been raised as a good Anglican. Moule was the one who taught Hardy Greek and encouraged him to read essays and reviews which assailed the dogmas of the church of England (also gave him Darwins's Origin of the Species)

After meeting Moule, Hardy's idea to prepare for the Church was forever abandoned. He would always love the old religious rituals for their aesthetics.

Well, at this point in the story, Jude has had no such change of heart. He will go after his licentiate. Is this why we find him in Melchester in this next Part? I checked the map and Melchester is well south of Marygreen, as Christminster is north. Is this symbolic of his descent from his original intentions and expectations?

I look forward to hearing from you and your reactions to the next two chapters. I hope that an increased awareness of Hardy's own biography, his personality and writing techniques do not divert us from this rather simple, yet complex story.....(Janiform)

And I promise to be still and let you talk...my desk is clear until the end of Melchester...and then I'll empty it all over your screen again...

Joan: Thanks for the stuff about the Creeds.

Actually, Norton has a good bit to say about this section, but to save myself typing, if there's anything particularly puzzling to anybody, and they want to ask about it, will look it up, and if it is there, will report.

As far as the Trojan Horse, I'm thinking, and am often wrong, that it appeared in the Aeneid and, surely, didn't we just read it in The Odyssey ? Laocoon continues to beguile, doesn't he, even after so many years?? Has anybody looked him up in Hamilton?? Will try to look there and come back.

Apparently the critics are pretty unanimous on Melchester's being Salisbury, where Hardy's own sisters had been students at the Teacher's College.

Ginny

What happened to th "Iliad"?

Best

LJ: The author died?? ahhahahhahah....sorry, these are the jokes, I'm afraid.

I seem to remember the Iliad as mostly focusing on Achilles and Agamemnon: don't remember anything about the Trjoan Horse, but that doesn't mean anything, can't find my car keys at the moment, either.

I did look up Poseidon, and found this: "In the Trojan War Poseidon takes an active part against the Trojans because of the refusal of Laomedon to pay for the work done by Poseidon and Apollo in building the walls of Troy...In the Odyssey he persistently seeks the hero's destruction because Odysseus had blinded Polyphemus, " his one eyed son. This is from The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature .

I've always gotten the Iliad and the Odyssey confused, maybe we should read The Idiad, too.

Ginny

LJ, I read Edith Hamilton today...she says that although there are references to the Trojan Horse in the Odyssey, it is to be found in full in Virgil's Aenead. I too, had assumed it was part of the Iliad. How was the fall of Troy explained in the Iliad one has to wonder...

Oh Ginny, who could have sent you such a long email that you clogged up the entire Bell South system. You don't suppose it was..........me? I did send you an email this afternoon...let me know when you start to receive mail again, okay? I'll send it again.

Did you all read the first two chapters of Melchester, Part Third? I marvel at Jude's resilliance, don't you?

"He packed up his things and went to Melchester with a lighter heart than he had known for months."

I just noticed something...the edit buttons are located up above the posts...and what is a "marked message"? Do you see what I'm seeing? Oooh, push the "mark message" button. Now what is that? I'm going to go to other sites and see if these buttons are all over......

I don't see them now...maybe you have to post and then edit.

Yes, they are, but I can't figure out yet what the marked message area is all about. You all will have to post something if you want to see what I'm seeing....

Joan - Here is a message Marcie posted in the "Report Problems..." discussion about the new buttons.

We want to let you know about two new buttons that are available to you in the RoundTable discussions.

Mark Message is a button that appears next to a message that you are reading. This button will enable you to "mark" a message that you are reading and to which you may want to refer in the future. At the bottom of the RoundTables page there is a Marked Messages button that will show you a listing (with links) to any messages that you have "marked."

When you are on the listings page for messages that you have marked, you can type a comment to remind you why you marked the message. Just type the comment in the Comment field and click on the SET button.

You can delete the link to the marked message by clicking on the DELETE button next to the SET button.

Hi Jeanne,

Thanks for the explanation. Can't wait to try it. I have another question in case you look back in here today. I just come in with some questions I wanted to put up top and my "Edit Discussion" button appears to be missing...

Will be back this evening and save those questions till then.

As usual you make some keen observations, JM! I have no problem with Hardy's Janiform characterizations either. Wonder how the rest of you feel about it. I think at times I am two very different people...and really don't like to be characterized one way or the other. Although I must admit I'm guilty of stereotyping people according to how they appear to me the first time I meet them.

I think it is difficult to convey the many moods and temperaments of characters in fiction...and applaud Hardy for doing it. What say all of you?

Will be back after work... Joan

Personally, I think the Janiform bit is so overdone as to seem both contrived and illogical. It more than stretches the limits of simple ambivalance and has none of the other characteristics that would make it schizophreniform, but as I've said before, "It IS fiction".

Best

Jonkie, your Edit Discussion Button is at the very top, called Edit.

Ginny

...or it's at the very bottom called "Edit Discussion"!!! HAHAHA!!!

Or it's..............hahahhhahahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

It's the Energizer Button

Ginny

I finally read the current week chapters last evening and really don't have anything to add to what has already been said about Sue and Jude's move to Melchester. I did wonder about the reasons for him taking the more expensive lodgings since work was hard to find in the smaller town.

Larry

Larry, what an interesting observation...why would our poor, sorry Jude spend his little bit of money this way? That went right over my head. Will go look at that section again...

So LJ, aside from the characters, do you like the book? Yes it IS fiction...do you like fiction? Do you enjoy Jude as fiction? Are you appreciating Hardy's cynicism? Do you see a difference between the book being "contrived" and the book being "architecturally constructed"?

"Schitzophreniform"...I do believe you have coined a new word!

JM, you mention that "Jude takes satisfaction in his talents as a scholar and as a stonemason". I think I'm going to disagree with both parts of that statement. I think his scholarly ambitions have brought him anything but satisfaction. And although "he had confidence enough in his own skill with the mallet and chisel", I think he has no real appreciation of his talent, regards it as a means to an end, and takes no real satisfaction in it. I mean, he wouldn't be happy being merely a stonemason for the rest of his life. (I think he would be, but I don't think he believes that.)

I enjoyed the many contrasts in the first chapter..."the bright-eyed vivacious girl" holed up in the 15th century palace, Jude is so eager to see. And then...to find "her bounding manner was gone." That's what this stifling institution with all its rules had done to her.

Ginny, does Norton explain that "murrey-colored gown"...was it some sort of uniform? Sue had "the air of a woman clipped and pruned by severe discipline."

Did you pause at this: Nobody stared at Sue because she was plainly dressed...only himself knew the charms those habilements subdued." Oh...?

Does Norton say anything about her distaste for ruins...Gothic ruins I gathered that she preferred the Corinthian to the Gothic, because the Gothic marked the end of the classic Hellenic period? ...or something like that?

Hardy has Jude as puzzled as we are by Sue's behavior in these chapters!
Her denial that Phillotson asked to marry her..."Now don't be such a silly boy!"

And then, "I have promised to marry him when I come out of Training School.

And then, "What does it matter abut what one is going to do two years hence?"

Such "Carpe diem" sentiment is not too surprising coming from Sue...

Jude's reaction:

"She was something of a riddle to him."

"His Sue's conduct was one lovely conundrum to him."

Patzy and Ginny, I haven't the slightest idea what you two are talking about, but I did find the "Edit button". Thank you.

Later! Am catching a flight to Florida this evening, but intend to stop in later this afternoon to say goodbye...and leave your "assignment"...

Joan the Unpacked

OOPS!! Assignment?? Well, I've got one myself, it seems, as I've read three of the critical essays in the back of the book which are all over Sue as symbolism, but nothing on the Gothic thing other than what's in the footnotes themselves. I'll try to read all 141 pages before you get back, one essay is by DH Lawernce, shouldn't be too great a task!

On the Gothic, the only thing the footnote says is "Waldour is in Wiltshire, designed by James Paine and built in 1770-76....Corinthian is the most ornate of the three orders of Greek architecture." I may be wrong, but I think Salisbury Cathedral, which Hardy refers to in this chapter as "one of the most graceful architectural pile [sic] in England," is Gothic. Haven't we discussed this somewhere? Maybe she's rebelling against the Church, since she KNOWS it is Gothic, but likes the "sound" of Cornithian, even though she doesn't know WHAT it is....?

On the murrey -coloured gown, the footnote only says it is "Mulberry-colored, purple-red." Doesn't mention a uniform.

On the idea of realism and fiction vs. reality, Albert Guerard says "The answer...is that Jude the Obscure is not realism but tragedy and like all tragedy is symbolic: it is a vision of things and a reading of life, and according to that vision happiness is but an 'occasional episode in a general drama of pain.'"

So apparently the question has been asked before.

I think the questions above are excellent, want to think them over for a while. Have a wonderful vacation!!

Ginny

Okay, this is the chance you've been waiting for...post away, the cat's away!

Will be back next Tuesday pm. Read chapters three and four...I can't wait to read your comments! These two are grabbers!

Didn't want to spoil it by posting questions...

Have fun!

Will miss you all, although I am leaving Jude at home!

Later!

Joan

Joan, I'm flattered, and will forbear any defense at this time lest differences be muted.

I thoroughly appreciate your sly dig as I'm certain you are aware that "Neologisms" are a characteristic of "Schizophtrenia", and I chose the word "Schizophreniform" which altho not a well accepted word among purists is not my invention, over "Schizophrenoid" for no particular reason other than that I like the "Sound" of it.(Schizophrenoid is equally disturbing to purists).

Obviously I like and enjoy the "Cameraderie" of our discussion, which is my only reason for reading "Fiction". (I confess I also read pornography and a rare historical novel)

Best

OH GOOD, LJ, then we can count on you for the Cold Mountain , a historical novel of the Civil War!!

In the Book Club Online!!

Ginny

Joan, I used the word "satisfaction" in regard to Jude's scholarship because it is important to him. He cerainly studies hard enough, and demonstrates some capacity for learning on that infamous night at the tavern when he recites the Creed. And in his vocation as a stonemason, he seems to take his work seriously, never complaining or acting as if it is drudgery. At one point (I can't remember where - maybe I'll re-discover it later) he examines the stonework of a church before he begins his work. He runs his hand over the carving with a quiet appreciation for the work that had been done in its original creation. I sense a satisfaction in that and in the way he always seems ready to pack up his tools and take on his next assignment. You note that he might have been happy in that vocation, but you don't believe he knows that, and I agree, otherwise why would he always be preparing for something else?

I'll go out on a limb here and say I don't see anything peculiar about Jude at all, don't we all have this dichotomy or ambivalence about feelings? I do.

I think Hardy has done a splendid job of depicting the longing versus reality of his life...Haven't we all been in that position at one time or another? So far I don't have a problem at all with anything Jude has done, except I'd have given up a long time ago. How old do we think he is right now? I'm a little confused on his age.

Ginny

Ginny, I agree. I don't have any problem with his ambivalence either. Also, I thought he was much older than he turns out to be (I've read ahead, so I'll refrain from elaborating). I think that's because Jude's traumatic experiences and changes "feel" as if they should have taken longer than Hardy indicates. You'll see, later in the book.

I made it by the deadline! Where does time go anyway?

I found these two chapters relaxing and another example of TH laying the foundation for a major developement. Ginny, what do you make of the Sappho quotation? Who is Sappho,and although I understand the use of the quotation here, I'd like to know where it is from.

I loved the third sentence in Chapter One....The old fancy...of the bishopric had not been an ethical or theological enthusiasm at all , but a mundane ambition masquerading in a surplice. The comparison is brilliant. Jude is maturing. He understands how unrealistic his ambition was. In fact these chapters show us two young people getting to know one another. TH portrays them in such a way we can easily envision such a budding relationship in any age of Western culture. I think Sue has the same feelings towards Jude as he has of her. TH projects Jude's thinking clearly, but with Sue, just clues (watching Jude as he looks at the religious paintings, giving him her picture, believing Jude would be angry about her arrangement with Phillotson).

The whole scenario of their stay with the shepard, and his mother has me puzzled. Is TH just giving us a look at how shepards lived? I know he believes in showing how different people live, but he also uses a lot of symbolism too. I've tried to figure out which it is, and for want of any idea what the meeting symbolizes I settled for a look at shepard's life.

Hi Hardys, I'm on the boardwalk in Hollywood, FL. There's a big Canada Fest here today and they have a booth where one can surf the net for free...they think I don't know what I'm doing over here in the monitor on the end...a nice kid is telling me how to use it.

So happy you are posting...so many of you did, I can't read them all...

See you soon...promise I won't burn, but I AM eating way too much.

Later!

Joan

ps. I am reading Thomas Hoving too!

Jonkie, I KNEW you couldn't stay away for long, even tho you DIDN'T take our Jude, you have probably finished the book anyway!

Kathleen:

On the Sappho, The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature says that she was a Lesbian poetess of ancient Greece born about the middle of the 7th c. BC. All Norton says about the translation or source is that Wharton translated it in 1885. He's not listed in my Reader's Encyclopedia. The Sapphic meter is named after Sappho, who wrote in many metres...Her poetry was much admired in antiquity, and she also inspired Swinburne and Tennyson, (as well as Ovid and Horace, --are these names sounding familiar?) and Plato.

"She wrote nine books of odes, epithalamia, elegies and hymns, of which only fregments including one complete ode and four stanzas of a second survive."

So I guess....just looked it up in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, and it lists none of hers...so here we go again, with an OBSCURE reference. I am beginning to wonder if Hardy was just a little tongue in cheek here, as just about all his literary references seem obscure, even to him: remember how he FORGOT one himself??

Ginny

Kathleen, staying with the shepherd gave Sue the opportunity to say she enjoyed being "outside all laws except gravitation and germination." Do we take her at her word that she's outside the conventions of her time and place, or like Jude, do we gently scoff at the idea that she's anything but conventional?

Jude the Obscure, like all novels, is fiction, therefore "contrived" in the sense of shaped, fashioned, feigned, the synonyms given for the old French word that fiction comes from. I don't find the characters artificial, though, nor their pain and struggles and confusion, even though Hardy has certainly written with the intent to shape their experiences the way he wanted to out of their circumstances and dispositions.

I think Sue wants to love Jude, and wants him to push his advantage with her, but finds his convictions and spiritual commitments hard to swallow. She has no respect for Christminster, except for its purely intellectual side, especially since Jude was cast off without even an attempt to judge his intellectual fitness. "... you were elbowed off the pavement by the millionaires' sons." (I think Jude intuited this himself when he was turned down by the teacher to whom he had written.) (Sue)"I did want and long to ennoble some man to high aims; and when I saw you, and knew you wanted to be my comrade, I. . . thought that man might be you. But you take so much tradition on trust that I don't know what to say." I read Hardy's social commentary about the educational system in her comments.

In Hardy's comments about the "weaker" young ladies lying in their cubicles (at Sue's training school), he suggests that nature is responsible for the female helplessness that dooms them all to "injustice, loneliness, childbearing and bereavement." This occurs on the night Sue fails to return from her outing with Jude, and Hardy says they will remember this event "amid the storms and strains of after-years ...as... something which had been allowed to slip past them insufficiently regarded." Is he suggesting that Sue's outrageous behavior will be recalled as a desperate and honest attempt to be free of the constraints society as well as nature placed upon women?

JM I enjoyed that post and admire it even though (As is obvious) we don't agree on all points.

I think in this week's chapters Sue's disturbingly kaleidoscopic personality and some of its quirks become more clear. Is she "Frigid"? What do we know about the author's wife??

She reminds me of the line in "Camelot" "Shall kith not kill their Kin for ME"

Best

Good morning, everyone!

Just a quick stop to tell you that I have read your posts and am greatly frustrated that I must get to work this morning and not address so many impressive points...and questions!

Re-entry is very difficult...still haven't unpacked, bought any food, answered my boys' emails...

Will be back tonight - or tomorrow morning. But I just have to squeeze in one question before I leave...

What do you make of Sue? LJ asks is she "frigid". That implies some sort of attempt at sexual intimacy and then an aversion to it, doesn't it? Sue seems not at all interested. This liberated, independent young woman, who has lived with an undergraduate, who is so greatly interested in Greek and Roman mythology...and freedoms of all sorts - I take that to include sexual freedom, says to Jude:

"I have never yielded myself to any lover. I have remained as I began."

"My life has been entirely shaped by what people call a peculiarity in me. I have no fear of men...I have mixed with them almost as one of their own sex. I mean I have not felt about them as most women are taught to feel. "

And then to Jude: "I care as much for you as for anybody I ever met."

This all causes Jude to be depressed with "her strange ways and curious unconsiousness of gender."

Do you think we will learn more about Sue's 'strange ways'? I have a nagging feeling that we will not. Will her feelings for Jude grow into something stronger? Maybe she just hasn't met the right man yet?

How old is Sue? I'll guess that Jude is about 25 at this point. Sue seems so much older.....

What do you think of her? Has she been reading too much? Often fiction is better than life...

Must get to work. Feels good to be back. hahaha!

Later!
Joan

LJ: "Shall kith not kill their kin for me" ... I thought Guinevere was just enjoying being the center of attention! Do you think that Sue was relishing a possible explosion between Jude and Phillotson?

About "frigid" - is repression a prior condition? I think she is not unlike the other young women of her day,including the ones at the training school who engage in a ministrike when they think she is being penalized too severely. Joan, maybe all the reading and "free thinking" is the outlet for desires she has been unable to express. I hope this point is revisited after chs. 5, 6 and the whole story.

JM, She does "Toy" with the thought that he long term "Room-mate" may have succombed of a broken heart. She toys with it with relish.

Best

Happy Birthday
to
GINNY!!!
May you have many more!!

kathleen, I have been thinking about your question concerning Jude and Sue's stay at the shepherd's place. Why a shepherd? I am going to guess that it was part of the architectural construction. (My Hardy criticisms were all returned to the library before vacation, so this is my very own observation.) Let me know if it makes sense to you. I don't think it is contrived, but it does seem planned.

Consider the contrasts between Jude's trip with Arabella, and then his outing with Sue and let me know what you think:

1. Before his date to go walking with Arabella, Jude decided he really didn't want to go, preferring to read his Griesbach New Testament instead. BUT, "a compelling arm of extra-ordinary muscular power sized hold of him." Physical attraction drew him to her, but he planned to be back in two hours and would have time to read after tea.

*Sue and Jude had planned their outing for two weeks. "Tomorrow is our grand day, you know. Where shall we go?" Sue replies, "I have leave from three till nine. Wherever we can get to and come back from in that time."

2. As Jude approached the piggery, he heard "Here's your young man come courting!" And "Arabella came downstairs in radiant walking attire....she looked so handsome amid her untidy surroundings that he felt glad he had come.

*Sue emerged from the College "in nunlike simplicity of costume", having informed the 'species of nunnery' that she was going out with her cousin. Jude " was comforted in the thought that only himself knew the charms those habilements subdued. He could not perceive the least sign that Sue regarded him as a lover, or ever would do so"

3. Two men who observed Jude and Arabella took them for lovers..."these lovers-you find 'em out o'doors in all seasons and weathers - lovers and homeless dogs only. 'Are we lovers?' asked Jude.

*Even before they reached the sheep farm, Jude "cut a walking stick for Sue as tall as herself with a great crook which made her look like a shepherdess." The shepherd asked "Be you a married couple?" And when the response was negative, they were given appropriate sleeping arrangements.

4. In both cases, Jude misjudged time and distance, resulting in a late return. When he returned with Arabella, after much kissing and fondling, "her family greeted them in a congratulatory manner." Jude was dismayed. "They did not belong to his set or circle, and he felt out of place and embarrassed."

*Sue returned 'a little scared' "I expect I shall catch it!" Jude left happily with the new photograph she gave him at the gate. She had reason to be 'scared', receiving 'grave punishment". It's true she did stay out all night, but it was all quite innocent, compared to Jude's experience with Arabella.

I sense the piggery setting represents all that is earthy, lusty and base. Jude was not proud of himself after this experience. Especially when he returned and realized that Arabella's people were beneath his social circle. But the innocent experience on the sheep farm, (the innocence of lambs) - leaves Jude happy, in spite of the fact that he is now acutely aware of their differences.

This is jet lag, still thinking about last week's chapters. Will come back this evening with thoughts on the Sappho quote, Sue's apparent lack of interest in the opposite sex and where this could be heading...

and a belated
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
to our
GINNY !!!!!!!!!!

February 4 - a date to remember! We will not forget that next year!

JOAN. Those are penetrating observations !!

Best

Especially the one about Feb. 4th! Thanks, Joan!! Wonderful post, too.

Ginny

There's a really interesting critical essay in the back of the Norton Jude by J.I.M. Stewart, entitled "So Much Power and So Much Fatigue." It is quite long, but does have some salient points about Hardy's use of language in Jude and may be interesting to you in little bits. Here's a sample:

"It has become a common contention of the critics that Jude the Obscure is not fully viable as a 'realistic' novel. They point out that it is the last labour of prose fiction Hardy brought himself to achieve; that a growing interest in poetry is seeping into it even in the unassuming form of scraps of Browning, Swinburne, Barnes, Drayton and others dragged not always very appositely into the text ; more significantly, that its essential power is less fictional than poetic.

Perhaps no work of the English imagination since Samson Agonistes at once suggests so much power and so much fatigue. One observation set down in Hardy's notebook is of significance here: 'On account of the labour of altering Jude the Obscure to suit the magazine, and then having to alter it back, I have lost energy for revising and improving the original as I meant to do.' In letters to friends, moreover, he more than once asserted his disappointment with the finished novel. 'You have hardly an idea how poor and feeble the book seems to me, as executed, beside the idea of it that I had formed in prospect....Alas, what a miserable accomplishment it is, when I compare it with what I meant to make it!' Such feelings, indeed, are common to artists...."

The essay then goes on to tackle Jude's intellectual "bent," and to examine whether the dialogue is plausible or implausible and it's very interesting. Will put some more of it in here later, very long. Apparently, tho, he really irritated readers of Tess of the d'Ubervilles with some of his scholarly references, and it's interesting what this critic makes of his use of language.

I like to form my own opinions, but I also like the insight of the more erudite writers of critical essays as they often open up avenues of thought previously unknown to me.

Ginny

Poor TH! I understand very well what it is like to set out to accomplish something and to have the task mushroom to the point where I can no longer control it! That seems to be what happened with Jude. He set out to write a story about a young man unable to get accepted at the university, got tangled in criticizing the entire education system, and then the institution of the church and the divorce issue, and finally, society altogether. And all the while, tried to write the word pictures, contrasts and architectural renderings and balances, throwing in so many references, it makes your head spin. (Not to mention all the editing necessary for publication in Harper's and then rewriting again for publication.)

Can we enjoy and relate to the story in spite of these excesses? Although we see from Ginny's post how disappointed Hardy was with the final product, it has survived for a century... Was he too hard on himself? Are you enjoying the book or overwhelmed?

Does Norton have explain the term "Ganymedes" at the end of Chapter Four? "...she still slept on inside his coat, looking warm as a new bun and boyish as a Ganymedes."

Just looked up Ganymede in Webster's: A Trojan boy of great beauty whom Zeus carries away to be cupbearer to the Gods.

Posts here are terrific!!!!!!! Have many comments and observations too but no time.

Why Joyce, thank you for that! Please take a wee bit of time to share just a few of your observations if you don't have time for the 'many'. Sue looked like a Trojan boy! Not just boyish, wrapped in Jude's coat - but a Trojan boy! Interesting!

LJ , this is for you and for any other Hardy boys and girls who are reading the chapters on-line. Before the start of each 'Part", Hardy has included a quotation from antiquity. Before the At Melchester Part Third, this is the Sappho quote provided:

'For there was no other girl, O bridegroom, like her!'

Now what does Hardy have in mind? The girl must be Sue. And Jude the bridegroom. Whose groom - Arabella's or Sue's?

I thought about this for some time after reading Ginny's post on Sappho. Searched all through many fragments of her poetry, and as Ginny noted, this line is "obscure". What's frustrating is that there is not that much still in existence! I did read a lot of it. This is one strange lady. I read some things on Sappho's life as well. Is there something here which may explain Sue's odd behavior...her frigidity, if that's what it is...? I'll paste it here and leave it to you. I am interested in knowing if Sappho's life and experience with young girls relates to Sue at all...how old is Sue anyway. I'd say she's Jude's age and that he is 24 or therebouts...??? What do you think?

Here are exerpts from three articles on Sappho:

Sappho's girls

Sappho was the head of a girls' school. Ordinarily a girl was trained in weaving and taught to supervise the other home manufactures that were necessary to the Archaic Greek household, but here in Sappho's school her education was based on dance and song. Music was at the core of the curriculum. Voice was a principal point of praise. Sappho's pupils were not just sweet-voiced girls but true musicians. The girls were not taught just how to sing and dance, for in the songs they sang they were singing a lesson. The songs told of how to be a woman and how to treat a husband. They also learned the contradictory double lesson of the bride; that virginity kept was glorious, while virginity lost in a wedding bed was an even more splendid thing. One had to be both pure and desirable, and the balance was not easy to keep, for chastity was provocative. The songs that the girls learned were performed to audiences of other young women. Some indeed were hardly more than children, and for them Sappho's songs were educational as the older women taught the younger women what it meant to be a girl, that they might better become women later on.

Enrollment in Sappho's school was voluntary, and to a degree international. Girls came from other parts of Ionia, some staying a considerable length of time. When a girl joined Sappho's school she was separated from her relatives, making Sappho's school kind of like a boarding school.

Marriage was inevitable for Sappho's girls. After all, they were in Sappho's school to learn how to be a wife and to prepare for marriage itself. The need to marry well was evidently what brought the members of Sappho's group together. By educating these young girls their value as a wife was being increased, so that their fathers could boast more to their prospective grooms. When a girl was married she could never go back to Sappho's circle, she could never be a girl again. For once married they were women, the wife of a certain one or the mother of another, and their change of status would be as total and as irreversible as the loss of virginity that was its cause and its sign. Marriage would mean physical separation from a life they once knew, an end to a certain sort of friendship.

From Sappho her pupils learned about music and marriage as well as about cult. Above all Sappho's girls learned about themselves, for they were not just her audience of imitators, they were also the subjects of her poetry. Sappho taught her girls that their present experiences of love, enhanced by song, would let them recognize beauty later on in all various forms.

She was one of the first poets to write from the first person, describing love and loss as it affected her personally.

Her style was sensual and melodic; primarily songs of love, yearning, and reflection. Most commonly the target of her affections was female, often one of the many women sent to her for education in the arts. She nurtured these women, wrote poems of love and adoration to them, and when they eventually left the island to be married, she composed their wedding songs. That Sappho's poetry was not condemned in her time for its homoerotic content (though it was disparaged by scholars in later centuries) suggests that perhaps love between women was not persecuted then as it has been in more recent times. Especially in the last century, Sappho has become so synonymous with woman-love that two of the most popular words to describe female homosexuality--lesbian and sapphic have derived from her.

How well was Sappho honored in ancient times? While she still lived, coins of Lesbos were minted with her image. Plato elevated her from the status of great lyric poet to one of the muses. Upon hearing one of her songs, Solon, an Athenian ruler, lawyer, and a poet himself, asked that he be taught the song "Because I want to learn it and die."

Sappho was born on the Greek island of Lesbos and married Cercylas. She had one daughter. An aristocrat of Mytilene, she became the Mistress of a small college of women dedicated to the perfection of young womanhood and to a preparation for marriage. Her poems, in Aeolic dialect, express adoration for this or that young pupil, jealousy, grief at parting, scorn for the mistress of a rival school, the ambivalent feelings of a young student about to be married, and a host of other emotions that were the product of her intense involvement. Sappho's verse is characterized by simplicity, a careful control over meter, a lively use of epithet, and a matchless lyricism.

But a journey or 2,500 years through works and arts, through customs and ideas, reveals that her glory was dazzling and she was the first modern poet.

Baudelaire certainly sensed it, although he knew only a few of her verses, and in welcoming her into the garden of his Fleurs du Mal did not wish to separate the lover from the poet. Despite the admiration that the ancients had for her, it is only in our time that Sappho can perhaps be completely understood.

It is not only the fragmentary form of her work which contributes to giving her the face of a modern poet. Even in their original state, the poems by the woman who really invented personal poetry were very short, between four and thirty lines and no one else in Greece was to follow this path which seemed too narrow for those used to epics, great odes or tragedies.

In this wonderful world of ancient literature, Sappho was the only feminine voice, the only vision of a woman thrown into the ancient world that we know only through men.

But by a strange coincidence this woman is a rebel; she says no! No to men who refuse women the right to love. No to the democratic tyranny which was to destroy the aristocratic society in which she was a leading figure (and it exiled her!) and no again, sometimes to the gods.

Sappho was finally the first in an often tragic line of people accused in the trials that morality imposes on genius. She was, in her works, burned and broken, as according to legend, Orpheus has been. But if one can tear to pieces the work of a poet as one can the body of a god, one cannot kill her voice.

Thank you, Joan! After all these years I finally know something about Sappho in addition to the facts that she was from Lesbos, wrote poetry, and was thought to be a Lesbian! What was your source? I will certainly be seeking her poetry, of which I have probably read only a few lines. Interesting to read that the "graduates" of her school could never return to the life or contacts they had probably learned to love once they married. Could Sue fear that she would lose something of herself once she entered into a sexual relationship with a man? The life of her mind, her independent thoughts, are very important to her. Has marriage (in the past, at least)interfered with that part of a woman's life? After all, hasn't the role of woman traditionally been that of a helpmate rather than a comrade, a partner, heaven forbid a sparring partner in any kind of contest, including intellectual disagreement?

Ganymede, I think, is Rosalind's chosen name when she disguises herself as a boy in Shakespeare's AS YOU LIKE IT.

I must admit that Sappho, whom I knew best from Crossword puzzles was otherwise an essentially unknown quantity to me before now.

I had wondered about Sue's sexual ambiguity.

Best

Well, JM, thank you for that! I went and read As You Like It (it's a short play)...and of course that was Hardy's source for the name! (Shakespeare probably took the name from the Trojan cup bearer for Rosalind). In this play, Rosalind disguises herself as a boy and ventures into the forest with her cousin, Celia, dressed as a shepherdess. They spend time with some shepherds as they escape from Celia's father to get to the banished Duke, Rosalind's father. The young Phoebe falls in love with Ganymedes/Rosalind...

So that takes care of that reference!

How far Hardy takes the Sappho parallel explaining Sue's 'sexual ambiguity' remains to be seen. We have six more chapters of Melchester....

No LJ, I was not familiar with Sappho and her poetry either - until I started searching for that darn quote! I'll include the sources as clickables here...and maybe up in the heading for a while, since JM was interested too.

The more I think about that teacher training school with all the young maidens lying in their cots, I see Sappho's school for young virgins...

Here are the Sappho sources:

Poetry of Sappho

Fragments of Sappho's Poetry

On Sappho - More Poetry

A Portrait of Sappho

Sappho's Personal Life - Sappho's Girls

If you find the bridegroom quote , please let me know!

Once again I just made the deadline. This time though I know why...I returned from a week of cold weather in Florida yesterday, read Chapters Three and Four, and the above posts. I'm beginning to become familiar with TH's reasoning. He seems to make each Part a short story in, and of itself with a thread connecting Parts to one another. For instance, he laid the foundation of Sue,and Jude's relationship in Part Three Chapters 1&2, and in 3&4 he's developing their individual characters (while at the same time clearly telling us what he thinks of Christminster, and the New Testament), although we had met them in the previous Parts. I could probably make this clearer with more time.

The most fascinating theme in these two chapters was the developement of Sue as androgynous. I recognize the implication of Part Three having a quotation from Sappho, and it is probably accurate, but being androgynous doesn't have to mean either bi-sexual or homosexual. Is this the way TH prefers to see women? Did he know Virginia wolf? Sue comes across as a stronger personality than poor Jude. Her lessons from the writer (TH?) were well learned, and understood. In several ways, Sue was masculine in these chapters, and Jude feminine. If TH is saying this is and example of a man and a woman giving reign to their opposite gender side. Fascinating!!

By the way were there such schools for women in Hardy's time? If so is he saying they were based on Sappho's?

It's Monday! Did you read Chapters Five and Six at Melchester yet? You have stated you do not have a problem with Jude's characterization...can you honestly say you understand Sue?

I can hear LJ from all the way down there in the Kentucky hills, calling "schizophreniform...schizophreniform....."

kathleen, good to hear from you! I love your Sunday pm posts! I think we'll all have to plan trips to Florida a bit later in the season next year! The weather is so iffy at this time.

Let's hold on to that word "androgynous" (having characteristics or nature of both male and female) for a while. No, I see no evidence that Sue is homosexual either, but her relationships with all three men in her life, Jude, Phillotson and "the undergraduate" do not indicate a normal sexual reaction to the opposite sex. I guess we have to struggle with what was normal 100 years ago, and maybe we will understand her aversion to forming a relationship.

I agree with something JM said - that Sue would really like to be able to love Jude...BUT...but what?

Tucked away is something LJ read, which I'll keep repeating now and then...Arabella will turn out to be the only one in Jude's life who ever really wanted him. Isn't that sad if true?

With the risk of influencing your observations about Sue, I'm going to include here something I read in a beautifully illustrated, well-written biography, Thomas Hardy's World", by Molly Lefebure:

Hardy confessed that he had found Sue "very nebulous" at first, though gradually she had taken on "shape and reality" for him, moulding into the kind of young female he envisaged as an ideal heroine for the novel that he was determined should be his masterpiece: a girl with a mind, but who never used it because of the circumstances of life forced upon her by her sex; with healthy natural instincts, though not "impassioned". "Good, dear, and pure...the most ethereal, least sensual woman I ever knew without inhuman sexlessness." So Jude himself would describe Sue.

What do you think? Is he succeeding? Can you relate to Sue - or come close to understanding her? Have you ever met such a young woman?

About the only thing that seems any clearer is that Sue is not in love with Phillotson.

Best

Then what is that relationship all about? Why is she afraid of him? Does she still intend to marry him? She says she doesn't care if she ever sees him again, but she acts as if it is out of her hands.

Is Phillotson a father figure? Her only support for the future? Does she think that this is why women marry?

I think Sue grasps onto Phillotson as a caring person who desires her and will watch over her and provide some security after it seems clear Jude is unavailable to her and she has rashly spoiled her school opportunities. She seems not to have thought ahead very far or was else was ignorant of the sexual demands marriage would make on her. And, yes, I do know a woman who has similar feelings regarding what she refers to as, "my wifely duties," yet she cares very much for her mate.

JO, I just can't buy that, it's too superficial. At very least, she knew about sex and cohabitation and marriage with its attendant "Opportunities/duties".

I think Phillotson was a normal "Dirty old man" (I visualize him leering and drooling), reasonably bright, and he represented security (to Sue).

BUT SUE???? Here she is, "Hot" for Jude playing coy, alternately playing a "Rapo" game of "Come-on--Go-way"

My problem with Sue, is that taking her whole character into consideration and placing it with the ARBITRARY interpretations subtly imposed by the writing, I can't make a believable person out of her in my mind.

Best

WEll, here's OLD Jude again! Feels like seeing a long lost friend. Kudos to Sysop John, who dug him out of the limbo of the deleted. Now, surely that bodes well for our Jude! Maybe if he had Sysop John, he'd have succeeded more in life!

hahahah

Now we need to get those new posts in here.

Ginny

Joan, yesterday I read the posts for this week. Today I wanted to go over them again but to my surprise, the ones from Feb.7-11, and a post by Ginny dated March 17 were the only ones I could find. Am I hallucinating? Is the Internet playing games?

I agree that Sue's answer to Richard when he asks her if she wants to live with Jude as his wife, "As I Choose" is the key to her sexuality. I think it is innate in her character to feel ambivalent toward any intimacy. She does realize she is attracted to Jude, but at this point isn't sure she will find sex with him any less offensive than with Richard. According to the Introduction notes, in a letter to EDmund Grosse (Hardy's publisher?), TH writes, " one of her reasons for fearing the marriage ceremony is that she fearsit wouldbe breaking faith with Jude to withhold herself at pleasure, or altogether, after it; though while uncontracted she feels at liberty to yield herself as seldom as she chooses." We used to call women like this a 'tease.' Sue is an intelligent, independent, cold, and possibly heartless woman. She probably accepts her attraction to Jude because she believes his for her is so great that she will be able to dominate him. Will she? I suspect the answer is 'Yes'. Based on her jump into the river when she left the Training School and her jump out the window when Richard entered her bedroom, she may also be borderline psychotic. Ginny, have you read any where that Tryphena had similiar experiences?

Richard's explanation of the end of his marriage to Gillingham has several passages that are pure Hardy. Regarding Sue's jump out the window, it was proof she wanted out of the marriage. Richard concludes: " It is wrong to so torture a fellow-creature any longer; and I won't be the inhuman wretch to do it, cost what it may!" Further on, he continues, "I like other men, profess to hold that if a husband gets such a so-called proposterous request from his wife, the only course that can possibly be regarded as right, and proper, and honorable in him is to refuse it, and put her underlock and key, and murder her lover perhaps. But is that essentially right, and proper, and honourable or is it contemptibly mean and selfish?" (I'm so glad I wasn't born in that age, and am very glad I was born in America) There's more of this reasoning in the exchange between the two friends. Gillingham speaks the part of the social mores on the subject. Richard (TH) continues in that vein. A brilliant exchange!

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