Works of Thomas Hardy discussion
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Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
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Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Introduction and Phase the First: Chapters 1 - 11
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Cosmic
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Sep 01, 2022 11:26PM
I also plan to read this a chapter a day with the group. How exciting to read this book like this and discuss it very seriously. I really look forward to reading the comments!!
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I laughed at Jack's comment about his wealthier forbears being able to keep two horses instead of one. I thought it was a clever way of describing the very limited range of Jack's perspective/imagination.A short but powerful chapter that set up the character of Jack, the rural setting and gave a tantalising glimpse at the upcoming story.
Is anyone else listening to an audiobook rather than reading?My narrator is Peter Firth and he seems to have a good grasp of the West country accent.
Mod
At this time it would be both, plus other offal such as sweetbreads, heart, kidneys, and sometimes the brain and abdominal fat. Nowadays though it is just the lamb's liver, such as in the dish "liver and onions".
It's so good to have you with us, Cosmic and Pankies too! Yes, reading just one chapter a day really focuses the mind, and is quite a different and rewarding experience :)
"being able to keep two horses instead of one" is so funny I agree, astute and down to earth, as simple country people of this time needed to be!
Mod
In the small English village of Marlott, which lies in the fertile, pastoral Vale of Blakemore, the women are performing the May-Day “clubwalk,” a tradition descended from a pagan fertility ritual. Tess Durbeyfield, a beautiful, fresh-looking girl, is one of the walkers. She sees her father riding by in a carriage, drunk and rambling about his family’s vault. The other women make fun of him, but Tess comes to her father’s defence.
When the women reach the village green they begin to dance. They are watched by three Clare brothers, Angel the youngest, Cuthbert an undergraduate, and Felix the oldest who is training to be a parson. They are clearly members of a higher social class. The two older brothers scorn the ritual and the rural town and soon continue on their way, but Angel can’t resist joining in the dance. He chooses a partner other than Tess, and she is disappointed, looking at him a little reproachfully. Eventually he has to leave with his brothers. As he departs, Angel turns back, sees Tess, and wishes briefly that he had chosen her as his dance partner instead.
Mod
Our first glimpse of Tess is at the fertility ritual of May-Day, which is on 1st May. She stands out from the others to Angel Clare, and also to us. Country areas in Britain especially still have these May Day ceremonies, when both young and old of both sexes dance round the maypole. The historical pagan connection is largely lost, and sometimes the celebration is pushed on a few days.
Here is an English May day, which hasn't changed much since Victorian times :)
English traditions of May-Day have their roots in pagan festivals celebrating Spring and fertility, and we have Maypole dancing, Morris dancing, a Queen of the May, parades with floats, etc. Traditionally everyone dresses in white. Not all these events happen everywhere, although when I was a child they did. I dressed in white every year, as did all the children at church. We had a parade all over the city - and once I was honoured to be an attendant of the May Queen herself (a bit like being a bridesmaid). The Victorians would have these traditions too.
May Day became a national holiday in 1978, by merging three different celebrations in late April. So now it is not always May 1st.
Gaelic May Day in Ireland and Scotland, known as "Beltane", was held halfway between the spring equinox in the middle of March and the summer solstice in the middle of June. It marked the beginning of summer, and was celebrated by villagers with bonfires and rituals to protect crops and cattle, along with a big feast. This is still celebrated in its traditional pagan form in some parts of England, including at Glastonbury.
Germany, Finland and Sweden, celebrate "Walpurgis Night", celebrating that saint with a feast on 1st May which includes dancing and young women being kissed. It is sometimes seen as a night when witches would await the arrival of spring. Another festival held by the Romans to celebrate Flora, the goddess of flowers, in late April also marked the arrival of summer. Eventually, together these celebrations became the secular festival of May Day we now have all over England.
May Day is synonymous with the maypole, believed to be rooted in a pagan tradition of cutting down young trees and sticking them in the ground to mark the arrival of summer, and then dancing around them in rival performances between villages. You will have noticed that in their right hands Tess and the other girls and women held a "peeled willow wand" - a stripped willow branch, and white flowers in their left. "Strip the Willow" is a country dance - they would probably have danced this one.
The May Queen and sometimes a "Green Man" might also make an appearance as the embodiments of spring. The day is also associated with Morris dancing, usually by groups of men wearing different coloured clothes depending on the part of the country they dance in. We have a lot of that here in Essex! In Oxford, a Latin hymn or carol is sung from the top of Magdalen College tower on May Day morning, followed by the ringing of bells to signal the start of Morris dancing in the streets.
Mod
The brothers are on a walking tour through this beautiful area, passing Shaston and enjoying the countryside. (See yesterday’s post for information on the Vale of Blackmoor, Marlott and a photograph of Shaston (Shaftesbury)). Tess seem to naturally fit into this setting, with her “mobile peony mouth and large innocent eyes”. She would be a perfect May Queen, or Nature Goddess.
The scorn of Cuthbert and Felix is a symptom of their middle-class separation from rural life as against the natural, pre-Christian innocence of the Marlott women. These rural women are a symbol of pagan innocence. But what do we think to Angel’s shared glance with Tess? Just a passing moment? Tess feels rather hurt that she was not singled out, and Angel looks back regretfully.
As well as the stunning descriptions at the start, which make me yearn for Dorset (I should be there right now - long story) I love the gentle humour in this chapter, such as the fact that although all the dresses were white, no two were the same shade of white!
Which parts have you enjoyed?
I was bemused that Hardy waxed nostalgic about former times "when cheerfulness and May-time were synonyms -- days before the habit of taking long views had reduced emotions to a monotonous average." Hardy would not enjoy the analyst's couch, but I can't help but think he's talking about himself more than society at large.
Mod
I like the descriptions Hardy gives of the landscape - always loved that about him!Wonder if the fertility ritual have something to do with the coming story? It´s not easy to say if the glance between Angel and Tess was something important, knowing the outcome. ;)
I pity Tess that she was hurt by the other girls because of her father whom she has to defend, probably in spite of her conviction. She doesn´t catch the meaning of his "song".
I liked the innocence of this chapter, only interrupted by Tess´ father.
The maypole in Austria has a similar meaning as in (the South of) Germany. On 30 April night a birch or spruce is felled and debranched. In the night of the felling the tree has to be guarded, as steeling the tree is very common. The putting-up has to be done with muscles and sticks alone, and the tree is decorated with ribbons. On 1 May there are dances, music and food, but also the climbing of the maypole.
Mod
Ah thank you Michaela! I would have included Austria in my post, had I known. These traditions are very similar, all over Europe.
The land-scape is magical but Hardy reminds us (paragraph one) that the ways are "narrow, tortuous, and miry". He grounds the reader in a specific history (eg. King Henry III). He underscores the contrast between past and present in many ways.Like Keith, I was struck by:
" white gowns—a gay survival from Old Style days, when cheerfulness and May-time were synonyms—days before the habit of taking long views had reduced emotions to a monotonous average....... Ideal and real clashed slightly as the sun lit up their figures against the green hedges and creeper-laced house-fronts; for, though the whole troop wore white garments, no two whites were alike among them. Some approached pure blanching; some had a bluish pallor; some worn by the older characters (which had possibly lain by folded for many a year) inclined to a cadaverous tint, and to a Georgian style."
Hardy may suggest that from a distance everything seems identical but in reality they are of different tint, age, and lineage.
Jan wrote: "Donna wrote: "I plan to read along but may not comment much as we will be traveling. I’ve not read it before, so new to me."Safe travels!
Have fun with all the adventures and misadventures!"
Thank you, Jan!
As the story unfolds, Hardy reveals his deep attachment to the Wessex countryside and its long established social traditions, such as the May-dance, complete with traditional white garments of the women and girls as they begin the dance — getting under way before any of their menfolk arrive home from work. Everyone is tuned in to the rhythms of daily life and the occasional special celebrations. The mannerisms of the young women when first approached by Angel, an itinerant student, reveal much about this village and its conventions. Very little happens in this chapter and yet we learn a great deal about the people. The student soon departs and nothing has changed. However, Jack Durbeyfield’s arrival by carriage stands out as a disruption of the usual way of life; Tess is embarrassed by her father’s antics. She appears to be more level headed than her father.
Mod
Yes good observation here Jim. Of the whole family Tess seems to be the one they rely on to hold things together.
Tess does seem to be more reliable, but she is also very young and inexperienced. Is there a touch of vanity as well? Why the faint reproach in her eyes that Angel did not choose to dance with her?
Mod
Welcome to this read, Kim :)
White gowns, a dance rooted in history, a touch of fertility rites and Tess wearing a red ribbon. The only one to dress up her appearance in such a manner. Ribbons were an inexpensive way for a poor female to distinguish themselves from others. Red is a suggestive colour. Hmmm. The appearance of Tess draws Angel’s belated look but they do not dance. There is so much unsaid. Hardy is building his narrative at a seemingly slow pace. Still, I feel the tension building.
Kim N wrote: "Tess does seem to be more reliable, but she is also very young and inexperienced. Is there a touch of vanity as well? Why the faint reproach in her eyes that Angel did not choose to dance with her?"I also wondered how to interpret the narration: we have the option that Tess really felt slighted or the option that Angel believes she is slighted. Is our narrator omniscient and to what extent? He present this as Angel's point of view but does not necessarily ascribe it to Tess.
I was struck by this passage:
"Tess Durbeyfield at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience."
Then Hardy goes on to describe her lips in some detail.
And he adds:
"As she walked along to-day, for all her bouncing handsome womanliness, you could sometimes see her twelfth year in her cheeks, or her ninth sparkling from her eyes; and even her fifth would flit over the curves of her mouth now and then."
Before he parts the scene, the brother named Angel has a brief hope that Tess is "hurt by his oversight" and seems to enjoy the thought. He think she is "modest...expresssive...soft" in her thin gown."
He provides us with a perfect example of the way even casual or strange women are customarily viewed: as potential softness in thin gowns. He projects that Tess regrets she did not get a chance to dance with him. That is my sense: it is his hope but not necessarily the reality.
She is very much a child-woman and we know her father has not given her a good example of a responsible man.
Noticed lots of imagery hinting at purity/virginity in this chapter. White dresses, white flowers, The Pure Drop Inn, “snow”… a lot for less than 10 pages! I always find Hardy to be so successful at setting things up early, despite the fact that the actual plot hasn’t really begun.
Agree too, that Tess is already shown here to be the most ‘put together’ of the Durbeyfields.
Mod
And yet Tess stands apart, lost in thought. Thoughts of what, if not this? Perhaps her father's odd behaviour ...
Peter - Nice pick up on "red", and its possible connotations. As well as the ribbons, we've had her "peony" mouth. We must watch out for more mentions of red, I think. It could well be a favourite motif, with all its symbolism :)
Bionic Jean wrote: "May-Day and Maypole dancing:Our first glimpse of Tess is at the fertility ritual of May-Day, which is on 1st May. She stands out from the others to Angel Clare, and also to us. Country areas in B..."
Thank you very much for this, Jean! It's all new to me, and it's often difficult to find information on the origin of pagan events (or, if you can find the origins, you often don't get a good description of the festivities). You've covered more here in this one post than I've been able to find elsewhere! :)
I even started a Listopia list for May Day Festivities (https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...) - I just added Tess to it, now. :)
I'll try to catch up with this read in the coming weeks or so - I'm a little behind, but I'll do my best. ;)
Mod
Yes! You've really highlighted this aspect. As you say, once you see it, the chapter seems saturated with it. Thank you!
Mod
Aw, thank you for saying! I'm never quite sure how much info people would like, so it's both reassuring that someone mentioned it, and good to hear that you enjoyed it! I do try to separate the brief summary, any info I've researched, and my opinion into different comments so anyone can easily skip what they don't want :)
And welcome to the group Capn! I'm so pleased to see you here. We've only read 2 chapters so far, so there's plenty of time yet.
Great idea about the list ... I'm off to look at that now.
Appreciate all the backgound information and discussion providing context to the story as the characters are introduced.
Here is a wonderful work by the French artist Tissot. It is a picture of a shop that sells ribbons. The commentary on the painting helps frame how ribbons were often more than a simple adornment. When we read how Tess was the only dancer to wear a ribbon, and a red ribbon at that, we may be able to read more into the letterpress.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sho...
For anyone who is struggling to understand some of the colliquial Dorset terms used by Hardy, there’s a helpful glossary of the language used in Tess here:https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literatur...
Mod
Mod
I've looked through this glossary, and it doesn't seem to have any spoilers, but for anyone who does not know this story, please don't be tempted to look at any other pages in those notes. I haven't, but they are bound to tell you something you might not want to know yet.
Mod
This does rather remind me of young girls nowadays who dress to be fashionable and are then called out for being provocative; a sort of blame is attached to them.
Here's the painting:
"The Shop Girl" (La Demoiselle de Magasin) - James Tissot"
Mod
Tess leaves the dance and returns to her small, sparse home. She finds her mother, Joan Durbeyfield, doing housework and singing.
“There stood her mother, amid the group of children, hanging over the washing tub” - Hubert Von Herkomer 4th July 1891
She surprises Tess with two pieces of news: John Durbeyfield has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition, and their family is descended from the aristocratic d’Urbervilles. Tess’s father is at Rolliver’s pub “getting up his strength,” but probably celebrating his newfound family lineage. Joan Durbeyfield has been consulting the ”Compleat Fortune-Teller”, a book of old superstitions, and she asks Tess to return it to the outhouse because she is afraid of keeping it inside overnight. Tess guesses that her mother has been asking about their ancestry.
Joan Durbeyfield goes off to fetch her husband, and Tess is left with her siblings, of whom she is the oldest. Four years younger is Liza-Lu, then Abraham, Hope, Modesty, and an unnamed three-year-old and baby. The narrator wonders if they would have chosen to be born into such a poor household. It starts to get late and her mother still has not returned. The narrator speculates that she is lingering at the bar with her husband, to take a break from her duties as a mother. At Rolliver’s Joan Durveyfield can pretend she is young and free of responsibility again.
It gets even later and Tess sends Abraham to retrieve their parents. After another half hour, no one has returned from Rolliver’s, so Tess starts up the dark and winding path to find them.
Mod
Mod
We see yet again the distinction between ancient and modern, as Natalie and Peter have identified:
"Between the mother, with her fast-perishing lumber of superstitions, ... and the daughter, ... there was a gap of two hundred years as ordinarily understood. When they were together the Jacobean and the Victorian ages were juxtaposed."
We’ve had hints of satire before, but here we see the Durbeyfields’ ridiculous self-deceit in full sway. Both parents are celebrating a name with no real meaning or advantages attached to it. Even Tess is dubious, asking: "Will it do us any good, mother?”
I like the quirky personification: the fact that when Tess was cross with her mother:
“her mood seemed to fill the whole room, and to impart a cowed look to the furniture”. And another time, when Tess went to collect her parents and brother from the inn:
“The village was shutting its eyes.”
Lovely! And it reminds me so much of Charles Dickens who was the master at personification.
Mod
Tess is educated. I liked that she has one dialect language which she uses at home and another: “ordinary English abroad and to persons of quality”. This observation was made many years later in the 20th century by language and linguistics academics: that we use different language "codes" for different environments and circumstances. And we can see that Tess is sensible, knowing that drinking in the inn is the worst thing her father could have done, when he has to get up early the next morning. She rebukes her mother:
“Go to a public-house to get up his strength! And you as well agreed as he, mother!” and also knows that mother will want to stay there—at least for a while.
Mod
She feels very guilty seeing her mother hard at work, when she was thoughtlessly dancing and getting her white dress all green with grass stains. Her mother had to work hard at the washtub, so that Tess could join in the dance. We learn that her mother used to be pretty, and sings nicely. We also see Thomas Hardy’s light humorous touch, as Tess’s mother’s evident pleasure at Rolliver’s helps to humanise what sometimes comes across as a farcical family.
But we have a bitter comment by Thomas Hardy. He says how all the children are dependent on the two irresponsible Durbeyfield parent, and comments on the:
“shiftless house of Durbeyfield”, with a dig at the Romantic poets, specifically William Wordsworth in his “Lines Written in Early Spring”. Thomas Hardy comments sardonically:
“Some people would like to know whence the poet whose philosophy is in these days deemed as profound and trustworthy as his song is breezy and pure, gets his authority for speaking of “Nature’s holy plan.”
This is his own voice surely, and not an omniscient narrator. He then ends with a description of the “dark and crooked lane or street not made for hasty progress” to Rolliver’s. Perhaps a twisting road lies ahead in Tess’s future. Do we have a sense of foreboding here?
If he can keep his character count under control, Hardy shows he has a strong future in Twitter with his takedown (subtweet?) of Wordsworth and "Nature's holy plan."
Mod
I'm a little confused Keith. You observed before, in chapter 2, that "he's talking about himself more than society at large."
I'd given the source of "Nature's holy plan", and realised that it is in line with Thomas Hardy's later agnostic beliefs, and comes across as bitter. So since I don't know Twitter and don't understand "subtweet", I'm guessing here. But is this the same sort of point? Does it mean that you do not like Thomas Hardy bringing his own voice to the fore, under the guise of an omniscient narrator?
And by "character count", are you objecting to the number of letters on the page - prolix writing - or to the number of characters peopling this book? If I'm right about you objecting to the author's voice, then I think you probably think the novel is too wordy.
Sorry if this is all obvious to everyone else. Sometimes I think I should have been born in the 19th century.
Thanks for challenging me, Jean, and please forgive my Twitter obsession -- I realize it's not to everyone's taste. A subtweet is a tweet clearly about a specific person but not naming the person. Character count refers to Twitter's limit of characters in a tweet (280, I think). And yes, that sentence was a bit much (but within the limit!).
As for Hardy using his own voice, that's fine with me. He can do what he wants -- he's Thomas Hardy!
Tess' mother in Chapter 3 is singing a song called "Spotted Cow." It's a humorous ditty about a country maiden and a young man looking for her cow. But they become lovers and the cow is forgotten.Steeleye Span - Spotted Cow Lyrics
One morning in the month of May,
As from my cot' I strayed.
Just at the dawning of the day
I met with a charming maid.
'Good morning you, whither?' said I,
'Good morning to you now',
The maid replied, 'kind sir' she cried,
'I've lost my spotted cow'.
'No longer weep, no longer mourn,
Your cow's not lost my dear,
I saw her down in yonder grove,
Come love and I'll show you where'.
'I must confess you're very kind,
I thank you sir,' said she,
'We will be sure her there to find,
Come sweetheart, go with me'.
And in the grove they spent the day,
They thought it passed too soon,
At night they homeward bent their way,
While brightly shone the moon.
If he should cross the flowery dale,
Or go to view the plough,
She comes and calls, 'You gentle swain,
I've lost my spotted cow
Steeleye Span sings the song with lovely harmony on youtube, along with a slide show of cows, country girls, and pastoral scenes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk603...
Mod
Mod
This is "All Around My Hat" by Steeleye Span, Jean. I don't know if they did it as part of a medley. But the green willow does tie in with the willow branches that the women were carrying for their walk in Chapter 2.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9g7a...
Keith, I also thought that Hardy was making a statement about Wordsworth's philosophy with his sentence, "Some people would like to know whence the poet whose philosophy is in these days deemed as profound and trustworthy as his verse is pure and breezy, gets his authority for speaking of 'Natures's holy plan.'" Jean also mentioned this quote.If anyone would like to read Wordsworth's poem "Lines Written in Early Spring," with a short discussion of the themes of the poem to get an idea of his philosophy, this is a good site:
https://poemanalysis.com/william-word...
Mod
It was "Strip the Willow" I'm vague about now, as it was an instrumental - just part of a medley of maybe three such. It's a country dance.
"All Around My Hat" on the other hand was the title song to one of their later albums, and abominably catchy!
Connie wrote: "Tess' mother in Chapter 3 is singing a song called "Spotted Cow." It's a humorous ditty about a country maiden and a young man looking for her cow. But they become lovers and the cow is forgotten...."
Connie
Fantastic. There is much that could underlay the lyrics in the song. I enjoy Blues music and in that genre the reference is often to a “mule kicking in my stall.”
Peter, "Mule Kicking in my Stall" is a great song too!
A trivia fact. In this novel we meet a Parson Tringham in Chapter One. The last name Tringham was the pseudonym that Charles Dickens used during his affair with Ellen Ternan.What, if anything, can be made of that?
Mod
Mod
An excellent in depth investigation into that aspect of his life by Felix Aylmer is Dickens Incognito. (This is the book which Claire Tomalin used as a reference, to write her parts about Charles Dickens's pseudonym.) Felix Aylmer had actually tracked down a couple called Tringham who might have taken in a child of Nelly's whom Charles Dickens had fathered, but the proofs are not conclusive. Neither was he consistent in his signature, writing "John", "Charles" and "Francis" Tringham at different times!
Sadly there's no connection, as this makes it unlikely that there was a common source or trigger to both authors.
But this is threatening to get off-topic (probably already has), so I'll just direct anyone interested to my review :)
Edit - And I see you have read it too, Peter! I think we are the only ones on Goodreads so far.
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