The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
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Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy Collection
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Jude the Obscure: Week 4 - Part Fourth
Bill wrote: when she says, 'my friend and comrade', is she including, and therefore describing, herself as well as him?I think the use of the word 'comrade' may be significant here (and elsewhere) as it was first used by early socialists of the period. Some of the descriptions of a different form of marriage and of things being held in common, including children, are like the sort of commune which Tolstoy mentioned in War and Peace (and elsewhere), published in 1869. Also, Marx was living in London at this time and there were pamphlets circulating about the virtues of 'kibbutz' style communes, which were a later expression of this ideal:-
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/j...
Sue and Jude are trying to create a different style of life, one free of the restrictions of society and religion and to this extent I think Hardy may have been drawing upon early communist/socialist ideology.
Chris wrote: ...all I was trying to do was ask the readers of "Jude" to further consider this notion of whether "Jude" is, in fact, a tragedy in the classic sense.Although I drew attention to the principles of Greek tragedy earlier, I do not think that Jude is a tragedy in the classical sense although I do think that Hardy was drawing upon the format, just as he was drawing upon the later format of the German bildungsroman, which I seem to remember you saying at the beginning of our read, that you would have some comments about?
As I commented earlier, I tend to see Jude as an anti-hero rather than a classical hero, especially as he has lowly origins. However, I must bear in mind that Hardy said in his 1912 Preface that '[the marriage laws] seemed a good foundation for the fable of a tragedy, told for its own sake as a presentation of particulars containing a good deal that was universal, and not without a hope that certain cathartic, Aristotelian qualities might be found therein. (My italics.)
I think we will have to discuss this further at the end of the novel when we know everything that has happened to our characters and can look closer at its Aristotelian qualities, (a la my post at the end of Part III.
Bill wrote: There is no indication she was repulsed by him before marrying him, or that she had any idea it would be so unbearable.As Silver commented in post 21, if you do not have sex before marriage, there can be no indication that you will be repulsed by it. That is one of the reasons given by sexologists, psychiatrists and others, for encouraging sex before marriage. I think perhaps this was another argument that Hardy was pursuing in Jude.
But from what I've read, and Jane Austen movies I've seen, passionate love and romance do not seem a foreign concept to Victorian women.
Jane Austen was a Georgian woman Bill but I don't think that passionate love and romance are confined to any era:). There were quite a lot of differences in the way women were regarded in the Georgian era to the way they were regarded in Victorian times. The move from agricultural life to an industrial one, and attitudes towards religion, created a lot of changes, some of which we are seeing in Jude. But that is too big a subject to get into here.
Lily wrote: At least, I can't figure out any other source. Although it can get time consuming, I will probably learn to ignore a large share.I avoid all these bells-and-whistles because it is so time consuming. Despite my retired status I can only keep up with my reading, gardening and posting to a couple of clubs - keeping up with anything else is just too much and would impinge upon my non-virtual life! As it is I spend far too much time talking to y'all every morning and part of some nights!:D
MadgeUK wrote: "Lily wrote: At least, I can't figure out any other source. Although it can get time consuming, I will probably learn to ignore a large share.I avoid all these bells-and-whistles because it is so ..."
Too much time talking to us? /sniffle
At last! At last! At last! I have finally caught up on my reading, having just finished part four of this novel. I have the feeling that this is a book one could read over and over and still discover something new upon each reading. Especially with all the literary, biblical, classical and political illusions contained therein. Then on top of all that, there are the most fascinating discussions that all of you have been having,(and that I have been reading usually about one week afterwards as I don't want to see any spoilers while still catching up). And I must mention Madge's magnificent contributions, keeping us informed about so many aspects of this work. Jude the Obscure, ...and St Jude being the patron saint of lost causes! Is Hardy some kind of genius?Then I began thinking of some Hardyesque titles for some of the participants in these discussions...how about
Madge the Marvellous
Chris the Clever
Everyman the Ever-logical
Bill the....
Well, Bill the Billian (does that makes his children Billian-heirs?)
There are so many comments worth responding to, but I shall have to get my thoughts in order before I jump in too much. However a couple of things that were mentioned in response to part one, yet remain relevant...Traveller's comments on the use of irony as something to note...but the comment that stands out amongst all the wonderful contributions was one by Bill, when he said...
'...books can add depth of character to a person as if from a real live mentor. Aren't books really people in a sense? In our relation to this book -- as it becomes a part of our psyche, isn't Hardy himself a part of this relationship?'
Bill, I like the way you give us food for thought. Everyone who contributes here: it is truly a joy to be a part of this group.
From 4-VI: Gillingham was sitting in his house awaiting him."Well; it is as you said," observed Phillotson, flinging himself down wearily in a chair. "They have requested me to send in my resignation on account of my scandalous conduct in giving my tortured wife her liberty — or, as they call it, condoning her adultery. But I shan't resign!"
"I think I would."
"I won't. It is no business of theirs. It doesn't affect me in my public capacity at all. They may expel me if they like."
Sounds like a pretty contemporary discussion to me, not necessarily over the same issues.
I couldn't help thinking how good a friend Gillingham is, even if he isn't really supportive of Phillotson's actions. At least he is there for P. and he listens.
Mod
I completely agree, Lily, and I also think that this little back-and-forth does give us the opportunity to understand that Phillotson, deep down, really is a pretty decent fellow. He is not, what I would call, the 'typical' male of the Victorian Age. All in all, he really is pretty enlightened. He seems to understand that Susanna has some 'issues' and he is extremely reticent to force the issue. He seems to not want to cause her any unnecessary pain, even though he, himself, has been profoundly hurt by her actions. Would you agree with this assessment?
Mod
Mod
Are these relevant? (Phillotson)phil·is·tine
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin Philistinus, from Greek Philistinos, from Hebrew Pelishtimacr
1 capitalized : a native or inhabitant of ancient Philistia in the coastal regions of southwest Palestine
2 usually capitalized, archaic : someone (as a bailiff, a critic) regarded as a natural or traditional enemy because belonging to a despised class
3 often capitalized [translation of German Philister] a : a crass prosaic often priggish individual guided by material rather than intellectual values : 4BABBITT, BOURGEOIS b (1) : one deficient in originality or aesthetic sensitivity (2) : one uninformed in a special area of knowledge : IGNORAMUS, OUTSIDER
"philistine." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (14 Apr. 2011).
(Gillingham)
gill
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -ed/-ing/-s
dialect Britain : TIPPLE
"gill." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (14 Apr. 2011).
tip·ple
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): tippled; tippled; tippling \-p(schwa)lieng\; tipples
Etymology: back-formation from obsolete English tippler barkeeper, from Middle English tipler, tipeler
transitive verb
1 : to drink (intoxicating liquor) especially continuously in small amounts
2 archaic : to spend or lose by tippling : SQUANDER
intransitive verb : to drink intoxicating liquor especially by habit or to excess
"tipple." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (14 Apr. 2011).
Or is it more likely to be:
gill
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): -ed/-ing/-s
Etymology: Middle English gillen, from gile, gille, n.
transitive verb
1 : to remove the insides of (fish)
2 : to catch (fish) by the gills in a gill net
3 : to treat (fibers or filaments) in a gill box
intransitive verb : to become entangled in a gill net -- used of fish
"gill." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (14 Apr. 2011).
I.e., Gillingham is willing to become entangled in his friend's affairs?
Mod
Boy, do I agree with that, Deb! There's no way I could have conducted that exchange of notes with my wife and made any sense to the children in the classroom. My mind would have been mush and my words gibberish! ;-)
Christopher wrote: "He seems to not want to cause her any unnecessary pain, even though he, himself, has been profoundly hurt by her actions. Would you agree with this assessment?"I agree, which is why I am not at all certain Hardy is playing with Phillotson/Philistine, although I am wondering what allusions prompted the names. I just somehow suspect there are some somewhere.
He really is bending over backwards to be a decent guy.
Mod
Well, you've certainly given me some food for thought here. Extraordinary suggestions on both names.
Personally, I don't see Phillotson as a Philistine, but I'm willing to be persuaded by arguments to that effect. I have always kind of felt sorry for him. I'm not saying that he is the most kind and compassionate human being in the world, but I do think he is a very decent sort--more importantly, I honestly think Hardy 'sees' him as a decent sort of fellow too. This goes way back to his initial advice to the very young Jude; i.e., 'do no harm, and study'. Is he the intellectual and emotional equal of Sue? I don't know, and maybe not. Is he frustrated that he didn't make it big? Yeah, I think he is. But is he bitter and curmudgeonly, or mean-spirited? No, I really don't think so.
Hmmm -- I don't think this is a spoiler. at least if you read Hardy's preface, and that it contributes to our ongoing discussion of what is a tragedy, but since some might consider it such: (view spoiler)
Mod
Perfect, Lily, and I agree with Hardy. I look forward to discussing this in more depth as we reach the end of the novel too.
"Phillotson is eminently the respectable man.......He is like Jude in many ways: he is goodhearted and honorable -, he allows instinct to overrule reason; he is too accommodating for his own good; he is intelligent. Like Jude he is ill-equipped to get what he wants in life and soon resigns himself to mediocrity. However, unlike Jude he no longer is dazzled by ideals, perhaps because he is older...."
The above is an excerpt from a Cliffnotes assessment of Phillotson. Do we agree or disagree or see other nuances?
Some phrases and sentences that caught my ear, above some perhaps too cryptic comments:Part 4.3 ...a parson in embryo...
What an apt image!
...a religion in which sexual love was regarded as at its best a frailty, and at its worst damnation.
(Not sure this was true, even in Hardy's day.)
...barely respectable according to regulation views.
"Burning up your awld aunt's rubbidge, I suppose? Ay; a lot gets heaped up in nooks and corners when you've lived eighty years in one house."
...Sue's logic was extraordinarily compounded, and seemed to maintain that before a thing was done it might be right to do, but that being done it became wrong; or, in other words, that things which were right in theory were wrong in practice.
Bah, humbug.
...the ethereal, fine-nerved, sensitive girl, quite unfitted by temperament and instinct to fulfil the conditions of the matrimonial relation with Phillotson, possibly with scarce any man...
Sad, sad.
"Richard — I let Mr. Fawley hold my hand a long while. I don't know whether you think it wrong?"
Stupid, unsophisticated broad.
...the two styles seeming to nod to each other across three centuries upon the shaking floor.
...the fibres of her nature seemed strained like harp-strings.
She talked vaguely and indiscriminately to prevent his talking pertinently.
LOL! Who hasn't done this, but aren't we loathe to admit it?
Lily wrote: ...a religion in which sexual love was regarded as at its best a frailty, and at its worst damnation.......(Not sure this was true, even in Hardy's day.)These view on sexual love come from St Augustine Lily, who believed that sex was sinful.
In his book on Western sexual morality, C. W. Lloyd says: "Augustine's writings have probably exerted more influence in the West on love and sexual practice than those of any other man. The clearest expression of the innate evil in sexual passion, even within marriage, is set forth.':-
'St. Augustine believed that Adam and Eve's problem in the Garden was because of sex. He believed that the account of Adam and Eve's sin against God in Genesis 3 uses symbolic language, that the 'forbidden fruit' actually represented sex. He thought Eve conceived and bore children in pain (Genesis 3:16) because sex is sinful, and any kind of sexual activity brings pain.
According to St. Augustine, human beings should ask God's forgiveness for even thinking about sex and should abstain whenever possible. Augustine's teachings gave theological structure to feelings of guilt and shame in a biological drive. However, the enforcement of the doctrine of sexual guilt was difficult. The struggle was to impose celibacy on the clergy. It was only moderately successful until well into the Middle Ages.Christians had a hard time accepting Augustine's ideas about sex. They weren't certain that God wanted them to live in celibacy. The church struggled to keep its leaders obedient to this rule. In fact, sexual prohibition was one of the first doctrines that Martin Luther and the other Reformers broke away from. Luther left the monastery to marry a nun.'
Hardy may have been thinking of Augustine's own experiences as a youth in relation to Jude, who seems driven by sexual desire. In his Confessions he observed that his youthful sex drive led him to confuse the search for love and friendship with the satisfaction of his sexual desires: "The bubbling impulses of puberty befogged and obscured my heart so that it could not see the difference between love's serenity and lust's darkness." Augustine blamed his parents for not arranging an early marriage for him. He writes: "That would have transformed to good purpose the fleeting experience of beauty in these lowest things, and fixed limits to indulgence in their charms. Then the stormy waves of my youth would have finally broken on the shore of marriage".
However, when Jerome and other church leaders were advocating celibacy and counselling against marriage. Augustine claimed that those who defended the superiority of celibacy could do so only at the expense of condemning marriage. In his treatise The Good of Marriage he wrote that there are three distinct 'goods' in marriage: the procreation of children, the fidelity of the couple, and the sacramental bond. He wrote that 'Marriages also have the benefit that sensual or youthful incontinence, even though it is wrong, is redirected to the honorable purpose of having children, and so out of the evil of lust sexual union in marriage achieves something good. Furthermore, parental feeling brings about a moderation in sexual desire, since it is held back and in a certain way burns more modestly. For a kind of dignity attaches to the ardor of the pleasure, when in the act whereby man and woman come together with each other, they have the thought of being father and mother.'
I think we see some of these teachings coming out in the relationship between Jude and Sue. (St Augustine also influenced the Oxford Movement, particularly Newman.)
Thanks for your kind post 60 Jan - so glad you have caught up with us and I look forward to more poetic insights:).
I like your etymological wanderings Lily and think perhaps that the references to Philistines may be apt with regard to Phillotson in the sense that he was unintellectual and not appreciative of the artistic in life, which Sue represented. He is 'guided by material rather than intellectual values.' (Ref 3.) I think we interpret the word more harshly than Hardy was doing. In the 19C Philistinism represented the conventional and was seen as the opposite to Bohemianism. The use of the word in literature at this time generally signified an opposition to the gross materialism of Victorian life - rather as we might decry extreme capitalism today. 'Philistine' really came to have its modern English secondary meaning, of a person deficient in the culture of the Liberal Arts beginning in the 1820s.Gillingham is also the name of an old English town and means 'homestead' so he could be offering homely advice. Its root is from the Old English 'gyllan' meaning to shout. Gyllingas was a notable man in Kent history who led his warriors into battle screaming and shouting - which is how, in a quiet way, Gillingham is warning Phillotson.
Chris wrote: Personally, I don't see Phillotson as a Philistine, but I'm willing to be persuaded by arguments to that effect.I think we interpret the word differently to Hardy. In the 19C Philistinism represented the conventional and was seen as the opposite to Bohemianism (which Sue represents). The use of the word in literature at this time generally signified an opposition to the gross materialism of Victorian life - rather as we might decry extreme capitalism today. 'Philistine' came to have its modern English secondary meaning, of a person deficient in the culture of the Liberal Arts beginning in the 1820s so Hardy would have been familiar with this interpretation.
"Lily wrote: "a religion in which sexual love was regarded as at its best a frailty, and at its worst damnation.(Not sure this was true, even in Hardy's day.)..."
Bill responded: I would guess the first part was hardly ever true of the religion, and the second part was almost always true."
Bill -- do see Madge's comments on St. Augustine.
While I think the "power" of sexual love is widely recognized in religions, I'm not at all certain that I would characterize it as "almost always" a source of damnation. I do think we owe a lot of that interpretation to St. Augustine (354 – 430) and the medieval ages, and as it entered the Protestant stream through men like Knox and Calvin.
Is it fair to say not until Freud (1856 – 1939) at the beginning of the twentieth century has humankind begun to muster (maybe re-muster?) the intellectual and observational tools to re-speak and create new stories/myths to address those human realities? One of the articles I saw contrasted the vocabulary and concepts a writer like D.H. Lawrence (1885 – 1930) had available to him versus those of earlier writers like Hardy (1840 – 1928, but his last novel was in 1895) and Henry James (1843 – 1916).
(I realize as I write this how much Hardy sat on the cusp of change. The Wikipedia article for D.H. Lawrence states: "His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, and instinct... Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life...."
I have read very little of Lawrence's work. [I believe Eman has very low regard for it.] But, have I already called our attention to the contemporary writer Ian McEwan and his On Chesil Beach when considering the psychological angst of women like Sue?)
Here is a nice little piece sbout Hardy's influence on D H Lawrence, who I feel is a much misunderstood writer, mainly because many people do not see beyond the 'rude' words which were so much publicised and censored. Like Hardy he too was trying to break the mould and to take us back to more natural times when people were less 'prim' about sexuality and sexual feelings, before St Augustine perhaps. He was also trying to reinstate certain Anglo Saxon words which Chaucer used so effectively in the Canterbury Tales. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/h...
I was lucky enough to read Lady Chatterley's Lover with B&N Moderator, Professor Susan Weisser, an authority on Lawrence, who was writing the Preface to this edition at the time:-
http://www.buy.com/prod/lady-chatterl...
I have a high regard for Lawrence too, especially as he described a part of the world and the sort of men and women that I knew well as a girl.
OOps -- those links seem to go astray, Madge.
"Twelve Plates for The Simpletons, afterwards Hearts Insurgent [Jude the Obscure]" I find only seven of the twelve, and Madge probably has these in her background material, which I have only partially perused. But, these seemed especially relevant about now, so will recall our attention to them here:http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illus...
Lily wrote: "OOps -- those links seem to go astray, Madge."I think they are OK now Lily - I redid them.:)
You may also like to read this little essay on Lawrence, which is from the Introduction to Lawrence's Selected Poems. It also references St Augustine:-
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/bps/rexroth/es...
MadgeUK wrote: "I think they are OK now Lily - I redid them...."Thank you, Madge. I particularly appreciate the first one, because I was trying to guess off the Victorian Age web page for Hardy and I had not found what seemed like the appropriate one.
This one is excellent and I recommend it to all here. (See Message 91.)
A short excerpt to whet the appetite, but the article is much better, at least as far as I have read:
"Lawrence discovered in Hardy’s fiction, it seems, a new approach to man and nature; Hardy showed that there is an organic connection between both. Like Hardy, Lawrence saw the duality between “flesh and soul” and he believed that human nature was deprived of its inherent freedom by social and religious conventions. For Hardy and Lawrence human life is split between a conscious rational essence and an unconscious, biological (natural) existence...."
The article demonstrates some of Hardy's considerable influence going forward.
I'm drawing a bit of a blank here, isn't that concept very similar to the Cartesian view of things? Not saying that as criticism, I just can't recall exactly.
Denae wrote: "I'm drawing a bit of a blank here, isn't that concept very similar to the Cartesian view of things? Not saying that as criticism, I just can't recall exactly."Denae -- sorry, but what are you referring to?
Bill wrote: "When I say the second part is almost always true, I'm saying that sex at its worst was considered damnation."Okay, I won't quibble and do understand your point.
I didn't think Hardy was particularly referring to "its worst" in his context, but machts nichts.
Lily wrote: "Denae wrote: "I'm drawing a bit of a blank here, isn't that concept very similar to the Cartesian view of things? Not saying that as criticism, I just can't recall exactly."Denae -- sorry, but wh..."
This:
Like Hardy, Lawrence saw the duality between “flesh and soul” and he believed that human nature was deprived of its inherent freedom by social and religious conventions. For Hardy and Lawrence human life is split between a conscious rational essence and an unconscious, biological (natural) existence....
Denae wrote: "I'm drawing a bit of a blank here, isn't that concept very similar to the Cartesian view of things? Not saying that as criticism, I just can't recall exactly.Re: Like Hardy, Lawrence saw the duality between “flesh and soul” and he believed that human nature was deprived of its inherent freedom by social and religious conventions. For Hardy and Lawrence human life is split between a conscious rational essence and an unconscious, biological (natural) existence.... ..."
You are probably right on. I am not one who can parse philosophical viewpoints across their adherents, at least not very many. Thanks for the comment and insight. I'll keep my eyes open on the topic now.
Lily wrote: "Denae wrote: "I'm drawing a bit of a blank here, isn't that concept very similar to the Cartesian view of things? Not saying that as criticism, I just can't recall exactly.Re: Like Hardy, Lawrenc..."
I have an ex who used to rant against Descartes. It just sort of jumped out at me. xD
Bill: Those views are not my views! They are the views of St Augustine as described by the author of the article and another quoted.If you object to the first part of the quote then I assume you are disagreeing with St Augustine since the author was describing St A's views.
As the article said, Luther objected to the Augustinian views and broke with those ideas.
What does 'sex at its worst' mean??? Rape? And who decrees what it is?
I think the Cartesian view is like the Stoic one, that sexual passion is detrimental to human welfare and that marriage should be a rational, social contrivance for the rearing of children.
I did just a Wiki check, nothing deeper, but I am not sure that I would consider the description in the article as Cartesian. But, my assessment is still out...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesia...
Lily: I wonder if this quote from Tess of the d'Urbeville's throws any light on Jude vis a vis St Augustine: From Chapter 15 Part Second 'Maiden No More':
"By experience," says Roger Ascham, "we find out a short way by a long wandering." Not seldom that long wandering unfits us for further travel, and of what use is our experience to us then? Tess Durbeyfield's experience was of this incapacitating kind. At last she had learned what to do; but who would now accept her doing?
If before going to the d'Urbervilles' she had vigorously moved under the guidance of sundry gnomic texts and phrases known to her and to the world in general, no doubt she would never have been imposed on. But it had not been in Tess's power--nor is it in anybody's power--to feel the whole truth of golden opinions while it is possible to profit by them. She--and how many more--might have ironically said to God with Saint Augustine: "Thou hast counselled a better course than Thou hast permitted."
Meaning, God demands more decent conduct from people than can be practiced in the world where he has placed them? I think this is a Free Will argument?
Mod
"They had stood parting in the silent highway, and their tense and passionate moods had led to bewildered inquiries of each other on how far their intimacy ought to go; till they had almost quarrelled, and she had said tearfully that it was hardly proper of him as a parson in embryo to think of kissing her even in farewell, as he now wished to do. Then she had conceded that the fact of the kiss would be nothing: all would depend upon the spirit of it. If given in the spirit of a cousin and friend she saw no objection: if in the spirit of a lover she could not permit it. "Will you swear that it will not be in that spirit?" she had said.No 'Fate' controlling here in my opinion, this is just a latent smoldering sexuality that has just bubbled to the top in both of them. This was an exercise of their own Free Will.
No: he would not. And then they had turned from each other in estrangement, and gone their several ways, till at a distance of twenty or thirty yards both had looked around simultaneously. That look behind was fatal to the reserve hitherto more or less maintained. They had quickly run back, and met, and embracing most unpremeditatedly, kissed close and long. When they parted for good it was with flushed cheeks on her side, and a beating heart on his.
The kiss was a turning-point in Jude's career."
Mod
When Phillotson opens the door to her nest, and looks in--
"...she sprang out of her lair, great-eyed and trembling."This scene reminded me ever-so-much of the screaming rabbit caught in the trap that Jude had to get up and dispatch.
Mod
As a side-note, I would submit that this theme is also front-and-center in Hardy's beautiful novel, The Woodlanders.
And, of course, this must bring us right back to Hardy's marriage to his wife, Emma Gifford Hardy. It is well known that by this time, both Hardy and his wife were deeply unhappy with their marriage.
Good comparison Chris. It was a also a very gothic event - the Victorians would have loved it! I thought there might be an illustration of it but I can't find one. I've put a slideshow of the illustrations to the 1894/95 serialised edition in the Background thread.I think Hardy's descriptions of the 'simmering sexuality' between Sue and Jude are brilliantly written, you can really feel their frustration.
Mod
"There was a Being whom my spirit oftAt first blush, it seems easy to assume that Sue endorses the Shelleyan view of 'Free Love' and not binding oneself contractually and exclusively to only one other. While Shelley certainly meant this from the perspective of sexual gratification, I think Sue has developed her own brand of romantic idealism that leads her to believe that it is only the 'iron-clad' contract (marriage) that dooms the relationship.
Met on its visioned wanderings far aloft.
. . .
A seraph of Heaven, too gentle to be human,
Veiling beneath that radiant form of woman..."
I also want to say right up-front that I really don't think Sue or Hardy are anti-marriage, but that it was the nature of the contract of marriage in the Victorian age (i.e., with all of its trappings of submission, subjugation, and so forth) that dooms its likelihood of long-term success in her (and Hardy's) view. I also think that Hardy's notebook entry in 1889, in which he writes--
"Love lives on propinquity, but dies of contact."somewhat supports this conclusion.
Mod
Awesome, Madge! I'm headed over there right now! I'm really not sure if I have ever seen any of those illustrations before!
Lily wrote: "I did just a Wiki check, nothing deeper, but I am not sure that I would consider the description in the article as Cartesian. But, my assessment is still out...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carte..."
I think perhaps this line from Wiki applies: 'Sensation and the perception of reality are thought to be the source of untruth and illusions' - meaning there should be no sensation, no passion, all should be metaphysical, not physical?
Chris wrote: I also want to say right up-front that I really don't think Sue or Hardy are anti-marriage, but that it was the nature of the contract of marriage in the Victorian age....I entirely agree Chris but I also think that Hardy is making a plea for a less restricted view about sex all round - an anti Augustinian view perhaps. He seems to be implying that sex should be enjoyable and permissible both inside and outside of marriage. I particularly think this is true with regard to the problems about sex which Sue encounters with Phillotson. Had there been sex before marriage this unhappy situation might not have occurred and the text seems to support this viewpoint.
Mod
I agree completely. Clearly, Sue has issues associated with expressing her sexuality, and I think we can all agree to that. But having said that, I still cannot shake the sheer horror that strikes me every time I read the passages describing the marital relationship between Sue and Phillotson.
Yes indeed and it makes me think of the famous sex studies done by Kinsey, Masters et al in the 1960s which led in part to the realisation that sex before marriage was not the bad thing so often portrayed. And of course birth control aided that revolution, something Sue and Jude did not have the advantage of. I rather think that Sue has a fear of childbirth too and what Victorian woman wouldn't have such fears, given the horrific maternal mortality figures. Psychiatrists have linked sexual frigidity with fear of childbirth.
The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910
Books mentioned in this topic
The Woodlanders (other topics)On Chesil Beach (other topics)
The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides (other topics)
The Oresteia (other topics)
The Portrait of a Lady (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Ian McEwan (other topics)Ian McEwan (other topics)
Henry James (other topics)
John Shelby Spong (other topics)
Lily wrote: I wonder at the irony of our reading Jude during the season of Lent and as Holy Week approaches.
Even lil'ol atheist me was struck by these passages as I re-read them last night. I think the irony is also Hardy's because he would have well known what blasphemy he was undertaking here. We tend to forget just how well read in the classics and the Bible the Victorians were and how Victorian authors used this knowledge.
Thanks a lot for your insights on all these biblical passages Lily - I was wondering about them.
Bill's post about the Pharisees was also very enlightening so thanks for that too.