Subscribe

Subscribe to our Newsletter and get informed about new publication regulary and special discounts for subscribers!

ILSHS > Volume 73 > An Ecocritical Reading of Thomas Hardy’s Far from...
< Back to Volume

An Ecocritical Reading of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd

Full Text PDF

Abstract:

This article aims to analyze Thomas Hardy’s novel, Far from the Madding Crowd, from the perspective of ecocriticism and study where Hardy’s ecological consciousness originates from and how it is represented and interwoven in the characters, setting and plot of the novel. It also focuses on such questions as how Gabriel Oak can be the voice of harmony in nature and what does the portrayal of this character tell us about today’s ecological crises? Ecocriticism, a newly found theoretical framework, explores the ways in which how environment is illustrated in literature and, by so doing, examines and proposes possible solutions concerning our contemporary environmental situation. In an era where a long-established rustic order are giving way to the giants of technology and industrial capitalism, there remains no more appealing vision than that of England’s pastoral and green land. In his Wessex, a part real and a part dream country which is the setting for most of his works, Hardy vividly and skillfully describes his vision and longs for the rustic nature of England. He lays stress to the intrinsic values of nature where men establish a harmonious relationship with their environments.

Info:

Periodical:
International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences (Volume 73)
Pages:
62-69
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.73.62
Citation:
H. Heidari "An Ecocritical Reading of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd", International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, Vol. 73, pp. 62-69, 2016
Online since:
Sep 2016
Authors:
Himan Heidari
Keywords:
Ecocriticism, Ecological Consciousness, Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy, Wessex
Export:
RIS, BibTeX, Text
Distribution:
Open Access

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

References:

[1] M.J. Britto, An Ecocritical Reading of William Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey, Academic Research International. 2(1) (2012) 720-725.

[2] G. Garrard, Ecocriticism, first ed., Routledge, London, (2004).

[3] C. Glotfelty, Introduction: Literary Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis, in Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm (Eds. ), The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology, The University of Georgia Press, Athens, (1996).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1523-7_15

[4] Oxford Learner's Dictionaries. Retrieved from http: /www. oxfordlearnersdictionaries. com/definition/english/ecology?q=ecology.

[5] W.J. Meeker, The Comedy of Survival: Literary Ecology and a Play Ethic, third ed., University of Arizona Press, New York, (1997).

[6] R. Kerridge, Ecological Hardy, in Karla Armbruster, Kathleen R. Wallace (Eds. ), Beyond Nature Writing: Expanding the Boundaries of Ecocriticism, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville and London, 2001, pp.126-142.

[7] G. Harvey, The Complete Critical Guide to Thomas Hardy, First ed., Routledge, London, (2003).

[8] T. Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd, first ed., Transatlantic Press, London, (2012).

[9] R. Morgan, Student Companion to Thomas Hardy, first ed., Greenwood Press, London, (2007).

[10] R. Nemesvari, Hardy and his Readers, in Philip Mallett (Ed. ), Palgrave Advances in Thomas Hardy Studies, Macmillan, New York, 2004, pp.38-75.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230519930_3

[11] J. A. Cuddon, The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, fourth ed., Penguin Group, London, (1999).

[12] V. Woolf, The Common Reader: Second Series, First ed., Hogarth Press, London, (1953).

[13] C. Uhl, Developing Ecological Consciousness: path to a Sustainable World, second ed., Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, New York, (2005).

[14] D. Taylor, Hardy and Wordsworth, Victorian Poetry. 24(4) (1986) 441-454.

[15] G. Wen-ting, J. Liu, An Eco-criticism Reading of The Call of the Wild, US-China Foreign Language. 13(8) (2015) 580-586.

[16] P.G. Derr, E.M. McNamara, Case Studies in Environmental Ethics, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, New York, (2003).

[17] T. Hardy, The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy, ed. Michael Millgate, Oxford UP, London, (1984).

[18] B.S. Nayler, A Collection of One Hundred Pieces of English Literature: Fifty in Prose and Fifty in Verse: Accompanied with a Variety of Notes for the Use of the Inhabitants of the Netherlands, third ed., Nayler en Company, Amsterdam, (2015).

[19] H. Bertens, Literary Theory: The Basics, second ed., Routledge, London, (2008).

[20] J. Bate, The Song of the Earth, first ed., Picador, London, (2000).

[21] M. Bennett, Anti-Pastoralism, Frederick Douglass, and the Nature of Slavery, in Karla Armbruster, Kathleen R Wallace (Eds. ), Beyond Nature Writing: Expanding the Boundaries of Ecocriticism, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville and London, 2001, pp.195-211.

[22] M. Squires, Far from the Madding Crowd as Modified Pastoral, Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 25(3) (1970) 299-326.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2933436

[23] R. Forsyth, The Lost Pattern: Essays on the Emergent City Sensibility in Victorian, first ed., University of Western Australia Press, Australia, (1976).

Show More Hide