Jude the Obscure created storms of scandal and protest for the author upon its publication. Hardy, disgusted and disappointed, devoted the remainder of his life to poetry and never wrote another novel. Today, the material is far less shocking. Jude Fawley, a poor stone carver with aspirations toward an academic career, is thwarted at every turn and is finally forced to give up his dreams of a university education. He is tricked into an unwise marriage, and when his wife deserts him, he begins a relationship with a free-spirited cousin. With this begins the descent into bleak tragedy as the couple alternately defy and succumb to the pressures of a deeply disapproving society. Hardy's characters have a fascinating ambiguity: they are victimized by a stern moral code, but they are also selfish and weak-willed creatures who bring on much of their own difficulties through their own vacillations and submissions to impulse. The abridgment speeds Jude's fall to considerable dramatic effect, but it also deletes the author's agonizing logic. Instead of the meticulous weaving of Jude's destiny, we get a somewhat incoherent summary that preserves the major plot points but fails to draw us into the tragedy. Michael Pennington reads resonantly and skillfully, his voice perfectly matching the grim music of Hardy's prose, but this recording can only be recommended for larger public libraries.
Author Thomas Hardy espoused Shakespeare's dictum (from King Lear): "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport." He particularly exhibits this pessimism in Jude the Obscure, his tragedy about Jude Fawley, a stonemason torn by ambitions both intellectual and carnal, and Sue Whitehead, an early feminist whom Jude loves and who sometimes loves Jude. A compelling novel is made more so in this audio version by the outstanding work of Frederick Davidson. Always dependable, Davidson here excels in his use of measured dramatics; his consistent differentiation of a large cast of characters from varying social, educational and, therefore, dialectal groups; and his obvious personal involvement in the miseries of the two main characters. T.H. (c)AudioFile, Portland.
作者简介:
NORMAN PAGE is Professor of English emeritus, University of Nottingham and University of Alberta. his is the author of many books, among them The Language of-Jane Austen, Speech in the English Novel, Thomas Hardy, Tennyson: An Illustrated Life, and A. E. Housman: A Critical Biography. He is editor of the Oxford Reader's Companion to Thomas Hardy (forthcoming), past editor of the Thomas Hardy Annual and the Thomas Hardy Annual, and a vice-president of the Thomas Hardy Society
【目录】
Preface to the First Edition
Preface to the Second Edition
The Text of ]ude the Obscure
A Map of the Wessex of the Novels (1895)
Contents of ]ude the Obscure
Preface to the First Edition (1895)
Postscript (1912)
Jude the Obscure
Backgrounds and Contexts
COMPOSITION, PUBLICATION, AND TEXT
Richard Little Purdy" [Composition and Serialization of the Novel
John Paterson" [Hardy's Change of Direction]
Robert C. Slack" [Hardy's Revisions]
HARDY'S NONFICTIONAL WRITINGS
From Hardy's Autobiography
Comments from Hardy's Letters
The Tree of Knowledge
The Profitable Reading of Fiction
HARDY'S POEMS
Childhood Among the Ferns
A Necessitarian's Epitaph
The Masked Face
Thoughts of Phena
The Son's Portrait
Lausanne
The Young Glass-Stainer
The Conformers
The Recalcitrants
To a Motherless Child
Midnight on the Great Western
To a Lady
LOCALE
Norman Page. Settings and Sources
Map: Valters' Plan of Oxford (1891)
INFLUENCES ON THE NOVEL
C. J. Weber. [Autobiographical Elements]
W. R. Rutland" [Hardy, Parnell, and Ibsen]
Criticism
CONTEMPORARY RECEPTION
William Dean Howells·From Harper's Weekly (December 7, 1895)
Margaret Oliphant. From Blackwood's Magazine (January 1896)
Edmund Gosse. From Cosmopolis (January 1896)
D. F. Hannigan·From the Westminster Review (January 1896)
W. W. How, Bishop of Wakefield. Letter to the Yorkshire Post (June 9, 1896)
Havelock Ellis·From the Savoy Magazine (October 1896)
MODERN CRITICISM
Irving Howe ["A Distinctively Modern Novel"]
Arthur Mizener. Jude the Obscure as a Tragedy
D. H. Lawrence. [Male and Female[
Albert J. Guerard·[Hardy's Portrait of Sue Bridehead]
Robert Gittings·[Sue as % Girl of the 186os"]
Frederick P. W. McDowell·[Imagery and Symbolism in lude the Obscure]
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