Thomas Hardy, Sensationalism, and the Melodramatic Mode
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Thomas Hardy, Sensationalism, and the Melodramatic Mode Richard Nemesvari
THOMAS HARDY, SENSATIONALISM, AND THE MELODRAMATIC MODE Copyright Richard Nemesvari, 2011. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-62146-6 All rights reserved. First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the World, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-38340-5 ISBN 978-0-230-11884-3 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230118843 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nemesvari, Richard. Thomas Hardy, sensationalism, and the melodramatic mode / Richard Nemesvari. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Hardy, Thomas, 1840 1928 Criticism and interpretation. 2. Sensationalism in literature. 3. Melodrama, English History and criticism. I. Title. PR4754.N43 2011 823.8 dc22 2010040164 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library Design by Integra Software Services First edition: April 2011 10987654321
To Jane To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking.
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Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments ix xi Introduction: Thomas Hardy and the Melodramatic Imagination 1 Part I Melodramas of Masculinity Desperate Remedies and The Mayor of Casterbridge 1 I love you better than any man can : Sensation Fiction, Class, and Gender Role Anxiety in Desperate Remedies 25 2 No man ever loved another as I did thee : Melodrama, Masculinity, and the Moral Occult (I) in The Mayor of Casterbridge 49 Part II Sensational Bodies, Melodramatic Spectacles Far from the Madding Crowd and A Laodicean 3 Kiss me too, Frank...You will Frank kiss me too! : Sensationalism, Surveillance, and Gazing at the Body in Far from the Madding Crowd 83 4 A mixed young lady, rather : Melodrama, Technology, and Dis/Embodied Sensation in A Laodicean 121 Part III Melodramas of Modernity and Class Status The HandofEthelbertaand Jude the Obscure 5 Lady not a penny less than lady : Satire, Melodrama, and the Sensational Fiction of Class Status in TheHandof Ethelberta 153
viii CONTENTS 6 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery? : Sensationalist Tragedy, Melodramatic Modernity, and the Moral Occult (II) in Jude the Obscure 179 Notes 211 Bibliography 229 Index 239
List of Figures 1 Hands were loosening his neckerchief 92 2 Her tears fell fast beside the unconscious pair 111
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Acknowledgments My thanks are due to numerous individuals and institutions that helped in the completion of this book. Lillian Swindall, Librarian of the Dorset County Museum, was (as always) gracious and helpful during my visits there, and Kevin Repp, Curator of the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University, was likewise welcoming and efficient in making its resources available. As well, Christine Faunch, Acting Head of Archives and Special Collections, Library and Research Support, Academic Services, Old Library, and Gemma Poulton, Principal Support Officer (Archives), Special Collections, Old Library, were instrumental in procuring the suitably sensational illustration that fronts this text: cover illustration courtesy of Special Collections, University of Exeter. Thanks also to Angelique Richardson for facilitating my contact with them. The illustrations reproduced in Chapter 3 are courtesy of the Killam Memorial Library, Dalhousie University. For specific analytical guidance I would like to thank Keith Wilson and Jane Thomas, who both commented incisively on an early draft of the book s Introduction, and Rosemarie Morgan, whose advice proved invaluable in shaping the chapters discussing Desperate Remedies and Jude the Obscure. For financial support during my research I am indebted to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the University Council for Research, St. Francis Xavier University, and the Dean of Arts Research Fund, St. Francis Xavier University. Part of this book s Introduction originally appeared in the essay Judged by a Purely Literary Standard : Sensation Fiction, Horizons of Expectations, and the Generic Construction of Victorian Realism in the collection Victorian Sensations: Essays on a Scandalous Genre, eds. Kimberly Harrison and Richard Fantina (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2006), pp. 15 28, and is reprinted here by permission of the publisher. Part of Chapter 1 originally appeared in the essay Is it a Man or a Woman? : Constructing Masculinity in Desperate Remedies in the collection Human Shows: Essays in Honour of Michael Millgate (New Haven: Hardy Association Press, 2000), pp. 67 88, and is reprinted by permission of the editors. And part of Chapter 6 originally appeared in the essay Hardy
xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS and Victorian Popular Culture: Performing Modernity in Music Hall and Melodrama, reprinted by permission of Ashgate Publishing Ltd., in The Ashgate Research Companion to Thomas Hardy, ed. Rosemarie Morgan (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 71 86. Finally, more thanks are owed than I can express in so small a space to my wife, Jane Strickler. The best of editors, the best of partners, and the best of companions, this and all my other work would not be possible without her.