[C19fan]

I am a big Thomas Hardy fan. I hope someday to go to England and roam the Yorkshire moors like the Bronte sisters and visit Hardy's Wessex, actually Dorset and some surrounding counties, and run into the ghost of Eustacia Vye waiting her lover on a wind wept hilltop. The Bronte sisters and Hardy are the greatest tourist promoters in history. :) Hardy was portraying the world of rural England that was disappearing. The prices of agricultural products plummeted during Hardy's time as the great grain producing regions in the Americas started to flood the English market. One interesting aspect of "Tess" is how Hardy described the fear of devolution in the form of the D'Uberville family. Darwin's theory of evolution was having a huge influence on Victorian society and some thought if species can evolve the opposite can happen. If you are a Hardy fan or a fan of period pieces a new film version of "l Far from the Madding Crowd" will be released this month starring Carey Mulligan as the heroine Bathsheba Everdine. As a side note, the author of the "Hunger Games" series was inspired to name her heroine Katniss Everdine by Hardy's work.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Longest movie I ever watched in a theatre. There was an INTERMISSION for goodness sake!!

[IronJack]

[Spoiler alert]

What bothers me about Tess' story is that when she murders her antagonist, there is no consideration for mitigating circumstances whatsoever. She killed him so she must hang. Period. The closing scene of the bell tolling into the surrounding hills is haunting in its mournfulness. One suspects that the bell sounds for more than just Tess' passing.

It definitely shows how Victorian "justice," so rigid in its conformity, could be anything but "just."

And you're right. Hardy captures the supposedly bucolic countryside culture of England in much the same way Dickens painted the industrialized urban centers. And their respective visions were equally critical and bleak, even if underlaid with a peculiar romance.

[madameguinot]

That is terrific! I just read an article online on the Intercollegiate Review website, titled, “3 Ways the Liberal Arts Will Enrich Your Life”, by James Matthew Wilson.

The article is a distillation of Plato’s idea of education in the liberal arts, which should “initiate you into the imaginative, theoretical, and practical dimensions of human life”.
Veritas es lux.

[struwwelpeter]

It was a good read. For me it was captivating, much more than most modern literature.

[ETL]

Had a mad crush on Nastassja Kinski, the gorgeous young actress who played Tess in the film (1979?).

A strong-willed young peasant girl becomes the affection of two men.

Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Gérard Brach (screenplay), Roman Polanski (screenplay),
Stars: Nastassja Kinski, Peter Firth, Leigh Lawson

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080009/

[Publius]

One of my favorite books. I’ve read all of Hardy’s novels, both good and not so good, but of the 8 that I thought special, that one was tops.

[JoeFromSidney]

I read Tess as part of an undergraduate course in Great Writers. Interesting that the prof never mentioned any connection with Paradise Lost, even though we read that in the same course.