The Collected Critical Heritage I: Thomas Hardy: The Critical Heritage

518 Pages·1996·3.07 MB·English

by  R. G. Cox

THOMAS HARDY: THE CRITICAL
HERITAGE
THE CRITICAL HERITAGE SERIES
General Editor: B.C.Southam
The Critical Heritage series collects together a large body of criticism on major
figures in literature. Each volume presents the contemporary responses to a
particular writer, enabling the student to follow the formation of critical attitudes to
the writer’s work and its place within a literary tradition.
The carefully selected sources range from landmark essays in the history of
criticism to fragments of contemporary opinion and little published documentary
material, such as letters and diaries.
Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included in order to
demonstrate fluctuations in reputation following the writer’s death.
THOMAS HARDY
THE CRITICAL HERITAGE
Edited by
R.G.COX
London and New York
First published in 1979
11 New Fetter Lane
London EC4P 4EE
&
29 West 35th Street
New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of
thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Compilation, introduction, notes and index © 1979 R.G.Cox
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
ISBN 0-203-19895-6 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-19898-0 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-13466-8 (Print Edition)
General Editor’s Preface
The reception given to a writer by his contemporaries and nearcontemporaries is
evidence of considerable value to the student of literature. On one side we learn a
great deal about the state of criticism at large and in particular about the
development of critical attitudes towards a single writer; at the same time, through
private comments in letters, journals or marginalia, we gain an insight upon the
tastes and literary thought of individual readers of the period. Evidence of this kind
helps us to understand the writer’s historical situation, the nature of his immediate
reading-public, and his response to these pressures.
The separate volumes in the Critical Heritage Series present a record of this early
criticism. Clearly, for many of the highly productive and lengthily reviewed
nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers there exists an enormous body of
material; and in these cases the volume editors have made a selection of the most
important views, significant for their intrinsic critical worth or for their
representative quality—perhaps even registering incomprehension!
For earlier writers, notably pre-eighteenth century, the materials are much scarcer
and the historical period has been extended, sometimes far beyond the writer’s
lifetime, in order to show the inception and growth of critical views which were
initially slow to appear.
In each volume the documents are headed by an Introduction, discussing the
material assembled and relating the early stages of the author’s reception to what we
have come to identify as the critical tradition. The volumes will make available
much material which would otherwise be difficult of access and it is hoped that the
modern reader will be thereby helped towards an informed understanding of the
ways in which literature has been read and judged.
B.C.S.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS page x
NOTE ON THE TEXT xi
INTRODUCTION xii
Desperate Remedies (1871)
1 Review in Athenaeum 1871 3
2 Review in Spectator 1871 5
3 Review in Saturday Review 1871 9
Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)
4 Review in Athenaeum 1872 15
5 HORACE MOULE in Saturday Review 1872 17
A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)
6 Review in Saturday Review 1873 23
Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
7 Review in Athenaeum 1874 29
8 R.H.HUTTON in Spectator 1874 31
9 HENRY JAMES in Nation 1874 37
10 Review in Westminster Review 1875 41
11 ANDREW LANG in Academy 1875 45
12 Review in Saturday Review 1875 49
The Return of the Native (1878)
13 Review in Athenaeum 1878 57
14 W.E.HENLEY in Academy 1878 59
vii
15 Review in Saturday Review 1879 61
16 Review in Spectator 1879 67
17 Survey in New Quarterly Magazine 1879 71
The Trumpet Major (1880)
18 Review in Athenaeum 1880 83
19 JULIAN HAWTHORNE in Spectator 1880 85
20 Survey in British Quarterly Review 1881 89
A Laodicean (1881)
21 Review in Athenaeum 1881 105
Two on a Tower (1882)
22 Review in Saturday Review 1882 109
23 HARRY QUILTER in Spectator 1883 113
24 HAVELOCK ELLIS on Hardy 1883 115
The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
25 Review in Athenaeum 1886 141
26 Review in Saturday Review 1886 143
27 R.H.HUTTON in Spectator 1886 145
The Woodlanders (1887)
28 Review in Athenaeum 1887 151
29 R.H.HUTTON in Spectator 1887 153
30 COVENTRY PATMORE in St. James’s Gazette 1887 157
31 Review in Saturday Review 1887 161
32 WILLIAM WALLACE in Academy 1887 165
33 J.M.BARRIE on Hardy 1889 167
34 EDMUND GOSSE on Hardy 1890 177
35 WILLIAM MINTO on Hardy 1891 181
Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891)
36 RICHARD LE GALLIENNE in Star 1891 189
viii
37 Review in Pall Mall Gazette 1891 193
38 Review in Athenaeum 1892 197
39 CLEMENTINA BLACK in Illustrated London News 1892 201
40 Review in Saturday Review 1892 203
41 R.H.HUTTON in Spectator 1892 207
42 ANDREW LANG in New Review 1892 211
43 WILLIAM WATSON in Academy 1892 213
44 MRS. OLIPHANT in Blackwood’s 1892 219
45 MOWBRAY MORRIS in Quarterly Review 1892 229
46 W.P.TRENT on Hardy 1892 235
47 ANDREW LANG, A rejoinder 1892 249
48 D.F.HANNIGAN in Westminster Review 1892 255
Jude the Obscure (1895)
49 Review in Athenaeum 1895 261
50 W.D.HOWELLS in Harper’s Weekly 1895 265
51 MRS. OLIPHANT in Blackwood’s 1896 269
52 EDMUND GOSSE in Cosmopolis 1896 275
53 D.F.HANNIGAN in Westminster Review 1896 283
54 Review in Illustrated London News 1896 287
55 RICHARD LE GALLIENNE in Idler 1896 289
56 Review in Saturday Review 1896 291
57 A.J.BUTLER in National Review 1896 295
58 R.Y.TYRRELL in Fortnightly Review 1896 301
59 HAVELOCK ELLIS in Savoy Magazine 1896 309
The Well-Beloved (1897)
60 Review in Athenaeum 1897 323
Wessex Poems (1898)
61 Review in Saturday Review 1899 329
62 Review in Academy 1899 333
ix
63 E.K.CHAMBERS in Athenaeum 1899 337
Poems of the Past and Present (1901)
64 Review in Saturday Review 1902 343
65 T.H.WARREN in Spectator 1902 347
The Dynasts, Part First (1904)
66 MAX BEERBOHM in Saturday Review 1904 353
67 JOHN BUCHAN in Spectator 1904 357
68 EDWARD WRIGHT on Hardy 1904 361
The Dynasts, Part Third (1908)
69 HAROLD CHILD in The Times Literary Supplement 1908 379
70 Review in Edinburgh Review 1908 385
71 HENRY NEWBOLT in Quarterly Review 1909 397
72 W.L.PHELPS on Hardy 1910 405
73 F.MANNING on Hardy 1912 415
74 CHARLES WHIBLEY on Hardy 1913 419
75 HAROLD WILLIAMS on the Wessex Novels 1914 429
Satires of Circumstance (1914)
76 LYTTON STRACHEY in New Statesman 1914 443
77 LAWRENCE BINYON in Bookman 1915 447
78 EDMUND GOSSE on Hardy’s poetry 1918 451
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 469
INDEX 471