Autorentext
SHIRLEY A. STAVE is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Center-Waukesha County.

Klappentext

This timely book treats Hardy's recurring use of one of the major informing myths of Western culture-that of a collision between a solar god and an earth goddess. Stave uses a chronological examination of Hardy's Wessex novels to highlight the author's evolving consciousness of the connections among patriarchy, Christianity, sexism, and classism. From the gentle affirmation of Far From the Madding Crowd to the grim Jude the Obscure, Stave paints a world in which the goddess figures die out, displaced by messianic gods, and a Pagan worldview gives way to a world devoid of spiritual meaning.

Inhalt

In the Beginning: Archetypal Patterns in the Less Well-Known Novels
Far From the Madding Crowd: And Nature Saw What She Had Done, and It Was Good
The Return of the Native: And Nature Said, "You Are Dust, and to Dust You Shall Return"
The Woodlanders: And Nature Said, "It is Finished"
Tess of the D'Urbervilles: And Nature Became Flesh, and Dwelt Among Us
Jude the Obscure: There Was Darkness Over All the Land
Works Cited
Index