Mantex

Tutorials, Study Guides & More

  • HOME
  • REVIEWS
  • TUTORIALS
  • HOW-TO
  • CONTACT
>> Home / Archives for Critical studies

Bleak House close reading

September 30, 2009 by Roy Johnson

reading skills in the critical analysis of a text

What is close reading?

1. Close reading is the most important skill you need for any form of literary studies. It means paying especially close attention to what is printed on the page. It is a much more subtle and complex process than the term might suggest.

2. Close reading means not only reading and understanding the meanings of the individual printed words; it also involves making yourself sensitive to all the nuances and connotations of language as it is used by skilled writers.

Bleak House close reading3. This can mean anything from a work’s particular vocabulary, sentence construction, and imagery, to the themes that are being dealt with, the way in which the story is being told, and the view of the world that it offers. It involves almost everything from the smallest linguistic items to the largest issues of literary understanding and judgement.

4. Close reading can be seen as four separate levels of attention which we can bring to the text. Most normal people read without being aware of them, and employ all four simultaneously. The four levels or types of reading become progressively more complex.

Linguistic
You pay especially close attention to the surface linguistic elements of the text – that is, to aspects of vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. You might also note such things as figures of speech or any other features which contribute to the writer’s individual style.

Semantic
You take account at a deeper level of what the words mean – that is, what information they yield up, what meanings they denote and connote.

Structural
You note the possible relationships between words within the text – and this might include items from either the linguistic or semantic types of reading.

Cultural
You note the relationship of any elements of the text to things outside it. These might be other pieces of writing by the same author, or other writings of the same type by different writers. They might be items of social or cultural history, or even other academic disciplines which might seem relevant, such as philosophy or psychology.

5. Close reading is not a skill which can be developed to a sophisticated extent overnight. It requires a lot of practice in the various linguistic and literary disciplines involved – and it requires that you do a lot of reading. The good news is that most people already possess the skills required. They have acquired them automatically through being able to read – even though they havn’t been conscious of doing so. This is rather like many other things which we learn unconsciously. After all, you don’t need to know the names of your leg muscles in order to walk down the street.

6. The four types of reading also represent increasingly complex and sophisticated phases in our scrutiny of the text.

Linguistic reading is largely descriptive. We are noting what is in the text and naming its parts for possible use in the next stage of reading.

Semantic reading is cognitive. That is, we need to understand what the words are telling us – both at a surface and maybe at an implicit level.

Structural reading is analytic. We must assess, examine, sift, and judge a large number of items from within the text in their relationships to each other.

Cultural reading is interpretive. We offer judgements on the work in its general relationship to a large body of cultural material outside it.

7. The first and second of these stages are the sorts of activity designated as ‘Beginners’ level; the third takes us to ‘Intermediate’; and the fourth to ‘Advanced’ and beyond.

8. One of the first things you need to acquire for serious literary study is a knowledge of the vocabulary, the technical language, indeed the jargon in which literature is discussed. You need to acquaint yourself with the technical vocabulary of the discipline and then go on to study how its parts work.

9. What follows is a short list of features you might keep in mind whilst reading. They should give you ideas of what to look for. It is just a prompt to help you get under way.


Close reading – Checklist

Grammar
The relationships of the words in sentences
Examples

Vocabulary
The author’s choice of individual words
Examples

Figures of speech
The rhetorical devices used to give decoration and imaginative expression to literature, such as simile or metaphor
Examples

Literary devices
The devices commonly used in literature to give added depth to the work, such as imagery or symbolism
Examples

Tone
The author’s attitude to the subject as revealed in the manner of the writing
Examples

Style
The author’s particular choice and combination of all these features of writing which creates a recognisable and distinctive manner of writing.
Examples


10. Now here’s an example of close reading in action. The short passage which follows comes from the famous opening to Charles Dickens’ Bleak House.

London. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full grown snowflakes – gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun.

This is the sort of writing which many people, asked for their first impressions, would say was very ‘descriptive’. But if you looked at it closely enough you will have seen that it is imaginative rather than descriptive. It doesn’t ‘describe what is there’ – but it invents images and impressions. There is as much “it was as if …” material in the extract as there is anything descriptive. What follows is a close reading of the extract, with comments listed in the order that they appear in the extract.

London
This is an abrupt and astonishingly short ‘sentence’ with which to start a six hundred page novel. In fact technically, it is grammatically incomplete, because it does not have a verb or an object. It somehow implies the meaning ‘The scene is London.’

Sentence construction
In fact each of the first four sentences here are ‘incomplete’ in this sense. Dickens is taking liberties with conventional grammar – and obviously he is writing for a literate and fairly sophisticated readership.

Sentence length
These four sentences vary from one word to forty-three words in length. This helps to create entertaining variation and robust flexibility in his prose style.

Michaelmas Term
There are several names (proper nouns) in these sentences, all signalled by capital letters (London, Michaelmas Term, Lord Chancellor, Lincoln’s Inn Hall, November, Holborn Hill). This helps to create the very credible and realistic world Dickens presents in his fiction. We believe that this is the same London which we could visit today. The names also emphasise the very specific and concrete nature of the world he creates.

Michaelmas Term
This occurs in autumn. It comes from the language of the old universities (Oxford and Cambridge) which is shared by the legal profession and the Church.

Lord Chancellor sitting
Here ‘sitting’ is a present participle. The novel is being told in the present tense at this point, which is rather unusual. The effect is to give vividness and immediacy to the story. We are being persuaded that these events are taking place now.

Implacable
This is an unusual and very strong term to describe the weather. It means ‘that which cannot be appeased’. What it reflects is Dickens’s genius for making almost everything in his writing original, striking, and dramatic.

as if
This is the start of his extended simile comparing the muddy streets with the primeval world.

the waters
There is a slight Biblical echo here, which also fits neatly with the idea of an ancient world he is summoning up.

but newly and wonderful
These are slightly archaic expressions. We might normally expect ‘recently’ and ‘astonishing’ but Dickens is selecting his vocabulary to suit the subject – the prehistoric world. ‘Wonderful’ is being used in its original sense of – ‘something we wonder at’.

forty feet long or so
After the very specific ‘forty feet long’, the addition of ‘or so’ introduces a slightly conversational tone and a casual, almost comic effect.

waddling
This reinforces the humorous manner in which Dickens is presenting this Megalosaurus – and note the breadth of his vocabulary in naming the beast with such scientific precision.

like an elephantine lizard
This is another simile, announced by the word ‘like’. Here is Dickens’s skill with language yet again. He converts a ‘large’ noun (‘elephant’) into an adjective (‘elephantine’) and couples it to something which is usually small (‘lizard’) to describe, very appropriately it seems, his Megalosaurus.

up Holborn Hill
There is a distinct contrast, almost a shock here, in this abrupt transition from an imagined prehistoric world and its monsters to the ‘real’ world of Holborn in London.

lowering
This is another present participle, and an unusual verb. It means ‘to sink, descend, or slope downwards’. It comes from a rather ‘poetic’ verbal register, and it has a softness (there are no sharp or harsh sounds in it) which makes it very suitable for describing the movement of smoke.

soft black drizzle
He is comparing the dense smoke (from coal fires) with another form of particularly depressing atmosphere – a drizzle of rain. Notice how he goes on to elaborate the comparison.

as big as full grown snow flakes
The comparison becomes another simile: ‘as big as’. And then ‘full grown’ almost suggests that the snowflakes are human. This is a device much favoured by Dickens: it is called ‘anthropomorphism’ – attributing human qualities or characteristics to things which are themselves inanimate. Then ‘snowflakes’ is a well-observed comparison for an enlarged flake of soot, because they are of similar size and texture. Notice next how Dickens immediately goes on to play with the notion that whilst soot is black, snowflakes are white.

gone into mourning
This reinforces the anthropomorphism. The inanimate world is being brought to life. And of course ‘mourning’ reinforces the atmospheric gloom he is trying to evoke. It also introduces blackness (the colour of mourning) to explain how these snowflakes (actually flakes of soot) might have changed from white to black.

the death of the sun
This is why the flakes have changed colour. And if the sun has died the light and life it brings to earth have also been extinguished – which reinforces the atmosphere of pre-historic darkness he is creating.


We will stop at this point. It would in fact be possible to say even more about the extract if we were to relate it to the novel as a whole – but almost everything listed was accessible even if you were reading the passage for the first time.

Literary studies are not conducted in such detail all the time, but it is very important that you try to develop the skill of reading as closely as possible. It really is the foundation on which everything else is based.

The next point to make about such close reading is that it becomes easier if you get used to the idea of reading and re-reading. The Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov (famous for Lolita) once observed that “Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only re-read it”.

What he meant by this apparently contradictory remark is that the first time we read a book we are busy absorbing information, and we cannot appreciate all the subtle connexions there may be between its parts – because we don’t yet have the complete picture before us. Only when we read it for a second time (or even better, a third or fourth) are we in a position to assemble and compare the nuances of meaning and the significance of its details in relation to each other.

Finally, let’s try to dispel a common misconception. Many people ask, when they first come into contact with close reading: “Doesn’t analysing a piece of work in such detail spoil your enjoyment of it?” The answer to this question is “No – on the contrary – it should enhance it.” The simple fact is that we get more out of a piece of writing if we can appreciate all the subtleties and the intricacies which exist within it. Nabokov also suggested that “In reading, one should notice and fondle the details”.


Bleak House close readingStudying Fiction is an introduction to the basic concepts and the language you will need for studying prose fiction. It explains the elements of literary analysis one at a time, then shows you how to apply them. The guidance starts off with simple issues of language, then progresses to more complex literary criticism.The volume contains stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Katherine Mansfield, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, and Charles Dickens. All of them are excellent tales in their own right. The guidance on this site was written by the same author.
Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US


Charles Dickens Bleak HouseBleak House (1852-53) is a powerful critique of the legal system. Characters waiting to gain their inheritance from a will which is the subject of a long-running court case are ruined when the delays and costs of the case swallow up the whole estate. At the same time, Ester Summerson, one of Dickens’ most saintly heroines, is surrounded by mystery regarding her parentage and pressure to marry a man she respects but does not love. Unraveling the mystery results in scandal and deaths. Many memorable characters, including ace sleuth Inspector Bucket; Horace Skimpole a criminally irresponsible house guest; and Krook – the ‘chancellor’ of the rag and bone department, who dies from spontaneous combustion – something which Dickens actually believed could happen.

Bleak House Buy Bleak House at Amazon UK
Bleak House Buy Bleak House at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2009


More on Charles Dickens
More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories


Filed Under: Charles Dickens, Literary studies, Study Skills Tagged With: Bleak House, Charles Dickens, Close reading, Critical studies, Literary studies, Study skills

Jane Austen literary criticism

September 29, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Jane Austen literary criticism F.W. Bradbrook, Jane Austen and her Predecessors, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966.

Julia Prewitt Brown, Jane Austen’s Novels: Social Change and Literary Form, Cambridge (Mass), 1979.

Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975, revised 1987.

W.A. Craick, Jane Austen: the Six Novels, London: Methuen, 1965.

D.D. Devlin, Jane Austen and Education, London, 1975.

Alistair M. Duckworth, The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen’s Novels, Baltimore (Md) and London, 1971.

Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-century Literary Imagination, New Haven and London, 1979.

John Halperin (ed), Jane Austen Bicentenary Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

Barbara Hardy, A Reading of Jane Austen, London, 1975.

Joycelyn Harris, Jane Austen’s Art of Memory, Cambridge, 1989.

Claudia L. Johnson, Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel, Chicago and London, 1988.

Margaret Kirkham, Jane Austen: Feminism and Fiction, Brighton and Totawa (NJ) 1983.

Mary Lascelles, Jane Austen and her Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963.

A. Walton Litz, Jane Austen: a Study of her Artistic Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.

Juliet McMaster (ed), Jane Austen’s Achievement, London: Macmillan, 1976.

David Monaghan, Jane Austen in a Social Context, Totawa (NJ) 1981.

Laura G. Mooneyham, Romance, Language, and Education in Jane Austen’s Novels, New York and Basingstoke, 1988.

Susan Morgan, In the Meantime: Character and Perception in Jane Austen’s Fiction, Chicago, 1980.

Norman Page, The Language of Jane Austen, London: Blackwell, 1972.

K.C. Phillips, Jane Austen’s English, London: Andre Deutsch, 1970.

F.B. Pinion, A Jane Austen Companion, London: Macmillan, 1976.

Warren Roberts, Jane Austen and the French Revolution, New York, 1979.

B.C. Southam, Jane Austen’s Literary Manuscripts: A Study of the Novelist’s Development through the Surviving Papers, London and New York, 1964.

B.C. Southam (ed), Critical Essays on Jane Austen, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969.

B.C. Southam (ed), Jane Austen: the Critical Heritage, 2 vols, London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1968-87.

Alison G. Sulloway, Jane Austen and the Province of Womanhood, Philadelphia, 1989.

Tony Tanner, Jane Austen, London: Macmillan, 1986.

Ian Watt (ed), Jane Austen: a Collection of Critical Essays, Englewood Cliffs (NJ): Prentice-Hall, 1963.


The Complete Critical Guide to Jane AustenThe Complete Critical Guide to Jane Austen is a good introduction to Austen criticism and commentary. It includes a potted biography, an outline of the novels, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from Walter Scott to critics of the present day. It also includes a thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist journals. It also has an interesting chapter discussing Austen on the screen. These guides are very popular.

© Roy Johnson 2009


Jane Austen web links
Jane Austen greatest works
Jane Austen biographical studies
Jane Austen life and works
Jane Austen literary criticism


Filed Under: Jane Austen Tagged With: Critical studies, Jane Austen, Literary studies, The novel

Samuel Beckett life and works

July 26, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Samuel Beckett life and worksSamuel Beckett was born near Dublin on April 13, 1906. He had an uneventful childhood, and as a young man he studied modern languages at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating in 1927. Beckett then spent two years (1928-1930) teaching English at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. After returning to Trinity College for a year of graduate work in 1931, he taught French there in 1931-1932. He spent the next few years wandering in London and through France and Germany, contributing stories and poems to avant-garde periodicals, before settling in Paris in 1937.

Finding himself in what at the time was the capital of modernism, he embraced it fully. He had a long-standing affair with the rich art patroness Peggy Guggenheim, and for a short time he worked as secretary to James Joyce, who was also living in Paris at that time. Early in World War II, during the German occupation of France, the Gestapo discovered Beckett’s activities in connection with the French Resistance movement, and he was compelled to flee to the unoccupied zone about 1942. He found sanctuary at Roussillon in the department of Vaucluse.


Samuel Beckett selected criticism The Complete Critical Guide to Samuel BeckettThe Complete Critical Guide to Samuel Beckett is a good introduction to the man and the writer. Includes a potted biography of Beckett, an outline of the stories, novels, plays, and poetry, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from the 1960s to critics of the present day. Also includes a thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist journals. Samuel Beckett selected criticism Buy the book here


After the war he returned to Paris and began writing in earnest. He was writing novels in the period 1940-50, but later turned to drama. Waiting for Godot brought him international fame after 1952, as translations and productions of the play proliferated throughout the world. However, he continued to lead an utterly secluded life. It is worth noting that he wrote much of his later work in French, and then translated it himself into English. He was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in literature and died in Paris on 22 Dec 1989.

Writings

Beckett’s first novel, Murphy (1938), contains all the elements of his later work: the normal, busy world; someone who cannot come to terms with it; and a language whose low-keyed precision is disturbed by nothing it undertakes to describe, however grotesque or ridiculous.

In Beckett’s next novel, Watt (1942-1944), the language remains explicit though the situations become increasingly strange. In the trilogy Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnameable (1947-1949), the reader is plunged into a world of terminal exhaustion and tragi-comic desperation where Beckett appears most at home.


Beckett Illustrated Life - book jacketSamuel Beckett: an illustrated life gives a short account of Beckett’s little-known private life in a book which is packed with rare photographs and shots of his stage productions. The life is quite surprising: a priviledged upbringing, with talented academic prospects which he abandonded for a bohemian life. Fighting with the Maquis during the war. Little artistic success, but lots of relationships with women – and then the big breakthrough with Waiting for Godot. This is a stunning little book. Samuel Beckett selected criticism Buy the book here


In Beckett’s world, readers are clearly told everything except the things they are used to knowing. Thus, in Waiting for Godot, which was written in 1948 and published in French in 1952 and in English in 1953, it is clear that two tramps are waiting for Godot, that they return to their rendezvous night after night, that they fill up time with games and dialogues, and that Godot may make an immense difference to their lives. But who Godot may be and what difference he will make is never indicated. Beckett denied that Godot was a symbol for God and that any general scheme of systematic meanings underlay the work. Its mysteriousness is the deliberate instrument of the play’s disturbing power.

Endgame, possibly Beckett’s most remarkable single work, appears to be about the end of humanity. His later works include the plays Happy Days (1961), Not I (1973), That Time (1976), Rockaby (1981), and the novel How It Is (1964). These bleak, enigmatic works are unsettlingly funny. Their precision of style and extravagance of conception are hallmarks of a first-class comic writer.


Samuel Beckett – web links

Samuel Beckett web links Samuel Beckett at Mantex
Biographical notes, complete bibliography, selected criticism, book reviews, videos, and web links.

Samuel Beckett web links Resources Samuel Beckett Online Resources
This is a giant collection of papers, reviews, videos, journals. An old site, but packed with information. It looks very much like a labour of love by an enthusiast.

Samuel Beckett web links Exhibition Samuel Beckett Exhibition at University of Texas
Biograhical notes, manuscripts, mini-essays, a timeline, and illustrations.

Samuel Beckett web links The Samuel Beckett Endpage
Performances, illustrated journals, interviews, and conferences

Samuel Beckett web links Movies Samuel Beckett at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Some very rare examples of television films of Beckett’s shorter and less well known works. Full technical details of directors, actors, and production.

Samuel Beckett web links Samuel Beckett at Literary History.com
Collection of articles on literary criticism, plus reviews.

Samuel Beckett web links Echo’s Bones – a newly discovered story

Samuel Beckett web links Samuel Beckett – at Wikipedia
Life and career, Works, Collaborators, Legacy, Honours and awards, Selected works, Further reading, Web links.

© Roy Johnson 2005


More on Samuel Beckett
Twentieth century literature
More on biography


Filed Under: Samuel Beckett Tagged With: Biography, Critical studies, Literary studies, Modernism, Samuel Beckett

Thomas Hardy criticism

September 30, 2009 by Roy Johnson

annotated bibliography of Hardy criticism and comment

Thomas Hardy criticism is a collection of publications on Thomas Hardy and his works, with bibliographic details and a brief description of their contents. The details include active web links to Amazon where you can buy the books, often in a variety of formats – new, used, and as Kindle eBooks. The listings are arranged in alphabetical order of author.

The list includes new books and older publications which may now be considered rare. It also includes print-on-demand or Kindle versions of older texts which are much cheaper than the original. Others (including some new books) are often sold off at rock bottom prices. Whilst compiling these listings I bought a copy of Ian Gregor’s critical study, The Form of Hardy’s Major Fiction for one penny.

Thomas Hardy criticism


Thomas Hardy criticism The Poetry of Thomas Hardy: A Handbook and Commentary –
J.O. Bailey, The University of North Carolina Press, 1971. The complete poems, plus critical commentary.

Thomas Hardy criticism An Essay on Hardy – John Bayley, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. A critical assessment of the novels and the poetry, with an emphasis on eroticism and humour.

Thomas Hardy criticism Thomas Hardy and Women: Sexual Ideology and Narrative Form – Penny Boumelha, Barnes and Noble, 1982. A critical study of Hardy’s novels showing the relationship between gender and the telling of the tale.

Thomas Hardy criticism The Short Stories of Thomas Hardy – Kristin Brady, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1982. A critical introduction to the complete short stories.

Thomas Hardy criticism Thomas Hardy: The World of his Novels – J.B. Bullen, Frances Lincoln, 2013. A study of Hardy’s Wessex, exploring the buildings, places, and scenes that inspired his fiction.

Thomas Hardy criticism The Language of Thomas Hardy – Raymond Chapman, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990. A study of Hardy’s distinctive phraseology and sentence-structure in both the poetry and the fiction.

Thomas Hardy criticism Thomas Hardy: The Critical Heritage – R.G.Cox, London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1970. A collection of critical essays, showing the historical development of Hardy criticism.

Thomas Hardy criticism Ambivalence in Hardy: A Study of his Attitude to Women – Shanta Dutta, Anthem Press, 2010. Hardy’s attitudes to women in his fiction and in his interactions with his wives, literary protégées and contemporary female authors. Combines a feminist approach with close textual analysis.

Thomas Hardy criticism Sexing Hardy: Thomas Hardy and Feminism – Margaret Elvy, Crescent Moon Publishing, 2007. A study of gender, desire, class, economy, socialization, identity and patriarchy in Hardy’s fiction and poetry.

Thomas Hardy criticism Hardy the Creator: A Textual Biography – Simon Gattrel, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. The evolution of Hardy’s novels and stories from first draft to final revised texts as he took them through the process of dealings with magazine editors, publishers, and printers.

Thomas Hardy criticism The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy – James Gibson (ed), London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. A compendium of Hardy’s eight published books of poetry, plus critical notes.

Thomas Hardy criticism The Great Web: The Form of Hardy’s Major Fiction – I. Gregor, London: Faber & Faber, 1982. A critical study of the great later novels.

Thomas Hardy criticism The Life of Thomas Hardy – Florence Emily Hardy, Wordsworth Editions, 2007. This is more or less Hardy’ s autobiography, since he told his wife what to write.

Thomas Hardy criticism The Complete Critical Guide to Thomas Hardy – Geoffrey Harvey, London: Routledge, 2003. A student’s guide to Hardy – the man and his work in fiction and poetry.

Thomas Hardy criticism The Sense of Sex: Feminist Perspectives on Hardy – Margaret Higgonet (ed), Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. A collection of essays which offer an overview of feminist critiques of Hardy and his treatment of gender.

Thomas Hardy criticism Authors in Context: Thomas Hardy – Patricia Ingham, Oxford University Press, 2009. Social and political background to Hardy and his times, showing how modern interpretations on film and television create new contexts in which to read the works afresh.

Thomas Hardy criticism Thomas Hardy (Feminist Readings) – Patricia Ingham, Humanities Press International, 1989. Critical studies of sexuality and gender issues in the major novels.

Thomas Hardy criticism Reading Hardy’s Landscapes – Michael Irwin, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. A study of the importance of geography and physical topography in the stories, poems, and novels.

Thomas Hardy criticism The Feminist Sensibility in the Novels of Thomas Hardy – Margaret Kaur, Sarup & Son, 2005. Hardy’s presentation of women characters. Often dubbed anti-feminist, this study attempts to exonerate Hardy of this view.

Thomas Hardy criticism Thomas Hardy: The Forms of Tragedy – Dale Kramer, London: Macmillan, 1975. A chronological study of the major novels.

Thomas Hardy criticism The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy – Dale Kramer, Cambridge University Press, 1999. A collection of critical essays commissioned from specialists on all aspects of Hardy’s work.

Thomas Hardy criticism Thomas Hardy: Distance and Desire – J. Hillis Miller, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970. A critical study of the interrelation of the literary themes of distance and desire woven throughout the novels and poems.

Thomas Hardy criticism Thomas Hardy: His Career as a Novelist – Michael Millgate, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994. Critical readings of the novels in the context of Hardy’s intellectual background, his friendships and family relationships, and his evolution as a professional writer.

Thomas Hardy criticism Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited – Michael Millgate, Oxford University Press, 2006. This is the fully updated version of the definitive biography.

Thomas Hardy criticism Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy – Rosemarie Morgan, London: Routledge, 1988. Kindle version of an early feminist study of the major fiction.

Thomas Hardy criticism Student Companion to Thomas Hardy – Rosemarie. Morgan, Greenwood Press, 2006. This study explores Hardy’s life, his career, and most important and unconventional works, and why he abandoned novel-writing in favour of his first love – poetry.

Thomas Hardy criticism Seeing Hardy: Film and Television Adaptations of the Fiction of Thomas Hardy – Paul J. Nemeyer, McFarland & Co, 2002. A study of adaptations of the major novels for the cinema, plus television films and mini-series based on Hardy’s work.

Thomas Hardy criticism Thomas Hardy’s Personal Writings – Harold Orel (ed), London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1967. A collection of Hardy’s novel prefaces, his literary opinions, and reminiscences.

Thomas Hardy criticism The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Hardy – Norman Page, Oxford University Press, 2000. Forty essays by experts on all aspects of Hardy’s work – ranging from alcohol, humour, and pets, to the historical context in which he wrote.

Thomas Hardy criticism A Thomas Hardy Companion: A Guide to the Works of Thomas Hardy – F.B. Pinion, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1968. A general critical commentary on the major works and their social background.

Thomas Hardy criticism A Thomas Hardy Dictionary – F.B. Pinion, New York: New York University Press, 1993. Features architectural terms, the sources of quotations, identification of fictional characters, and the explanation of rare or rustic words.

Thomas Hardy criticism Thomas Hardy: A Bibliographical Study – Richard L. Purdy and Charles P.C. Pettit, The British Library Publishing Division, 2002. An important bibliography first published in 1954, and now supplemented by modern criticism and recent Hardy studies.

Thomas Hardy criticism Hardy’s Use of Allusion – Marlene Springer, London: Macmillan, 1983. A study of Hardy’s widespread use of allusions from classical, biblical, historical, and literary sources.

Thomas Hardy criticism The Neglected Hardy: Thomas Hardy’s Lesser Novels – Richard H. Taylor, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1982. A critical examination of the lesser-known novels.

Thomas Hardy criticism The Personal Notebooks of Thomas Hardy – Richard H. Taylor, Columbia University Press, 1979. Includes the unpublished passages from the original typescripts of the ‘Life of Thomas Hardy’.

Thomas Hardy criticism Thomas Hardy: The Time-torn Man – Clair Tomalin, London: Penguin, 2012. A biography of Hardy with emphasis on the death of his first wife and the curious marriage to his second.

Thomas Hardy criticism A Preface to Hardy – Merryn Williams, London: Longman, 1976. A readable and unexpectedly positive study of Hardy’s prose and verse.

Thomas Hardy criticism A Companion to Thomas Hardy – Keith Wilson, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. A collection of essays offering a one–volume resource which encompasses all aspects of Hardy’s major novels, short stories, and poetry.

Thomas Hardy criticism Thomas Hardy: Towards a Materialist Criticism – George Wooton, Barnes & Noble Books, 1985. Explores the historical, social, aesthetic and ideological determinants of Hardy’s novels.

© Roy Johnson 2015


The Complete Critical Guide to Thomas HardyThe Complete Critical Guide to Thomas Hardy is a good introduction to Hardy criticism. It includes a potted biography of Hardy, an outline of the stories, novels, and poetry, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from the early influential full length study by D.H. Lawrence to critics of the present day. Also includes a thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Hardy journals. These guides are very popular.


More on Thomas Hardy
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories


Filed Under: Thomas Hardy Tagged With: Critical studies, Critical theory, Literary studies, Thomas Hardy

Get in touch

info@mantex.co.uk

Content © Mantex 2016
  • About Us
  • Advertising
  • Clients
  • Contact
  • FAQ
  • Links
  • Services
  • Reviews
  • Sitemap
  • T & C’s
  • Testimonials
  • Privacy

Copyright © 2025 · Mantex

Copyright © 2025 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in