1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910255243403321

Autore

Dillion Jacqueline

Titolo

Thomas Hardy: Folklore and Resistance / / by Jacqueline Dillion

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London : , : Palgrave Macmillan UK : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2016

ISBN

9781137503206

1137503203

Edizione

[1st ed. 2016.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (VII, 206 p.)

Disciplina

809.034

Soggetti

Literature, Modern - 19th century

European literature

Fiction

Literature - History and criticism

Nineteenth-Century Literature

European Literature

Fiction Literature

Literary History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Belief: Overlooking, Sympathetic Magic, Hag-riding, and South’s Tree -- 3. Acts of Disapproval: Skimmington Riding -- 4. Acts of Approval: The Portland Custom -- 5. Winter Customs: Bonfire Night and Mumming -- 6. Summer Customs: May Day and Midsummer Divination -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Appendix: Illustrations -- Index.-.

Sommario/riassunto

This book reassesses Hardy’s fiction in the light of his prolonged engagement with the folklore and traditions of rural England. Drawing on wide research, it demonstrates the pivotal role played in the novels by such customs and beliefs as ‘overlooking’, hag-riding, skimmington-riding, sympathetic magic, mumming, bonfire nights, May Day celebrations, Midsummer divination, and the ‘Portland Custom.’ This study shows how such traditions were lived out in practice in village life, and how they were represented in written texts –



in literature, newspapers, county histories, folklore books, the work of the Folklore Society, archival documents, and letters. It explores tensions between Hardy’s repeated insistence on the authenticity of his accounts and his engagement with contemporary anthropologists and folklorists, and reveals how his efforts to resist their ‘excellently neat’ categories of culture open up wider questions about the nature of belief, progress, and social change.