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THOMAS HARDY AND THE CHURCH

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Thomas Hardy and the Church

Jan J^drzejewski Lecturer in English University of Ulster

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First published in Great Britain 1996 by

MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basings toke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and represen tatives throughout the world

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library .

ISBN 978-1-349-39527-9 ISBN 978-0-230-37827-8 (eBook) DOI10.1057/9780230378278

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First published in the United States of America 1996 by

ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N .Y. 10010

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data j~drzejewsl<i , jan . Thomas Hardy and the church I jan jE:drzejewski . p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Hardy, Thomas, 1840--1928---Religion. 2. Christianity and literature- England-History-19th century. 3. Christian fiction, English-History and criticism. 4. Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928-­-Characters-Ciergy. 5. Church architecture in literature. 6. Sacraments in literature. 7. Churches in literature. 8. Church in literature. 9. Clergy in literature. 1. Title. PR4757.R4j43 1996 823' .8---dc20 95-8582

©jan JE:drzejewski 1996 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1996 978-0-333-64025-8

All rights reserved . No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the term s of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WI P 9HE.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

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Cll'

Moim Rodzicom

Enkindled by my votive work No burning faith I find

Thomas Hardy, The Church-Builder7

Contents

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Hardy's Religious Biography

Architecture and Literature: Hardy's Churches

Religion as Spectacle: Hardy and Christian Ritual

Hardy's Clerical Characters

Conclusion

Notes

Index

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1

7

56

120

170

211

215

230

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List of Abbreviations

AN The Architectural Notebook of Thomas Hardy, ed. C.J.P. Beatty (Dorchester: Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1966).

CL The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, ed. R.L. Purdy and MMillgate, 7 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978-88).

LN The Literary Notebooks of Thomas Hardy, ed. L.A .Bjork, 2 vol(London: Macmillan, 1985).

LW The Life and Works of Thomas Hardy by Thomas Hardy, ed. M. Millgate (London: Macmillan, 1984).

PN The Personal Notebooks of Thomas Hardy, ed. R.H. Taylor (London: Macmillan, 1978).

PW Thomas Hardy's Personal Writings: Prefaces, Literary Opinions, Reminiscences, ed. H. Orel (London: Macmillan, 1967).

Unless specifically stated, all quotes from Hardy's works are taken from Macmillan's New Wessex Edition (1974-8), which is based on the 1912 Wessex Edition.

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Acknowledgements

Among the great many people whose help and support have made it possible for me to write this book, may I first of all thank Professor John Bayley, the supervisor of the research project from which this study has developed; his kindness, patience, and sense of humour made my work on Hardy not only an intellectual adventure, but also a genuine pleasure. I am most grateful for the invaluable advice and encouragement, academic and otherwise, that I have had, at various stages of my work, from Professor John Carey, Professor Irena Janicka-Swiderska, Professor Norman Page, Dr Zbigniew Pelczynski, Professor Andrew Sanders, Dr Nicholas Shrimpton, Professor Adela Styczyriska, and Professor Robert Welch. I owe thanks to the University of Lodz, Poland, where I first developed an interest in Victorian literature in general and in Hardy in particular, to the University of Oxford, and specifically to the Provost and Fellows of Worcester College, where I did most of my research, and to the University of Ulster, where the book eventually took its final form. I acknowledge with gratitude the generous financial assistance I have received from the Soros Foundation and from the Ministry of National Education in Warsaw, as well as from Lodz, Oxford, and Ulster. My friends in Poland, England, and Northern Ireland, too many to be named, have always been there for me to rely on; the most faithful of them, as ever, have been my parents and my sister.

I am grateful to Macmillan for permission to quote from the Hardy material still in copyright, particularly from Michael Millgate's edition of The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy and from Lennart A. Bjork's edition of The Literary Notebooks of Thomas Hardy. Oxford University Press have kindly granted me permission to quote from The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, edited by Richard Little Purdy and Michael Millgate (1978-88). A section of Chapter 4 appeared as 'Clerical Characters in Hardy's Fiction' in The Thomas Hardy Year Book, no. 20 (1992); I owe thanks to Mr Gregory Stevens Cox for permission to reprint it here.

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