Dr Diane Duffy continues her exploration of Elizabeth Gaskell’s literary legacy.
This paper developed from an idea that Thomas Hardy could be viewed as a successor to Elizabeth Gaskell; someone who might be considered as part of that legacy.
Hardy was born in 1840, thirty years after Gaskell, yet much of his writing considers the same social issues and concerns: a sympathetic presentation of the working classes which he, like Gaskell, reflects in the use of dialect; the disruptive effects of the modern world on rural communities; and the contentious ‘Woman Question’.
This paper examines how Hardy and Gaskell treat these political issues in some of their major works: Gaskell’s Cousin Phillis and Wives and Daughters serialised in the Cornhill Magazine between 1863 and 1865 and Hardy’s first major novel, Far from the Madding Crowd serialised in the same magazine approximately ten years later. Finally, I examine the ways in which both novelists treat fallenness. Hardy presents a Ruth – like figure in the character of Tess Durbeyfield and therefore these two novels, Gaskell’s Ruth and Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, published thirty-eight years apart, allow us to examine and ultimately assess how, if at all, social attitudes to fallenness and female sexuality had changed over that period.
Everyone is most welcome to come along, members and non-members alike. Doors open at 1pm (feel free to bring a packed lunch) and the talk will begin at 1.30pm.
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