The End of the Farm? Thomas Hardy’s Agricultural Vision
In his depictions of rural life in semi-fictional Wessex, Thomas Hardy has sometimes been charged with romanticising rural life and portraying the pastoral instead of the real. His characters frequently inhabit agricultural communities, which form the basis of their lives and livelihoods. In tension...
Sábháilte in:
| Foilsithe in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/fathom, |
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| Príomhchruthaitheoir: | |
| Formáid: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Teanga: | Anglais |
| Foilsithe / Cruthaithe: |
FATHOM
2023
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| Ábhair: | |
| Rochtain ar líne: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:fathom_2268 |
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openedition |
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OpenEdition Journal |
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Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
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0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| topic |
ecocriticism capitalism green studies ecology agriculture scale farm industrialisation écologie capitalisme éco-critique environnement études environnementales agriculture échelle ferme industrialisation |
| spellingShingle |
ecocriticism capitalism green studies ecology agriculture scale farm industrialisation écologie capitalisme éco-critique environnement études environnementales agriculture échelle ferme industrialisation West, Anna The End of the Farm? Thomas Hardy’s Agricultural Vision |
| description |
In his depictions of rural life in semi-fictional Wessex, Thomas Hardy has sometimes been charged with romanticising rural life and portraying the pastoral instead of the real. His characters frequently inhabit agricultural communities, which form the basis of their lives and livelihoods. In tension with the pastoral, romanticised village is the recognition of agriculture as a capitalist venture: Hardy’s writings capture the end of the old sense of land as a natural relative and the shift to land as an exploitable resource. With the industrialisation of agriculture in the late nineteenth century, the scale on which farming took place increased, both in the working of the land and in the raising of domesticated animals for consumption. This essay will attempt to mobilize a reading of Hardy’s agricultural vision in the context of changes to farming that have contributed to the current ecological crisis, with the goal of defamiliarizing the familiar concept of the farm by way of the alterity of the present – a present that has been in development for over 150 years. Hardy’s writings offer a dual perspective of the farm. Through one end of the telescope appears the sheep-shearing barn of Far from the Madding Crowd, a symbol of the farm’s enduring power as an entity transcending politics and religion, as steadfast as the human need for sustenance that drives an ongoing relationship with the soil, an image that feels familiar, close. Flip that telescope around, and one sees the weather-beaten barn that Jude climbs as a useful vantage point to look toward Christminster, an infinite distance between him and the farmland around him. Between these two barns, Hardy’s fiction depicts a moving picture of the emerging mismatch of functional scale between human and machine, the mechanisation of human and animal bodies – and the rendering of the landscape as an industrial resource and product – that launched a fundamental shift in what one might think of as the farm. |
| author |
West, Anna |
| author_facet |
West, Anna |
| author_sort |
West, Anna |
| title |
The End of the Farm? Thomas Hardy’s Agricultural Vision |
| title_short |
The End of the Farm? Thomas Hardy’s Agricultural Vision |
| title_full |
The End of the Farm? Thomas Hardy’s Agricultural Vision |
| title_fullStr |
The End of the Farm? Thomas Hardy’s Agricultural Vision |
| title_full_unstemmed |
The End of the Farm? Thomas Hardy’s Agricultural Vision |
| title_sort |
end of the farm? thomas hardy’s agricultural vision |
| publisher |
FATHOM |
| publishDate |
2023 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/fathom |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/fathom.2268 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/fathom/2268 |
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1877292803186229248 |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:fathom_2268 https://doi.org/10.4000/fathom.2268 urn:doi:10.4000/fathom.2268 en https://journals.openedition.org/fathom/2268 2023-05-18T02:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/gajz All rights reserved The End of the Farm? Thomas Hardy’s Agricultural Vision FATHOM Association française sur les études sur Thomas Hardy info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2270-6798 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/fathom West, Anna ecocriticism capitalism green studies ecology agriculture scale farm industrialisation écologie capitalisme éco-critique environnement études environnementales agriculture échelle ferme industrialisation In his depictions of rural life in semi-fictional Wessex, Thomas Hardy has sometimes been charged with romanticising rural life and portraying the pastoral instead of the real. His characters frequently inhabit agricultural communities, which form the basis of their lives and livelihoods. In tension with the pastoral, romanticised village is the recognition of agriculture as a capitalist venture: Hardy’s writings capture the end of the old sense of land as a natural relative and the shift to land as an exploitable resource. With the industrialisation of agriculture in the late nineteenth century, the scale on which farming took place increased, both in the working of the land and in the raising of domesticated animals for consumption. This essay will attempt to mobilize a reading of Hardy’s agricultural vision in the context of changes to farming that have contributed to the current ecological crisis, with the goal of defamiliarizing the familiar concept of the farm by way of the alterity of the present – a present that has been in development for over 150 years. Hardy’s writings offer a dual perspective of the farm. Through one end of the telescope appears the sheep-shearing barn of Far from the Madding Crowd, a symbol of the farm’s enduring power as an entity transcending politics and religion, as steadfast as the human need for sustenance that drives an ongoing relationship with the soil, an image that feels familiar, close. Flip that telescope around, and one sees the weather-beaten barn that Jude climbs as a useful vantage point to look toward Christminster, an infinite distance between him and the farmland around him. Between these two barns, Hardy’s fiction depicts a moving picture of the emerging mismatch of functional scale between human and machine, the mechanisation of human and animal bodies – and the rendering of the landscape as an industrial resource and product – that launched a fundamental shift in what one might think of as the farm. Dans ses descriptions de la vie rurale de son “Wessex” semi-fictionnel, Thomas Hardy a parfois été accusé de verser dans le romantisme et la pastorale plutôt que de représenter le réel. Ses personnages vivent souvent dans des communautés sur lesquelles se fondent leur existence et leurs moyens de subsistance. Le village pastoral, romantique, est en opposition avec la reconnaissance de l’agriculture comme entreprise capitaliste : les textes de Hardy saisissent la fin de ce sentiment ancestral d’une parenté naturelle avec la terre et le passage à une vision de la terre comme ressource exploitable. En s’industrialisant à la fin du dix-neuvième siècle, l’agriculture va se pratiquer désormais sur une plus grande échelle, aussi bien pour le travail de la terre que pour l’élevage des animaux destinés à la consommation. Cet article propose une lecture de la vision de Hardy sur l’agriculture dans le contexte de mutations qui ont contribué à la crise écologique contemporaine, dans le but de défamiliariser le concept familier de la ferme en montrant l’altérité du présent — présent qui se développe depuis plus de cent-cinquante ans. Les écrits de Hardy donnent à voir une double perspective de la ferme. D’un côté apparaît la grange où sont tondus les moutons dans Far from the Madding Crowd, symbole de la persistance d’une image de la ferme comme une entité qui transcende la politique et la religion, aussi inébranlable que le besoin humain de se nourrir qui maintient une relation avec la terre – image qui paraît familière. Le point de vue inverse révèle la grange battue par les vents qu’escalade Jude pour contempler Christminster au loin, une distance infinie le séparant de la terre agricole qui l’entoure. Entre ces deux granges, la fiction de Hardy montre l’image en mouvement de l’émergence d’un désaccord fonctionnel entre l’humain et la machine, la mécanisation du corps des hommes et des animaux – et la transformation du paysage en ressource et produit industriels – qui ont lancé une mutation fondamentale de la ferme telle qu’on la conçoit. |