Silence, Secrecy and Sacredness in Hardy’s Fiction
For Hardy the professed agnostic, silence may correspond to the absence of speech or of divine signs. In that case, the connection between silence and the sacred might not seem obvious at first sight.Yet though silence, which is highly significant in each Hardy novel, constitutes on many occasions a...
Guardado en:
| Publicado en: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/fathom, |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lenguaje: | Anglais |
| Publicado: |
FATHOM
2013
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sumario: | For Hardy the professed agnostic, silence may correspond to the absence of speech or of divine signs. In that case, the connection between silence and the sacred might not seem obvious at first sight.Yet though silence, which is highly significant in each Hardy novel, constitutes on many occasions an abyssal or labyrinthic void, it also appears as a coherent and constructive interval. Silence and the secrets it harbours sometimes play an essential part in the organic structure of the novel, connecting the different parts of the narrative into a consistent whole. In such silent interstices one may sometimes find the presence of sacred or highly religious elements as well as the sense of a perfect epistemological order. This is often carried forth by the presence of death, a systematic concern of Hardy’s. The episode around Fanny’s coffin in Far from the Madding Crowd and the baptismal rite in Tess thus both illustrate that interconnection between silence, secrecy, and sacredness.The article aims at examining the links between the three notions and at understanding how the sacredness depicted by Hardy is not of a strictly religious or theological sort, but is rather paradoxically rooted in the human and the secular. |
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