The Silencing of the Attempting Pen in Four of Hardy’s Works
Silence represents for Hardy the primordial scene. It is inflicted on his first novel The Poor Man and the Lady which was rejected on account of its so-called “radical satire of society” (Meredith). From then on, silence will take the form of censorship and will compel Hardy to “mutilate” his texts....
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| Izdano u: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/fathom, |
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| Glavni autor: | |
| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Jezik: | Anglais |
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FATHOM
2013
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| Teme: | |
| Online pristup: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sažetak: | Silence represents for Hardy the primordial scene. It is inflicted on his first novel The Poor Man and the Lady which was rejected on account of its so-called “radical satire of society” (Meredith). From then on, silence will take the form of censorship and will compel Hardy to “mutilate” his texts. On the other hand, silence, that is the prudery and hypocrisy of Victorian society as applied to authors and their fiction, is also what Hardy relentlessly denounces. His vision of the writing artist who “expresses truly the views of life prevalent” in a given time is at cross purposes with that of publishers and the reading public for whom the only good writer keeps silent on a few unwelcome topics. Quite interestingly, all but one of the few writing artists in Hardy’s fiction are women, as if women were the best possible figures to exemplify the plight of the silenced writer in a puritan society. Even worthier of consideration is the fact that these four women artists share masculine attributes whereas the only man writer has conspicuous feminine characteristics. It seems that beyond his understanding of women’s struggle to be heard in an oppressively patriarchal society and his sense of the parallel attempt of the writing artist to prevent the silencing of his or her voice by the same constraining powers, Hardy is voicing his own personal view of the writing artist as an ungendered figure: what matters is not the artist’s gender but the speaking voice. In this regard, Hardy anticipates universalist thinkers of modern times and actively participates in the contemporary debate opposing differentialists to universalists. His modern and subversive vision of literature and the writing artist has travelled through time to us, and this is where his victory against the forces of silence is. |
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