Thomas Hardy, Sensationalism, and the Melodramatic Mode

by Nemesvari, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780230621466
• ISBN10: 0230621465
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-04-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Thomas Hardy, Sensationalism, and the Melodramatic Modeprovides the first full-length study of sensationalist and melodramatic elements in Hardy's novels. Through a discussion of six of Hardy's texts, this book demonstrates the ways in which he uses the melodramatic mode to advance his critique of established Victorian cultural beliefs through the employment of non-realistic plot devices and sensational "excess."

Author Biography

Richard Nemesvari is a Professor of English and Dean of Arts at St. Francis Xavier University. He is the editor of Thomas Hardy's The Trumpet-Major and Charlotte Bront's Jane Eyre. Along with his work on Hardy, he has published on Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, Emily Bront, Joseph Conrad, and Ellen Wood. His most recent essays on Hardy have appeared in two collections: the Ashgate Research Companion to Thomas Hardy and the Blackwell Companion to Thomas Hardy.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Thomas Hardy and the Melodramatic Imagination * Part 1: Melodramas of Masculinity – Desperate Remedies and The Mayor of Casterbridge * “‘I love you better than any man can’”: Sensation Fiction, Class, and Gender Role Anxiety in Desperate Remedies * “‘No man ever loved another as I did thee’”: Melodrama, Masculinity, and the Moral Occult (I) in The Mayor of Casterbridge * Part 2: Sensational Bodies, Melodramatic Spectacles – Far from the Madding Crowd and A Laodicean * “‘Kiss me too, Frank….You will Frank kiss me too!’”: Sensationalism, Surveillance,  and Gazing at the Body in Far from the Madding Crowd * “‘A mixed young lady, rather’”: Melodrama, Technology, and Dis/Embodied Sensation in A Laodicean * Part 3: Melodramas of Modernity and Class Status – The Hand of Ethelberta and Jude the Obscure * “‘Lady – not a penny less than lady’”: Social Satire, Melodrama, and the Sensational Fiction of Class Status in The Hand of Ethelberta * “‘Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery?’”: Sensationalist Tragedy, Melodramatic Modernity, and the Moral Occult (II) in Jude the Obscure * Conclusion: Hardy, the Melodramatic Mode, and Victorian Fiction