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  • Change has marked the face of all things: The problematic landscapes of Thomas Hardy

Boyd Davis, Stephen ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5391-4557, 2024, Book Section, Change has marked the face of all things: The problematic landscapes of Thomas Hardy In: Papadimitriou, Fivos ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6886-5340 and Kühne, Olaf ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1815-3745, (eds.) Deviant Landscapes. RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft . Springer, tbc-tbc. ISBN 978-3-031-75416-6 (In Press)

Abstract or Description:

An argument is developed concerning the role of landscape in the writings of Thomas Hardy. Two themes are reviewed and developed. One is Hardy’s rural landscape as a place of loss both to time and to industrialisation. The other is landscape as a site of projection of subjective states, including landscape as cruelly indifferent or treacherous. From this emerges the idea of landscape as deceiver, aligned with Hardy’s wider concern with illusion and reality. The overriding importance of visual perception, its multiple subjectivities, and its relation to depiction, is used to draw attention to the previously under-researched importance of Hardy’s practical, working experience of drawing, as trainee architect and throughout his life, in enabling him to add a significant further level to the notion of the deceptive and untrustworthy landscape.

The research for this invited chapter explored all of Hardy's fiction, a substantial body of Hardy criticism, and key sources in nineteenth century models of vision and perception. These were combined with Boyd Davis' practical and theoretical insights derived from the processes of drawing, picturing, diagramming and visualisation.

Official URL: https://link.springer.com/book/9783031754159
Subjects: Other > Linguistics > Q300 English studies > Q320 English Literature > Q322 English Literature by author
Creative Arts and Design > W100 Fine Art > W110 Drawing
School or Centre: School of Design
Identification Number or DOI: tbc
Uncontrolled Keywords: Landscape, Thomas Hardy, Rural, Loss, Subjectivity, Deception, Treachery, Perception, Depiction
Date Deposited: 19 Mar 2024 14:31
Last Modified: 26 Sep 2024 15:28
URI: https://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/id/eprint/5756
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