Return of the Native
Autor Thomas Hardyen Limba Engleză Paperback – 6 ian 2012
Subliniem, încă de la primele pagini, o structură narativă riguroasă, în care unitatea de timp și spațiu — un an și o zi pe întinderile pustii din Egdon Heath — conferă romanului o intensitate aproape teatrală. „The Return of the Native” marchează o etapă crucială în evoluția autorului, fiind lucrarea care cristalizează viziunea sa tragică asupra existenței. Spre deosebire de tonul mai optimist din Under the Greenwood Tree, aici notăm cu interes o explorare a conflictului dintre aspirațiile individuale și determinismul mediului social. Forța narativă a lui Thomas Hardy combinată cu sensibilitatea psihologică a unei Anne Brontë în The Tenant of Wildfell Hall oferă o perspectivă unică asupra condiției umane, dar cu un glas propriu, marcat de melancolia peisajului englez. Apreciem modul în care această ediție Wordsworth Classics este organizată, incluzând nu doar textul original din 1878, ci și hărți detaliate ale regiunii Wessex și reacții critice contemporane care plasează opera într-un context istoric viu. Dacă în Far From the Madding Crowd natura părea uneori un aliat, în acest roman Egdon Heath devine un personaj în sine, o forță implacabilă care dictează destinele celor care încearcă să o îmblânzească sau să o părăsească. Este o lucrare de maturitate care pregătește terenul pentru marile tragedii de mai târziu, precum Tess of the D'Urbervilles sau Jude the Obscure.
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Specificații
ISBN-10: 1617205389
Pagini: 354
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 21 mm
Greutate: 0.58 kg
Editura: SMK Books
De ce să citești această carte
Recomandăm acest roman cititorilor care caută o proză densă, de o frumusețe austeră, unde peisajul este la fel de viu ca personajele. Veți câștiga o înțelegere profundă a tragediei victoriene, explorând teme precum exilul interior și ciocnirea dintre tradiție și modernitate. Este o lectură esențială pentru a înțelege de ce Virginia Woolf l-a numit pe Hardy cel mai mare scriitor tragic al literaturii engleze.
Despre autor
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) a fost un romancier și poet englez de o importanță fundamentală, reprezentant al realismului victorian influențat de romantism. Deși s-a considerat în primă instanță poet, a atins celebritatea prin romanele sale plasate în regiunea semi-ficțională Wessex, precum The Mayor of Casterbridge și Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Opera sa este adesea critică la adresa societății victoriene, concentrându-se pe declinul comunităților rurale și pe luptele personajelor împotriva pasiunilor proprii și a circumstanțelor sociale rigide. Stilul său combină observația socială metodică cu o viziune filozofică profundă asupra sorții.
Descriere scurtă
Notă biografică
Textul de pe ultima copertă
Extras
The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment of night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was come: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood distinct in the sky. Looking upwards, a furze-cutter would have been inclined to continue work; looking down, he would have decided to finish his faggot and go home. The distant rims of the world and of the firmament seemed to be a division in time no less than a division in matter. The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half an hour to evening; it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon, anticipate the frowning of storms scarcely generated, and intensify the opacity of a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking dread.
In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and nobody could be said to understand the heath who had not been there at such a time. It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen, its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding hours before the next dawn: then, and only then, did it tell its true tale. The spot was, indeed, a near relation of night, and when night showed itself an apparent tendency to gravitate together could be perceived in its shades and the scene. The sombre stretch of rounds and hollows seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom in pure sympathy, the heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the heavens precipitated it. And so the obscurity in the air and the obscurity in the land closed together in a black fraternization towards which each advanced half-way.
The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other things sank brooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and listen. Every night its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it had waited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries, through the crises of so many things, that it could only be imagined to await one last crisis—the final overthrow.
Recenzii
The appendices to this Broadview edition place the novel in the context of Hardy’s career and the scientific and social ideas of the time. Documents include contemporary reviews, related writings by Hardy, and materials on biology, geology, and the “Woman Question.” Illustrations from the original serialization in Belgravia magazine and Hardy’s performance text of the mummers’ play are also included.
“Simon Avery’s edition of The Return of the Native, Hardy’s first great classic, provides a beautifully balanced, meticulously researched resource. Avery’s editorial approach is, in every respect, new and fresh—even in his interpretation of the novel’s denouement. Offering a wide range of critical perspectives, the compelling Introduction features a rich collection of viewpoints and critiques in a manner so informative, compact, and stylish that exploration becomes the modus operandi within and beyond the plot. In turn, the appendices at the end of the book complement the contextualising of the Introduction and footnotes. A selection of Hardy’s other writings in prose and poetry adds textual weight and structural balance overall.” — Rosemarie Morgan, University of St. Andrews
“Simon Avery has edited Hardy’s The Return of the Native with great skill: his footnotes are detailed and extensive without becoming intrusive; his bibliography of further reading selects judiciously from old and new materials; and he gives a generous range of contemporary materials to help contextualise the book. Alongside the unmistakable nineteenth-century concerns present in Hardy’s novel, Avery alerts us to less well-known ones, illuminating in particular Hardy’s depiction of Eustacia Vye, who can be seen from this edition as a precursor to Sue Bridehead, the proto-feminist of Jude the Obscure. Distinctively too, Avery includes a selection of Hardy’s poetry, helpfully breaking down the barrier between Hardy the novelist and Hardy the poet. In all respects, the volume continues the excellent standard of Broadview Hardy editions.” — Ralph Pite, Bristol University
Descriere
The Return of the Native was a radical departure for Thomas Hardy, ushering in his tragic literary vision of the world. Though set in a small space (Egdon Heath in the fictional county of Wessex) and short time (the main action spans a year and a day), the novel addresses the broad social and intellectual upheavals of the Victorian age. Much of this turmoil is embodied in the character of Eustacia Vye, the novel’s wilful female protagonist. A complex, independent young woman, Eustacia is a sympathetic but ultimately tragic figure, the epitome of what the narrator calls the “irrepressible New.”
The appendices to this Broadview edition place the novel in the context of Hardy’s career and the scientific and social ideas of the time. Documents include contemporary reviews, related writings by Hardy, and materials on biology, geology, and the “Woman Question.” Illustrations from the original serialization in Belgravia magazine and Hardy’s performance text of the mummers’ play are also included.
Cuprins
Introduction
Thomas Hardy: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
The Return of the Native
Appendix A: Prefaces and Maps
- The Preface to the 1895 Wessex Novels Edition
- The Postscript added to the 1912 Wessex Edition
- From the General Preface to the Novels and Poems (1912)
- Map of Egdon Heath (1878)
- Map of Wessex (1895)
- From The Athenaeum (23 November 1878)
- Hardy’s response to the Athenaeum review (30 November 1878)
- From W.E. Henley, The Academy (30 November 1878)
- From the Saturday Review (4 January 1879)
- From the Spectator (8 February 1879)
- From the New Quarterly Magazine (October 1879)
- From Havelock Ellis, “Thomas Hardy’s Novels,” Westminster Review (April 1883)
- Positivism: from Auguste Comte, System of Positive Polity (1851−54; trans. 1875−76)
- The Individual and Freedom: from John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)
- The Woman Question: from John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies (1865) and John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (1869)
- Hedonism and Modernity: from Walter Pater, Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873)
- From Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology (1830−33)
- From Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859)
- From Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology (1864−67)
- From Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)
- A Selection of Hardy’s Poetry
- Hap
- At a Bridal
- Neutral Tones
- Nature’s Questioning
- An August Midnight
- The Dead Man Walking
- By the Barrows
- The Roman Road
- The Moth-Signal
- The Oxen
- Welcome Home
- The Graveyard of Dead Creeds
- Domicilium
- From “The Dorsetshire Labourer” (1883)
- From “The Profitable Reading of Fiction” (1888)
- From “Candour in English Fiction” (1890)
- From The Life of Thomas Hardy (1928; 1930)
Appendix G: Arthur Hopkins’s Illustrations for the Monthly Serialization of Belgravia (1878)
Select Bibliography