Thomas Hardy and Contemporary Literary Studies

TIM ARMSTRONG Reader in Modern English and American Literature, Royal Holloway, University of London, UKGUY DAVIDSON Teaches in the English Studies and Communications and Cultural Studies Programs, University of Wollongong, AustraliaSIMON DURING Teaches at Johns Hopkins University, USATERRY EAGLETON Professor of Cultural Theory and John Rylands Fellow, Department of English and American Studies, University of Manchester, UKROGER EBBATSON Visiting Professor at Loughborough University, UKMICHAEL HOLLINGTON Professor at the University of Toulouse-Le Mirail, FranceJ. HILLIS MILLER UCI Distinguished Research Professor, University of California at Irvine, 1986BRETT NEILSON Lecturer, School of Humanities, University of Western Sydney, AustraliaMARY RIMMER Professor of English, University of New Brunswick, CanadaLINDA M. SHIRES Professor of English, Syracuse University

• Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors A Note on Texts Used Introduction: Hardy and Literary Studies at the Turn of the Century; T.Dolin & P.Widdowson Flesh and Spirit in Thomas Hardy; T.Eagleton Hardy and the Limits of Culturalism; G.Davidson Speech Acts, Decisions, and Community in The Mayor of Casterbridge; J.Hillis Miller Hardy or James? Thoughts on Academic Literary Discrimination Today; S.During Hardy, Barbarism and the Transformations of Modernity; B.Neilson A Laodicean : Hardy and the Philosophy of Money; R.Ebbatson Story, History, Allegory: Some Ironies of Jude the Obscure from a Benjamin Perspective; M.Hollington The Contemporary, the All: Liberal Politics and the Origins of Wessex; T.Dolin 'Saying that now you are not as you were': Hardy's 'Poems of 1912-13'; L.M.Shires Hardy, History and Recorded Music; T.Armstrong Hardy and Contemporary Textual Studies: Authorial Intention in The Trumpet-Major; M.Rimmer Thomas Hardy at the End of Two Centuries: From Page to Screen; P.Widdowson Works Cited Index

'The excellence of this collection lies in its achieving its two central aims: to provide 'theoretical demonstrations' - examples or models of reading Hardy's stories and poems in light of a variety of critical theories - and, while doing so, to analyze important characteristic features of the stories and poems. The result is a series of always lucid, frequently brilliant, essays by well-known English, Australian, and American writers. While adopting famous theoretical concepts with a skill that will allow students to see the grounds for their approaches, the authors bring to bear on Hardy remarkable insight and originality that will reward the professional reader and enthusiast.' - Dale Kramer, Professor of English Emeritus, University of Illinois