SEXING HARDY: THOMAS HARDY AND FEMINISM There are surprisingly few feminist analyses of the work of British novelist Thomas Hardy, and most do not get beyond vague notions of sexism and misogynism, in the Kate Millett and second wave feminist manner. Margaret Elvy's book, however, uses up-to-date research in the fields of cultural studies, feminist poetics, gay, lesbian and queer theory. This new, postmodern and incisive exploration of Thomas Hardy offers an exciting and radical reappraisal of the discourses of gender, desire, class, economy, socialization, identity and patriarchy in his fiction and poetry. This new edition of Sexing Hardy includes a new introduction and a new bibliography. EXTRACT FORM CHAPTER ONE: "THOMAS HARDY AND FEMINISM" Is Thomas Hardy a feminist? Are Thomas Hardy's works feminist? How much do his works reflect and bolster the patriarchal attitudes and beahviour of his era, and how much do they question them? What is the relation between Hardy and the feminists of his time? And what is the link between Hardy's works and the feminism of the early 21st century? Thomas Hardy's theme is what you might call 'Wessexuality', 'Wes-sex-mania', Wessexual politics. Hardy's works are sexist, patriarchal and masculinist, and yet they question notions of sexism, gender, identity, patriarchy and masculinism. A text such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles is 'traditional', and follows patriarchal codes and morals. Yet it also questions them, and offers a number of feminist critiques of late 19th century society. In his letters, Thomas Hardy proposed feminist views; he wrote to feminists such as the suffragette leader Millicent Fawcett that a child was the mother's own business, not the father's (Collected Letters, 3, 238). One can see these feminist sentiments in, for example, Hardy's treatment of Tess in her motherhood: she works in the fields just a few weeks after the birth, even though she is melancholy (she seems to be suffering a mild form of post-natal depression). Tess further subverts patriarchy by taking her child's baptism into her own hands. She goes against her father, the vicar, and the whole church with her self-made baptism. [...] Thomas Hardy's novels were not always received favourably by women critics and readers. Hardy's own views, expressed outside of the novels, did not always square with those of feminists of the 1880s and 1890s. The ideological gap between Hardy and the women critics and feminists of the late 19th century is illustrated by Hardy's remark to Edmund Yates (in 1891): 'many of my novels have suffered so much from misrepresentation as being attacks on womankind' (Collected Letters, I, 250). Hardy hoped that works such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles would redress the balance.

This book covers the range of Thomas Hardy's works while providing a comprehensive introduction to his life and times.

In The Ashgate Research Companion to Thomas Hardy, some of the most prominent Hardy specialists working today offer an overview of Hardy scholarship and suggest new directions in Hardy studies. The contributors cover virtually every area relevant to Hardy's fiction and poetry, including philosophy, palaeontology, biography, science, film, popular culture, beliefs, gender, music, masculinity, tragedy, topography, psychology, metaphysics, illustration, bibliographical studies and contemporary response. While several collections have surveyed the Hardy landscape, no previous volume has been composed especially for scholars and advanced graduate students. This companion is specially designed to aid original research on Hardy and serve as the critical basis for Hardy studies in the new millennium. Among the features are a comprehensive bibliography that includes not only works in English but, in acknowledgment of Hardy's explosion in popularity around the world, also works in languages other than English.

Focusing on narrative structure, irony, satire and allusion, The Hidden Hardy offers a radical new perspective on Thomas Hardy's novels. Hardy's own accounts of himself and his work have long been seen as calculated impostures; it is argued here that the same qualities are not only present in his novels, but are critical factors in the way they are made. The respectable and acceptable surfaces are the impostures, masking hidden texts which are extremely hostile to established social, economic and cultural structures.

Charts the emergence of a new kind of heterosexual rhetoric in eighteenth-century British literature, providing a nuanced reinterpretation of gender and its role in the major genres of the period.

Now updated with groundbreaking research, this award-winning classic examines the construction of sexual identity in biology, society, and history. Why do some people prefer heterosexual love while others fancy the same sex? Is sexual identity biologically determined or a product of convention? In this brilliant and provocative book, the acclaimed author of Myths of Gender argues that even the most fundamental knowledge about sex is shaped by the culture in which scientific knowledge is produced. Drawing on astonishing real-life cases and a probing analysis of centuries of scientific research, Fausto-Sterling demonstrates how scientists have historically politicized the body. In lively and impassioned prose, she breaks down three key dualisms -- sex/gender, nature/nurture, and real/constructed -- and asserts that individuals born as mixtures of male and female exist as one of five natural human variants and, as such, should not be forced to compromise their differences to fit a flawed societal definition of normality.