Read 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' many years ago (in the early 1980s to be precise). Had first read 'The Return of the Native' and 'Far from the Madding Crowd', and then a good friend bought me 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' for my 18th birthday.
A few years ago, I also got to see the 2008 BBC serial production of 'Tess' in which Gemma Arterton plays an incredible starring role (just how my mind's eye has always imagined Tess). This allowed me to revisualise things and reflect on the deeper meanings of the novel again.
Found these great pictures of the 'May Dance' scene from the BBC 2008 production on the Internet. Just read that in Victorian times, the May Dance was mainly associated with maidenhood and purity, while in pagan times, the emphasis was more on the excitement of upcoming sexual activity and fertility (of course, regarding the latter things, poor Tess suffers a terribly cruel fate/destiny).
Hence, in Hardy's portrayal of a genuinely pure and noble woman of humble origins, I think that the May Dance scene presents Tess' innocence and naivete tinged with a strong instinct for future romantic/sexual adventure. For me, this is the kind of thing that makes Thomas Hardy as a 3rd person, omniscient-type narrator great: it's the way he sets out and presents the subtlety; beauty; sentience; and tragedy of human emotion and experience. That even with all this profundity, wrapped up in their destinies, people are bound and programmed to fail due to the more powerful conditions and forces that they encounter around them.
Really must fulfil my obligation to do a pilgrimage to Hardy's Wessex (Dorset) soon to pay homage to this great writer:
Below, somebody has wonderfully juxtaposed Kate Rusby's 'I Am Stretched on Your Grave' (a 17th century Irish poem) with some of the later scenes from 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles', so now, whenever I think of Tess and her cruel fate, this incredibly moving tune enters my head:
And below, you can listen to Ann Briggs' 'The Snows They Melt the Soonest' with fast-moving scenes from the BBC 2008 production:
The last shot of Angel Clare looking down towards the city to see the black flag confirming Tess' death by hanging still hits me badly in the spleen, no matter how many times I see it.
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