I'm currently reading this great (Edinburgh University Press) book about Thomas Hardy's four anthologies of short stories: 'Wessex Tales'; 'A Group of Noble Dames'; 'Life's Little Ironies'; and 'A Changed Man'.
Having read these four anthologies over the past 18 months or so, I needed to get hold of some literary criticism on them, and, thus far, 'Thomas Hardy's Shorter Fiction: A Critical Study' by Sophie Gilmartin and Rod Mengham has not disappointed me.
So far, I've read the first chapter on 'Wessex Tales' and I'm now just starting the following chapter on a 'A Group of Noble Dames'. Despite not being too far through the book, I believe that I've already become more sensitised to many thematic, stylistic and sociological concerns in Hardy's writing which include points about:
* Hardy's cinematic-type writing style (telescopic-type view of the world) often focusing on minute details through an intermittent zooming in on and away from central characters, action, and settings
* 'The Withered Arm' giving a sense of what unfenced existence was like in pre-Enclosure England/ Britain (Hardy's vision of Wessex does not recognise the boundaries of the six counties that lie within it, of course)
* 'The Three Strangers' and 'The Withered Arm' allowing the modern reader to glimpse the ghoulish ritualistic nature of the pre-1868 'Hang Fairs', and the macabre prestige that accompanied the hangman's occupation
* 'The Three Strangers' in particular being set at a time of political awakening in 19th century England/Britain (the Tolpuddle Martyrs; Chartism etc. - Tolpuddle only being a few miles from where Hardy was raised at Higher Bockhampton, of course)
* Rhoda Brook's dark, mystical, witch-like control over and deep jealousy of Gertrude Lodge (in 'The Withered Arm') being obviously caused by Farmer Lodge's betrayal, with the latter resulting in Rhoda recognising that she has lost the sexual gaze of a man or even men in general (which amounts to her sensing the loss of her personal beauty) and her and her son becoming poverty-stricken outcasts
* Gertrude's mysterious withered arm (from Rhoda in a dream) symbolically representing Rhoda's impoverished state being passed onto Gertrude
* Hardy's work often raising an interesting contrast between characters attempting to become socially mobile through a rise in social class and education, and poor, agricultural people feeling empowered through an ongoing adherence to folk-type superstition
* Hardy's technique of a 3rd person "frame narrator" handing the narrative over to an old, rural 1st person narrator in 'A Tradition of 1804' which offers a real sense of local Wessex people recalling their fear of the threat of invasion during Napoleonic times (this reflects Hardy's love of recording local culture which is in danger of disappearing from living memory)
* 'The Melancholy Hussar' also reflecting Hardy's desire to resuscitate old oral stories in a bid to stop local culture from getting lost in time
* Phyllis Grove from 'The Melancholy Hussar' and Marty South from 'The Woodlanders' (one of my favourite Hardy novels) sharing the same status of being devotees at the gravesides of their deceased loved ones
* Hardy's recurring theme of humans intermittently experiencing magical interludes (interstices of the sublime) that appear (almost) outside time and break up more frequent periods of personal suffering, but which are inevitably destroyed by harsh and/or hum-drum reality (this kind of thinking is pivotal to understanding Hardy's tragic, fatalistic view of life, I think)
* Barnet showing great nobility of character (in 'Fellow Townsmen') when accepting his alloted path in life (the ultra-quick loss of a profound interlude from reality due to his friend getting to marry the woman Barnet loved and very briefly expected to marry)
* Barnet representing a common theme in Hardy's work of a character stoically withdrawing from any meaningful emotional life (of passion and suffering) after the death of a magical interlude that had temporarily offered more from life
* The loss of the Barnet name in Port-Bredy representing Hardy's common thematic concern with the loss of human trace in historical time (of course, this is a central concern in 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles')
* Hardy's common thematic focus on sexual rivalry between women having been prompted by the mid-19th century situation in England/Britain where more women were available for marriage than men, which also produced the stigma of unmarried women having to work and fend for themselves under harsh conditions
* Hardy often situating sexual rivalry between women in remote, rural places where men of higher social class (who are to be aspired towards) are scarce in number
* Sally Hall's refusual to take part in female sexual rivalry (in 'Interlopers at the Knap') making her a kind of heroic figure, as she expresses unique female individuality in rejecting Farmer Darton's offer of marriage because she is happy as she is (not being married, gaining gradual social mobility through the merit of her own expanding dairy business)
* Lizzy Newberry's passion for her smuggling lifestyle being greater than her love for the Methodist preacher, Stockdale (in 'The Distracted Preacher') as this profession is in her blood, in her living instincts
* The cultural identity of Hardy's Wessex folk in 'Wessex Tales' (and many other pieces of his fiction) being distinctly separate from a more mainstream identity found in Victorian England, with this unique Wessex way of life having been second nature to them
Having briefly reflected on what I've become (more) aware of concerning 'Wessex Tales' and the general nature of Hardy's writing through reading the 1st chapter of 'Thomas Hardy's Shorter Fiction: A Critical Study', I must stress that I can't wait to dig further into this book.
What I also really like about the 1st chapter of this book is that it not only deals with 'Wessex Tales' but also relates some of the thematic and sociological concerns of this anthology to Hardy's novels (sometimes, the monumental ones like 'Tess' and 'The Mayor of Casterbridge').
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