Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
When I wrote this essay, I had never been to Dorset. But I make that confession, not to disqualify myself from writing but to indicate at the outset the sort of essay it will not be. It will not be concerned with the identification of places in the Wessex novels with their possible originals in Dorset and the neighbouring counties. That task has already been performed more than a few times, most convincingly by Denys Kay-Robinson, and by Andrew Enstice whose work is especially useful where it points out how Hardy manipulated the geography of Dorset to create the imaginary space called Wessex. Nor am I offering – I would be equally incompetent to offer – the sort of study that H. C. Darby has made of the regional geography of Hardy's Wessex – a study whose implications have still to be taken up by literary critics and humanist geographers, in that it would seem possible to base upon it an understanding of how the plots and the narrative structures of Hardy's novels might have been to a degree determined by their various settings.
This essay sets out instead to examine how localities and spaces in Hardy's novels are constructed, are mapped, by the characters in the novels, and therefore also by Hardy in his narrative and by us as we read. I am concerned, then, with different, subjective geographies, and with geographies as modes of cognition.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.