Angel and Alec: Angel and Devil?

Let's focus for a moment on the men in Tess's life. How should the reader regard Angel Clare and Alec d'Urberville? How similar are they? How different? How does each view, and care about, Tess?

Fallen Women

OH MY GOSH! What a discussion this week! I can see that my teaching days are limited with you lot!

We mentioned this in class, but I'd like you to discuss the different views of the fallen women from the poetry thus far (and the poetry for next week if you'd like) and from Tess. According to these works, what does it mean to be fallen and can/should a fallen woman be redeemed?

I cannot wait to see what you have to say. . . . .

I am posting early, so you can still get your posts in on the discussion due this week before I grade them.

Tess as Nature Goddess

List as many references as you can from the novel so far where Tess is described as a part of nature in some way. Why do you think Hardy is setting her against this background? Does it make her situation more or less tragic--or more at odds with Victorian mores and religious morality?

Tying it all Together

I think we have talked out The Moonstone. So, use this space this week to post your thesis for your analysis essay and the works you will use to prove it. This is a good time to test your ideas on yourself and bounce them off a sympathetic audience.

The novel I was trying to think about in class, and had so clearly repressed, is The Way of all Flesh by Samuel Butler. Big Downer!!!

Robert Browning--Take Two

The book tells us that Browning was interested in psychological motivation. How do the poems we have read explore the workings of the mind? How is Browning able to reveal the characters of his characters in the dramatic monologues that exposes their psyches?

Gosh, I'm sorry that not more of you like Browning, but, as a professor of mine in graduate school told me when I complained about reading an author I hated, "He is important, so read it." I realize that your comments are simply comments and not complaints, but I think this still holds.

Narrative Strategy and The Moonstone

How reliable is the narrator Gabriel Betteredge in his portion of The Moonstone? How objective does he want to be, and how objective is he actually?

Robert Browning--Take One

What strikes you as distinctive about the poems by Robert Browning that we have read so far? How are they like or unlike the rest of the Victorian poetry--take your pick here--that we have read thus far? In this response you can refer to things like subject, tone, poetic feeling, etc.