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Hardy's ur-priestess and the phases of a novel.(Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented)

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From: Studies in the Novel
Date: 20070622
Author:Franke, Damon

In the Preface to the Fifth Edition of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy responds to the critics of the novel by calling some of them "modern 'Hammers of Heretics'" who discourage free thought because they "may have causes to advance, privileges to guard, traditions to keep going" (6). In reviving an epithet applied to, among others, Tomas de Torquemada (1420-98), the first grand inquisitor of Spain, Hardy scornfully dismisses the intransigent and stifling nature of orthodoxy that secures its continuity. The many scathing reviews of Tess had objected to several of its ...

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