Far from the MADDING(???) Crowd
This may be a dumb question, but what does the title mean? I (maybe naively) thought that I would be introduced to a 'crowd' that went by the name 'Madding' and someone wanted to get 'far from' them.
I've heard people use this phrase in speaking. I had always heard of this novel and thought they were borrowing the phrase from the novel.
Evidently the novel's title is borrowed from a popular phrase.
Anyone know what it means???
far from the "frenzied" world
Hardy is always about the development of the soul... the individual's emerging from the culture, from the "herd". His was the culture of the English rural society- simple, bucolic, stifling. When the individual emerges out, it can be called "destiny", when the society pulls them back in it's "fate". Hardy is about "the tragic".
The title "Far from the Madding Crowd" implies that real life, meaningful life, the imperative soulful dilemma of finding oneself "against the herd" really takes place away from the world, away from the trappings and seductions that the busy "world" presents so convincingly.
Hardy is not easy to read in that his language takes time to attune to. Some works are better than others. Many consider Jude the Obscure his greatest work. I won't disagree. But I reread several novels lately (not Jude) and found that all were worthy, yet Tess of the D'Urbervilles is as good as literature gets in this English language.