[Hardy-l] Greek chorus

[Richard Nemesvari]

In Thomas Hardy: His Career as a Novelist (1971) Michael Millgate has
this to say about The Mayor of Casterbridge:

 

"In this last scene, as elsewhere in the novel, the rustics like Solomon
Longways, Mother Cuxsom, and Christopher Coney perform a modest choral
function, and if the members of this group are often reminiscent of the
lively, disenchanted figures who populate the low-life world of
Shakespeare's history plays, Hardy seems nonetheless to have precedents
from Greek literature chiefly in mind.  The novel as a whole resumes
with more sophistication and less obtrusiveness the attempt earlier made
in The Return of the Native to recapture certain aspects of the
techniques and experience of tragic drama" (p. 232).

 

I'm not sure if this is the source Jacky is thinking of, but it's a
possibility.

 

 

Richard Nemesvari

Department of English

St. Francis Xavier University

rnemesva at stfx.ca

 

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