“Attraverso l'esperienza" dice Roger Ascham "troviamo una via breve, dopo un lungo errare". Non di rado questo lungo errare ci rende incapaci di sostenere un ulteriore viaggio; e allora, di che utilità è la nostra esperienza? L'esperienza di Tess Durbeyfield portava a questo genere di inadattabilità: finalmente aveva appreso la lezione, ma chi ora, avrebbe accettato le sue azioni? Se prima di recarsi dai d'Urberville, si fosse sempre mossa sotto l'energia dei molti testi e pensieri gnomici che erano noti a lei e al mondo in generale, senza dubbio non si sarebbe mal lasciata ingannare. Ma Tess non era capace, nessuno è capace, di sentire l'intera verità di quei dorati assiomi in tempo per trarre vantaggio. Come molti altri, avrebbe potuto dire ironicamente a Dio, come Sant'Agostino: 'Tu mi hai consigliato una via migliore di quella che poi mi hai consentito di percorrere.”
Quote by Thomas Hardy
Work
This nineteenth-century novel centers on Tess Durbeyfield, a rural peasant girl whose father learns of distant aristocratic ancestry. Sent to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urberville family, Tess encounters Alec D'Urberville, whose actions set in motion a chain of events that shadow her subsequent life. Later working as a milkmaid, she forms a relationship with Angel Clare, a man of progressive ideals whose response to her past reveals the gap between principle and practice. The narrative traces Tess's movement through agricultural labor, social stigma, and shifting moral landscapes, examining how individual character intersects with circumstance, class hierarchy, and gendered double standards. Hardy's subtitle, "A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented," signals his authorial stance toward his protagonist, framing the work as social critique as much as personal tragedy. The novel belongs to the pastoral tradition while subverting its conventions, and it contributed to debates about sexual morality, religious doubt, and the representation of working-class experience in literature. more
Author
Thomas Hardy, a British novelist born on June 2, 1840, and died on January 11, 1928, is renowned for his novels that depict rural life, reflecting the social changes in 19th-century England. His works often carry a sense of pessimism, depicting the fates of characters with sympathy. more