The Regional Geography of Thomas Hardy's Wessex

Abstract

NE of the main features in the development of modern geographical thought has been the increasing importance attached to the idea of the region. But the regional approach has not been the monopoly of academic geographers. On the contrary, it seems to have been an element of the mental climate of the years since the middle of the nineteenth century, which has manifested itself in a variety of ways-political, economic, cultural.' One expression has been the rise of the regional novel as a literary form. In France, for instance, where there is an immense literature dealing with the political and philosophical aspects of regionalism, there has been a great outpouring of regional novels; and from France, too, have come some of the most outstanding studies in regional geography. In England, it is possible to go .back beyond the middle nineteenth century in the search for the origins of this literary form. Sir Walter Scott's historical novels are full of local color and feeling for country. Many of them can perhaps be described as historical novels with a topographical basis. But it is not until the time of Thomas Hardy that the topographical novel can-be said to have become the regional novel in England. Hardy's first Wessex novel appeared in 1871, and since then the novel of locality has become a feature of the literature of England. The regional novels differ greatly in scope and in treatment, but all, or almost all, have one thing in common. The theme underlying the delineation of their characters is man and his work on the land; and the story unfolds through the medium of the everyday life of a locality. To this extent they cannot fail to be of interest to the geographer, who is inevitably reminded of the dictum ofJean Brunhes: Man comes into relations with the natural environments through facts of labor, through the house he builds, the road he travels, the field he cultivates, the quarry he works, etc.