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Article: "... Among the ruins": narrative archaeology in The Mayor of Casterbridge.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Studies in the Novel
- Article date:
- December 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 University of North Texas. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Again in the country in August, Hardy resumed his cycling tours, meeting by accident Mr. William Watson, Mr. Francis Coutts (Lord Latymer), and Mr. John Lane at Glastonbury, and spending a romantic day or two there among the ruins.
--The Later Years of Thomas Hardy, 1892-1928 (Life 322)
Philip Larkin remarked that "the impulse to preserve lies at the bottom of all art" (79); Thomas Hardy knew all too soon in his life how that impulse can also be intimate with destruction. Eustace Balfour first read Hardy's paper, "Memories of Church Restoration," to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1906. The paper speaks of "chronicles in stone" ...