Though popular in its day, the book was also a scandal: both for its content, which was censored upon serialization, and its style. Henry James called Tess “vile,” complaining that “the pretense of ‘sexuality’ was only equalled by the absence of it, and the abomination of the language by the author’s reputation for style.” Yet today, the novel is considered Hardy’s masterpiece, and Tess herself, according to Elizabeth Hardwick, “one of the most original women in fiction.”

 

What was so controversial about Tess? And what, if anything, remains controversial about it now? Is it a proto-feminist classic, an excoriation of class relations, a commentary on social scandal? In our discussions, we will pay special attention to Hardy’s language and how he stages agency, consent, and fate, as well as to the themes of landscape; work and nature; animals; motherhood; and industrialization.