Introducing The Formalist Approach

*The Formalist Approach:

*This approach regards literature as “a unique form of human knowledge that needs to be examined on its own terms.” All the elements necessary for understanding the work are contained within the work itself.

*The Elements of The Formalist Approach:*Of particular interest to the formalist critic

are the elements of form—style, structure, tone, imagery, etc.—that are found within the text.

*Discussions of "point of view,” “tone,” “plots," "character," “Symbols”, and "structure," for example, are ways of looking at literature derived from the New Criticism.

*The Elements of The Formalist Approach:

*A primary goal for formalist critics is to determine how such elements work together with the text’s content to shape its effects upon readers.

*The reader is invited to look closely at the literary work for what it is, for the connotative and denotative value of the words, not at the outside aspects related to who and why wrote it.

When did it Begin?

*The New Criticism began in the 1930s and 1940s and has since been a dominant force in twentieth century literary studies. To the degree that New Criticism focuses upon literary texts as formal works of art, it departs from the Topical/Historical approach.

*The objection raised by the New Critics is that as topical/historical critics consider literary history, they avoid close contact with actual texts.

*What is the aim of The Formalist Approach?

*The aim of the formalist study of literature is to provide readers not only with the means of explaining the content of works ("What, specifically, does this say?"),

but also with the critical tools needed for evaluating the artistic quality of individual works and writers

("How well is it said?")

*The Inspiration

*The inspiration for the formalist or New Critical approach was the French practice of explication de texte, a method that emphasizes detailed examination and explanation.

* The New Criticism is therefore at its most brilliant in the analysis of smaller units such as entire poems and short passages.

*The New Criticism also utilizes a number of techniques for the analysis of larger structures.

 

*A major aspect of New Critical thought is that content and form including all ideas, ambiguities, subtleties, and even apparent contradictions – were originally within the conscious or subconscious control of the author, There are no accidents.

*However, that today's critics able to define the author's intentions exactly, for such intentions require knowledge of biographical details that are irretrievably lost. Each literary work therefore takes on its own existence and identity, and the critic's work is to discover a reading or readings that explain the facts of the text.

*Dissenters from the New Criticism have noted a tendency by New Critics to ignore relevant knowledge that history and biography may bring to literary studies. In addition, the approach has been subject to the charge that stressing the examination of texts alone fails to deal with the value and appreciation of literature.

The Narrative Point of View + Tone

*The narrator of Tess of the D'Urbervilles

The narrator speaks in the third person, and looks deep into the characters’ minds. The narrator is objective but has an omniscient

*What does the narrator give us ?

The narrator of Tess of the D'Urbervilles gives us what critics call a "sympathetic inside view" of only two or three characters: Tess (of course), Angel, and, sometimes, Alec.

*As a third omniscient narrator what does the narrator do ?

We're frequently allowed to see what Tess and Angel are thinking and feeling – sometimes the narrator even explains why they're feeling what they are, when they themselves don't know.

*As an example the narrator describes

Alec as tough person . The narrator doesn't usually give us an inside view, because Alec isn't a sympathetic character and it's a lot harder to view someone as just a bad guy when you know exactly where he's coming from. But although Alec is the bad guy, he's also human – Hardy doesn't want anything about the novel to be black and white. So the fact that he's willing to hint at Alec's thoughts and feelings makes it that much harder to judge Alec as harshly as we might want to.

*What is the tone in Hardy’s novel ?1- passing observer .For example,

When the narrator is describing the different landscape.

2-sympathetic

Happened during climactic or very emotional moments. For example, the kind of pity anyone would feel for someone suffering as Tess does. That universal sympathy makes the reader identify even more with Tess

The Plot

*Conflict

*Jack Durbeyfield is only willing to plan for the future insofar as it allows him to glorify his family's past. So he sends Tess, his oldest and most educated child, to borrow money from their distant relations. It turns out, of course, that the family called "D'Urberville" in the next town over just added that name to their own because it sounded noble and they thought that all the real D'Urbervilles had died out – they're not related to the Durbeyfields at all. Alec D'Urberville, the son of that family, is totally in love with Tess. He tries to seduce her, and fails. So he takes advantage of her dependence on him to get her by herself in the forest, and rapes her.

* Complication

Tess is no longer a virgin, which means she's not exactly marriageable anymore, according to 19th century English principles. She leaves home for a fresh start and, despite her resolution never to marry, she falls in love with Angel Clare, a gentleman's son who's learning about dairy farming. How will she resolve her decision never to marry with her desire to be with Angel?

*RISING ACTION

* Tess’s family’s discovery that they are ancient English aristocracy, which gives them all fantasies of a higher station in life

"It was only my whim," he said; and, after a moment's hesitation: "It was on account of a discovery I made some little time ago, whilst I was hunting up pedigrees for the new county history. I am Parson Tringham, the antiquary, of Stagfoot Lane. Don't you really know, Durbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family of the d'Urbervilles, who derive their descent from Sir Pagan d'Urberville, that renowned knight who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey Roll?”

chapter 1- beginning of phase 1 

•Tess’s accidental killing of the family horse, which drives her to seek help from the DUrbervilles, where she is seduced and dishonored.

As Tess's own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying among each other in their fatalistic way: "It was to be." There lay the pity of it. An immeasurable social chasm was to divide our heroine's personality thereafter from that previous self of hers who stepped from her mother's door to try her fortune at Trantridge poultry-farm .

chapter 11 - end of Phase 1

*CLIMAX Tess’s new husband discovers her earlier seduction by Alec and decides to leave her, going off to Brazil and not answering her letters, and bringing Tess to despair.It cannot—O no, it cannot!" She jumped up joyfully at the hope.

"No, it cannot be more serious, certainly," she cried, "because 'tis just the same! I will tell you now. "She sat down again. Their hands were still joined. The ashes under the grate were lit by the fire vertically, like a torrid waste. Imagination might have beheld a Last Day luridness in this red-coaled glow, which fell on his face and hand, and on hers, peering into the loose hair about her brow, and firing the delicate skin underneath. A large shadow of her shape rose upon the wall and ceiling. She bent forward, at which each diamond on her neck gave a sinister wink like a toad's; and pressing her forehead against his temple she entered on her story of her acquaintance with Alec d'Urberville and its results, murmuring the words without flinching, and with her eyelids drooping downchapter 34 - end of phase 4

*FALLING ACTION

Tess’s last-ditch decision to marry Alec, who claims to love her; Angel’s return from Brazil to discover Tess marriage to her former seducer, and his meeting with Tess; Tess’s murder of Alec and short-lived escape with Angel before being apprehended and executed.

 The wound was small, but the point of the blade had touched the heart of the victim, who lay on his back, pale, fixed, dead, as if he had scarcely moved after the infliction of the blow .

chapter 56 -phase 7

Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed. Their eyes were riveted on it. A few minutes after the hour had struck something moved slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag."Justice" was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.

End of chapter 58- phase 7

"'I have done it - I don't know how,' she continued. "Still, I owed it to you and to myself, Angel. I feared long ago, when I struck him on the mouth with my glove, that I might do it some day for the trap he set for me in my simple youth and his wrong to you through me. He has come between us and ruined us, and now he can never do it

any more. I never loved him at all, Angel, as I loved you'” Chapter 57- phase 7 .

SYMBOLS

*Prince

*Brazil

*Names

Red and white

These two colors come up all over the place in Tess, frequently together. having made that observation, let's look at a few examples, and think about why Hardy might have considered those colors to be so darned important. Red is often associated with sin and/or sexuality in Western art and literature (just think about "the woman in the red dress" in the Matrix), while white is usually associated with purity and chastity. Hardy mixes these two colors so frequently that it's hard to ignore – in the very first scene in which we see her, Tess is wearing a white dress with a red ribbon in her hair.

 The Chase vs. The Slopes

Speaking of Nature we have to talk about the importance of The Chase. After all, one of the most important scenes of Tess's life takes place there. The Chase is all that remains of the ancient,

primeval forest that used to stretch all across Wessex, the fictional county where all of Tess of the D'Urbervilles takes place.

Why is it important that The Chase be so ancient? Well, one reason might be that the ancient-ness of The Chase provides a

stark contrast to the surprisingly modern house that Alec D'Urbervilles lives in. The idea of old and new, past and present, nature and civilization somehow overlapping or coexisting is one

that Hardy brings up again and again.

Cows

There's an awful lot of loving attention to detail in the descriptions of the cows at Talbothays Dairy, Not only are individual cows frequently referred to by name, we get these vivid descriptions of the shape, size, and color of their udders. Just look at this example: "The red and white herd nearest at hand […] now trooped towards the steading in the background, their great bags of milk swinging under them as they walked" (16.25). Udders and breasts usually represent fullness of life and fertility – just look at images of earth goddesses from almost any culture. (Here's an image of the ancient Greek goddess Gaia, the goddess of the earth

The Setting

* Usually, we can look at the setting of a novel as a small part of a work.

* In this novel, nature, as a part of the setting, is an important element in understanding the novel.

Hardy’s Use of Setting

The characters and the setting mirror each other.

Tess moves from a world that begins in the beautiful regions around Marlott. She goes to the slopes to "claim kin" and the environment is lovely and formal, but also contrived.

The setting at Talbothays, where Tess experiences her greatest happiness, is lush, green.

*Flintcomb-Ash, on the other hand, is a barren region, reflecting the harshness of the work and the desolation of Tess’s life. The story ends in the equally mysterious stonehenge region.

The two main farms, Talbothays and Flintcomb-Ash, represent the best and worst of farm life .

The whole of the work is rurally set, and with the level of detail, we can see Hardy's close knowledge of the inner workings of a nineteenth-century farm.

Genre and Writing Style

* Genre: TragedyHardy’s Tragic Hero:

Hardy has his own concept, he is the innovator of a new form of tragedy

*No Tragic Flaw in Hardy:* His tragic heroes and heroines are free from any ‘tragic flaw’ in the Shakespearean sense..

* Character is not the cause of Tragedy

*Writing style: simple *The style of prose is

actually quite simple:

* he is describing simple, country people

*Every day language

There was a great stir in the milk-house just after breakfast. The churn revolved as usual, but the butter would not come. Whenever this happened the dairy was paralyzed. Squish, squash, echoed the milk in the great cylinder, but never arose the sound they waited for.

*Writing style: simple

Their gauzy skirts had brushed up from the grass innumerable flies and butterflies which, unable to escape, remained caged in the transparent tissue as in an aviary. Angel's eye at last fell upon Tess, the hindmost of the four; she, being full of suppressed laughter at their dilemma, could not help meeting his glance radiantly." (23.14)

*Writing style: simple

• Introduced the Formalist Approach

• The narrative point of view

• The Tone in Tess of The D’Urbervilles

• The Plot

• Symbols

• The Setting of the novel

• Genre and writing style

In conclusion ..