1.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
2.
Glasgow Botanic Gardens
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Glasgow Botanic Gardens is a botanical garden located in the West End of Glasgow, Scotland. It features several glasshouses, the most notable of which is the Kibble Palace, the gardens were created in 1817, and run by the Royal Botanic Institution of Glasgow, and were intended to supply the University of Glasgow. William Hooker was regius professor of botany at Glasgow University, the gardens were originally used for concerts and other events, and in 1891 the gardens were incorporated into the Parks and Gardens of the City of Glasgow. The site was served by a railway line, and Botanic Gardens Railway Station remains today in a derelict state as a remarkable example of a disused station. It is hidden behind trees and a metal fence blocks access to the platforms. Kirklee railway station lies just inside the gardens. Kibble Palace is a 19th-century wrought iron framed glasshouse, covering 2137 m2, originally designed by John Kibble for his home at Coulport on Loch Long in the 1860s, the components were cast by Walter Macfarlane at his Saracen Foundry in Possilpark. Eventually brought up the River Clyde by barge to the Botanic Gardens, the building structure is of curved wrought iron and glass supported by cast iron beams resting on ornate columns, surmounted on masonry foundations. It was initially used as an exhibition and concert venue, before being used for growing plants from the 1880s. The main plant group is the collection of New Zealand and Australian tree ferns, some of which have lived here for 120 years, in the 1920s a statue was added in the palace to King Robert of Sicily a figure from the works of Longfellow. This is by the Scottish sculptor George Henry Paulin, in 2004 a £7 million restoration programme was initiated to repair corrosion of the ironwork. The restoration involved the dismantling of the Palace, and the removal of the parts to Shafton, South Yorkshire for specialised repair. The plant collection was removed completely for the first time ever and it re-opened to the public in November 2006. Grid reference NS568675, Information from Glasgow City Council Kibble Palace, Information from Glasgow City Council Photographs of the Kibbles Restoration
3.
Sculpture
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Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
4.
Royal Academy of Arts
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The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded through an act of King George III on 10 December 1768 with a mission to promote the arts of design in Britain through education and exhibition. Supporters wanted to foster a national school of art and to encourage appreciation, fashionable taste in 18th-century Britain was based on continental and traditional art forms, providing contemporary British artists little opportunity to sell their works. From 1746 the Foundling Hospital, through the efforts of William Hogarth, the success of this venture led to the formation of the Society of Artists of Great Britain and the Free Society of Artists. Both these groups were primarily exhibiting societies, their success was marred by internal factions among the artists. The combined vision of education and exhibition to establish a school of art set the Royal Academy apart from the other exhibiting societies. It provided the foundation upon which the Royal Academy came to dominate the art scene of the 18th and 19th centuries, supplanting the earlier art societies. Sir William Chambers, a prominent architect, used his connections with George III to gain royal patronage and financial support of the Academy, the painter Joshua Reynolds was made its first president. Francis Milner Newton was elected the first secretary, a post he held for two decades until his resignation in 1788, the instrument of foundation, signed by George III on 10 December 1768, named 34 founder members and allowed for a total membership of 40. William Hoare and Johann Zoffany were added to this list later by the King and are known as nominated members, among the founder members were two women, a father and daughter, and two sets of brothers. The Royal Academy was initially housed in cramped quarters in Pall Mall, although in 1771 it was given temporary accommodation for its library and schools in Old Somerset House, then a royal palace. In 1780 it was installed in purpose-built apartments in the first completed wing of New Somerset House, located in the Strand and designed by Chambers, the Academy moved in 1837 to Trafalgar Square, where it occupied the east wing of the recently completed National Gallery. These premises soon proved too small to house both institutions, in 1868,100 years after the Academys foundation, it moved to Burlington House, Piccadilly, where it remains. Burlington House is owned by the British Government, and used rent-free by the Royal Academy, the first Royal Academy exhibition of contemporary art, open to all artists, opened on 25 April 1769 and ran until 27 May 1769. 136 works of art were shown and this exhibition, now known as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, has been staged annually without interruption to the present day. In 1870 the Academy expanded its programme to include a temporary annual loan exhibition of Old Masters. The range and frequency of these exhibitions have grown enormously since that time. Britains first public lectures on art were staged by the Royal Academy, led by Reynolds, the first president, a program included lectures by Dr. William Hunter, John Flaxman, James Barry, Sir John Soane, and J. M. W. Turner
5.
Modernism
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Among the factors that shaped modernism were the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by reactions of horror to World War I. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious belief, the poet Ezra Pounds 1934 injunction to Make it new. Was the touchstone of the approach towards what it saw as the now obsolete culture of the past. In this spirit, its innovations, like the novel, atonal and twelve-tone music, divisionist painting and abstract art. Modernism explicitly rejected the ideology of realism and makes use of the works of the past by the employment of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision, others focus on modernism as an aesthetic introspection. While J. M. W. Art critic Clement Greenberg describes the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as proto-Modernists, There the proto-Modernists were, of all people, the Pre-Raphaelites actually foreshadowed Manet, with whom Modernist painting most definitely begins. They acted on a dissatisfaction with painting as practiced in their time, rationalism has also had opponents in the philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and later Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom had significant influence on existentialism. A major 19th-century engineering achievement was The Crystal Palace, the huge cast-iron, Glass and iron were used in a similar monumental style in the construction of major railway terminals in London, such as Paddington Station and Kings Cross Station. These technological advances led to the building of structures like the Brooklyn Bridge. The latter broke all previous limitations on how tall man-made objects could be and these engineering marvels radically altered the 19th-century urban environment and the daily lives of people. Arguments arose that the values of the artist and those of society were not merely different, but that Society was antithetical to Progress, the philosopher Schopenhauer called into question the previous optimism, and his ideas had an important influence on later thinkers, including Nietzsche. Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection undermined religious certainty and the idea of human uniqueness, in particular, the notion that human beings were driven by the same impulses as lower animals proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling spirituality. Karl Marx argued that there were fundamental contradictions within the capitalist system, historians, and writers in different disciplines, have suggested various dates as starting points for modernism. Everdell also thinks modernism in painting began in 1885–86 with Seurats Divisionism, the poet Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, and Flauberts novel Madame Bovary were both published in 1857. In the arts and letters, two important approaches developed separately in France, the first was Impressionism, a school of painting that initially focused on work done, not in studios, but outdoors. Impressionist paintings demonstrated that human beings do not see objects, the school gathered adherents despite internal divisions among its leading practitioners, and became increasingly influential. A significant event of 1863 was the Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor Napoleon III to display all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon. While most were in standard styles, but by artists, the work of Manet attracted tremendous attention
6.
Siegfried Sassoon
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Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC was an English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, Sassoon later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the Sherston trilogy. Siegfried Sassoon was born and grew up in the neo-gothic mansion named Weirleigh, in Matfield, Kent, to a Jewish father and his father, Alfred Ezra Sassoon, son of Sassoon David Sassoon, was a member of the wealthy Baghdadi Jewish Sassoon merchant family. For marrying outside the faith, Alfred was disinherited, Siegfrieds mother, Theresa, belonged to the Thornycroft family, sculptors responsible for many of the best-known statues in London—her brother was Sir Hamo Thornycroft. There was no German ancestry in Siegfrieds family, his mother named him Siegfried because of her love of Wagners operas and his middle name, Loraine, was the surname of a clergyman with whom she was friendly. Siegfried was the second of three sons, the others being Michael and Hamo, when he was four years old his parents separated. During his fathers visits to the boys, Theresa locked herself in the drawing-room. In 1895 Alfred Sassoon died of tuberculosis, Sassoon was educated at the New Beacon School, Sevenoaks, Kent, at Marlborough College, Wiltshire, and at Clare College, Cambridge, where from 1905 to 1907 he read history. He went down from Cambridge without a degree and spent the few years hunting, playing cricket and writing verse. Robert Graves, in Good-Bye to All That describes it as a parody of Masefield which, midway through, had forgotten to be a parody, Sassoon wanted to play for Kent County Cricket Club, Kent Captain Frank Marchant was a neighbour of Sassoon. Siegfried often turned out for Bluehouses at the Nevill Ground, Tunbridge Wells and he had also played cricket for his house at Marlborough College, once taking 7 wickets for 18 runs. Although an enthusiast, Sassoon was not good enough to play for Kent, but he played cricket for Matfield village and he broke his arm badly in a riding accident and was put out of action before even leaving England, spending the spring of 1915 convalescing. He was commissioned into the 3rd Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers, on 1 November his younger brother Hamo was killed in the Gallipoli Campaign, and in the same month Siegfried was sent to the 1st Battalion in France. There he met Robert Graves, and they became close friends, united by their poetic vocation, they often read and discussed each others work. Though this did not have much influence on Gravess poetry. Sassoons periods of duty on the Western Front were marked by exceptionally brave actions, armed with grenades, he scattered sixty German soldiers, He went over with bombs in daylight, under covering fire from a couple of rifles, and scared away the occupants. A pointless feat, since instead of signalling for reinforcements, he sat down in the German trench, when he went back he did not even report
7.
Classical sculpture
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More precisely it refers to Ancient Greek sculpture from around 500 BC to the onset of the Hellenistic style around 323 BC. It may also refer stylistically to later sculpture done in a Neoclassical or classical style, Classical sculptures have been popular since the Renaissance. Only those works that follow the canon of classical forms would fall under the term. In addition to standing statues, the term classical sculpture incorporates relief work. Whereas sculptural works emphasized the human form, reliefs were employed to create elaborate decorative scenes, Ancient statues and bas-reliefs survive showing the bare surface of the material of which they are made, and people generally associate classical art with white marble sculpture. But there is evidence that statues were painted in bright colours. Most of the colour was weathered off over time, small remnants were removed during cleaning, there are several periods, The most important sculptural form of the Archaic period was the kouros, the standing male nude. Reflecting Egyptian influence, the kouros stands upright with his left leg slightly forward, Archaic Greek sculptors seem to have been influenced stylistically by the Egyptians, although divergences appeared early on. In particular, the figures of Archaic Greece tended to be represented in the nude. As in Egyptian art, female subjects were always portrayed clothed, in this period, the later emphasis on naturalistic bone and muscle anatomy had not yet developed, which can be seen in observing details such as the knees and other critical joints. Some details seem to be incised rather than fully modeled, a relic of ancient traditions. Nor did figures stand or move naturally, however, as the Archaic style gradually transformed into what is known as the Classical style, a clear progression displaying more and more technical knowledge and skill can be detected. The Classical period saw changes in both the style and function of sculpture, poses became more naturalistic, and the technical skill of Greek sculptors in depicting the human form in a variety of poses greatly increased. From about 500 BC statues began to depict real people, the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton set up in Athens to mark the overthrow of the tyranny were said to be the first public monuments to actual people. As Greek artists began to study movement and anatomy, they discovered that living humans tend to display a weight shift or contraposition when standing. The first Greek statue to exhibit contrapposto is the famed Kritios Boy, Greek temples were specially made to fit the large cult statues. They believed that placing shrines around the areas that were said to be holy would please the gods, because Greek gods were mostly myths based on real peoples lives mixed feelings were created about the sculptures, and therefore more man-like sculptures were created. Most sculptures created can be understood to represent myth, archetype or purpose in life, during the classical period sculptors were not only creating works for temples, but also mortuary statues to show tribute to deceased loved ones
8.
Frederic Leighton
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Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton PRA, known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was an English painter and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical, and classical subject matter, Leighton was bearer of the shortest-lived peerage in history, after only one day his hereditary peerage ended with his death. Leighton was born in Scarborough to a family in the import and export business and he was educated at University College School, London. He then received his training on the European continent, first from Eduard von Steinle. When he was 24 he was in Florence, he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti, from 1855 to 1859 he lived in Paris, where he met Ingres, Delacroix, Corot and Millet. In 1860, he moved to London, where he associated with the Pre-Raphaelites and he designed Elizabeth Barrett Brownings tomb for Robert Browning in the English Cemetery, Florence in 1861. In 1864 he became an associate of the Royal Academy and in 1878 he became its President and his 1877 sculpture, Athlete Wrestling with a Python, was considered at its time to inaugurate a renaissance in contemporary British sculpture, referred to as the New Sculpture. American art critic Earl Shinn claimed at the time that Except Leighton and his paintings represented Britain at the great 1900 Paris Exhibition. Leighton was knighted at Windsor in 1878, and was created a baronet, of Holland Park Road in the Parish of St Mary Abbots, Kensington, in the County of Middlesex, eight years later. He was the first painter to be given a peerage, in the New Year Honours List of 1896, the patent creating him Baron Leighton, of Stretton in the County of Shropshire, was issued on 24 January 1896, Leighton died the next day of angina pectoris. Leighton remained a bachelor and rumours of his having a child with one of his models in addition to the supposition that Leighton may have been homosexual continue to be debated today. He certainly enjoyed an intense and romantically tinged relationship with the poet Henry William Greville whom he met in Florence in 1856, the older man showered Leighton in letters, but the romantic affection seems not to have been reciprocated. Enquiry is furthermore hindered by the fact that Leighton left no diaries, after his death his Barony was extinguished after existing for only a day, this is a record in the Peerage. His house in Holland Park, London has been turned into a museum, the house also features many of Leightons inspirations, including his collection of Iznik tiles. Its centrepiece is the magnificent Arab Hall, the Hall is featured in issue ten of Cornucopia. A blue plaque commemorates Leighton at Leighton House Museum, Leighton was an enthusiastic volunteer soldier, enrolling with the first group to join the 38th Middlesex Rifle volunteers on 5 October 1860. His qualities of leadership were identified, and he was promoted to command A Company within a few months. On 6 January 1869 Captain Leighton was elected to command The Artists Rifles by a meeting of the corps
9.
Lot's wife
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In the Bible, Lots wife is a figure first mentioned in Genesis 19. The Book of Genesis describes how she became a pillar of salt after she looked back at Sodom and she is called Ado or Edith in some Jewish traditions, but is not named in the Bible. She is also referred to in the books at Wisdom 10,7. Islamic accounts also talk about the wife of Prophet Lut when mentioning People of Lut, the narrative of Lots wife begins in Genesis 19 after two angels arrived in Sodom, at eventide, and were invited to spend the night at Lots home. As dawn was breaking, Lots visiting angels urged him to get his family and flee, Lot delayed, so the angels took hold of his hand, his wifes hand and his daughters and brought them out of the city. The command was given, Flee for your life, do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the Plain, flee to the hills, lest you be swept away. Lot objected to the idea of fleeing to the hills and requested safe haven at a town nearby. The request was granted and the became known as Zoar. Traveling behind her husband, Lots wife looked back, and became a pillar of salt, the Hebrew verb used for Lots wife looking back is תבט, tāḇeṭ. Her looking back at Sodom differs in word usage to Abraham looking שקף, the story appears to be based in part on a folk legend explaining a geographic feature. A pillar of salt named Lots wife is located near the Dead Sea at Mount Sodom in Israel, the Mishnah states that a blessing should be said at the place where the pillar of salt is. Other pillars are said to be at the crossing of the Red Sea as well as at the Wall of Jericho, the Jewish historian Josephus claimed to have seen the pillar of salt which was Lots wife. Its existence is attested to by the early church fathers Clement of Rome. In Judaism, one view of Lots wife turning to salt was as punishment for disobeying the angels warning. By looking back at the cities she betrayed her secret longing for that way of life. She was deemed unworthy to be saved and thus turned to a pillar of salt, one reason that is given in the tradition is that she turned back to look in order to see if her daughters, who were married to men of Sodom, were coming or not. Another Jewish legend says that because Lots wife sinned with salt, on the night the two angels visited Lot, he requested that his wife prepare a feast for them. Not having any salt, Lots wife asked her neighbors for salt, in the Midrash, Lots wifes name is given as Edith
10.
Artemis
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Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Some scholars believe that the name, and indeed the goddess herself, was originally pre-Greek, Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron, Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals. The Arcadians believed she was the daughter of Demeter, in the classical period of Greek mythology, Artemis was often described as the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. The deer and the cypress were sacred to her, in later Hellenistic times, she even assumed the ancient role of Eileithyia in aiding childbirth. The name Artemis is of unknown or uncertain origin and etymology although various ones have been proposed, for example, according to J. T. Jablonski, the name is also Phrygian and could be compared with the royal appellation Artemas of Xenophon. Anton Goebel suggests the root στρατ or ῥατ, to shake, babiniotis, while accepting that the etymology is unknown, states that the name is already attested in Mycenean Greek and is possibly of pre-Hellenic origin. It is believed that a precursor of Artemis was worshiped in Minoan Crete as the goddess of mountains and hunting, R. S. P. Beekes suggested that the e/i interchange points to a Pre-Greek origin. Artemis was venerated in Lydia as Artimus, various conflicting accounts are given in Classical Greek mythology of the birth of Artemis and her twin brother, Apollo. All accounts agree, however, that she was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, an account by Callimachus has it that Hera forbade Leto to give birth on either terra firma or on an island. Hera was angry with Zeus, her husband, because he had impregnated Leto, but the island of Delos disobeyed Hera, and Leto gave birth there. In ancient Cretan history Leto was worshipped at Phaistos and in Cretan mythology Leto gave birth to Apollo, a scholium of Servius on Aeneid iii. The myths also differ as to whether Artemis was born first, most stories depict Artemis as born first, becoming her mothers mid-wife upon the birth of her brother Apollo. The childhood of Artemis is not fully related in any surviving myth, the Iliad reduced the figure of the dread goddess to that of a girl, who, having been thrashed by Hera, climbs weeping into the lap of Zeus. She wished for no city dedicated to her, but to rule the mountains, Artemis believed that she had been chosen by the Fates to be a midwife, particularly since she had assisted her mother in the delivery of her twin brother, Apollo. All of her companions remained virgins, and Artemis closely guarded her own chastity and her symbols included the golden bow and arrow, the hunting dog, the stag, and the moon. Okeanus daughters were filled with fear, but the young Artemis bravely approached and asked for bow, Callimachus then tells how Artemis visited Pan, the god of the forest, who gave her seven bitches and six dogs. She then captured six golden-horned deer to pull her chariot, Artemis practiced with her bow first by shooting at trees and then at wild beasts. As a virgin, Artemis had interested many gods and men, Orion was accidentally killed either by Artemis or by Gaia
11.
Thomas Hardy
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Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the status of rural people in Britain. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of such novels as Far from the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the dUrbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. During his lifetime, Hardys poetry was acclaimed by poets who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden, Two of his novels, Tess of the dUrbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBCs survey The Big Read. Jemima was well-read, and she educated Thomas until he went to his first school at Bockhampton at the age of eight, for several years he attended Mr. Lasts Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester, where he learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential. Because Hardys family lacked the means for a university education, his formal education ended at the age of sixteen, when he apprenticed to James Hicks. Hardy trained as an architect in Dorchester before moving to London in 1862 and he won prizes from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association. He joined Arthur Blomfields practice as assistant architect in April 1862 and worked with Blomfield on All Saints parish church in Windsor, a reredos, possibly designed by Hardy, was discovered behind panelling at All Saints in August 2016. Hardy never felt at home in London, because he was conscious of class divisions. During this time he became interested in reform and the works of John Stuart Mill. He was also introduced by his Dorset friend Horace Moule to the works of Charles Fourier, after five years, concerned about his health, he returned to Dorset, settling in Weymouth, and decided to dedicate himself to writing. In 1870, while on a mission to restore the parish church of St Juliot in Cornwall, Hardy met and fell in love with Emma Gifford. In 1885 Thomas and his wife moved into Max Gate, a designed by Hardy. In 1914, Hardy married his secretary Florence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years his junior, however, he remained preoccupied with his first wifes death and tried to overcome his remorse by writing poetry. In 1910, Hardy had been awarded the Order of Merit and was also for the first time nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and he would be nominated for the prize eleven years later. His funeral was on 16 January at Westminster Abbey, and it proved a controversial occasion because Hardy had wished for his body to be interred at Stinsford in the grave as his first wife
12.
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
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Tess of the dUrbervilles, A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British illustrated newspaper The Graphic in 1891, the novel is set in impoverished rural England, Thomas Hardys fictional Wessex, during the Long Depression of the 1870s. Tess is the oldest child of John and Joan Durbeyfield, uneducated peasants, however, John is given the impression by Parson Tringham that he may have noble blood, as Durbeyfield is a corruption of DUrberville, the surname of an extinct noble Norman family. Knowledge of this goes to Johns head. That same day, Tess participates in the village May Dance, where she meets Angel Clare, youngest son of Reverend James Clare and he stops to join the dance and partners several other girls. Angel notices Tess too late to dance with her, as he is late for a promised meeting with his brothers. Tesss father gets too drunk to drive to the market that night, however, she falls asleep at the reins, and the familys only horse encounters a speeding wagon and is fatally wounded. She is unaware that, in reality, Mrs dUrbervilles husband Simon Stoke adopted the surname even though he was unrelated to the real dUrbervilles. Tess does not succeed in meeting Mrs dUrberville, but chances to meet her son, Alec. Although Tess tells them about her fear that he try to seduce her, her parents encourage her to accept the job. Tess dislikes Alec but endures his persistent unwanted attention to earn enough to replace her familys horse, late one night, walking home from town with some other Trantridge villagers, Tess inadvertently antagonizes Car Darch, Alecs most recently discarded favourite, and finds herself in physical danger. When Alec rides up and offers to rescue her from the situation, Alec returns to find Tess asleep, and it is implied that he rapes her, although there remains a degree of ambiguity. Mary Jacobus, a commentator on Hardys works, speculates that the ambiguity may have forced on the author to meet the requirements of his publisher. Tess goes home to her fathers cottage, where she keeps almost entirely to her room, the following summer, she gives birth to a sickly boy who lives only a few weeks. On his last night alive, Tess baptises him herself, because her father would not allow the parson to visit, the child is given the name Sorrow, but despite the baptism Tess can only arrange his burial in the shabby corner of the churchyard reserved for unbaptised infants. Tess adds a cross to the grave with flowers in an empty marmalade jar. More than two years after the Trantridge debacle, Tess, now twenty, has found employment outside the village and she works for Mr. and Mrs. Crick as a milkmaid at Talbothays Dairy. There, she befriends three of her fellow milkmaids, Izz, Retty, and Marian, and meets again Angel Clare, although the other milkmaids are in love with him, Angel singles out Tess, and the two fall in love
