11
votes
What does 'you med ask' mean, from "Jude the Obscure"?
Searching a Project Gutenberg etext of Jude the Obscure, I found a dozen other instances of "med", such as these:
"Now don't you interrupt, my boy. Never interrupt your senyers. Move the fore hoss ...
- 3,147
11
votes
Was Thomas Hardy expressing his own religious intolerance or commenting on the general anti-Semitic sentiment of the time?
I think the answer will become clear if you re-read the passage (starting from the beginning of the chapter so that you have the full context) and carefully distinguish the points of view. When I do ...
- 63.9k
9
votes
Who's this 'certain obliterator of historic records' in "Jude the Obscure"?
The 'certain obliterator of historic records' is referring to a real person. It is widely thought that it was George Edmund Street, who was a Gothic revival architect.
Hardy worked for revival ...
- 2,176
8
votes
What does this passage about the atmosphere blowing from Cyprus and the Galilee mean in "Jude the Obscure"?
TL;DR: Galilee, where Jesus lived and preached, is a metonym for Christian morality; Cyprus, where Aphrodite emerged from the sea, for pagan sexuality.
Context
Even if the references are obscure, I ...
- 63.9k
7
votes
Why does my copy of "Jude the Obscure" use 'part first' instead of 'first part' or something like that?
If you enter the google books search "part second" you will see this construction was a perfectly normal practice in the 1700 and 1800s. Here are some of the hits I got: to The Ploughboy: A Poem, ...
- 4,360
7
votes
What does "I'll be D.D. before I have done!" mean?
Doctor of Divinity.
The context is Jude ambitiously planning out his future life as an academic clergyman in Christminster (Oxford). From the same passage:
And then he continued to dream, and thought ...
- 76.7k
6
votes
Accepted
"Remembrance Day" in "Jude the Obscure"
‘Remembrance Day’ is Hardy’s fictional version of Encaenia,
the ceremony at which the University of Oxford awards honorary degrees to distinguished men and women and commemorates its benefactors.
...
- 63.9k
6
votes
Accepted
What is the significance of the name Jude, in Jude the Obscure?
Norman Holland’s essay on Jude the Obscure has a paragraph about the significance of the names of the major characters in the novel:
In the novel as a whole, the principal complex of images is that ...
- 63.9k
5
votes
Was Thomas Hardy expressing his own religious intolerance or commenting on the general anti-Semitic sentiment of the time?
This is an impossible question to answer definitively without a supporting quote from the author. No such quote appears to exist: I haven't been able to source anything in which Hardy discusses his ...
- 23.6k
5
votes
What does 'you med ask' mean, from "Jude the Obscure"?
Specifically ‘med’ represents (West) Berkshire dialect. Desmond Hawkins (1989), Hardy at Home: The People and Place of His Wessex:
As [Hardy’s] practice developed he tended to simplify and ...
- 63.9k
5
votes
What does the fate of the old church tell us in "Jude the Obscure"?
This is part of a wider Hardy theme of romanticising the old-fashioned ruralness of the SW England countryside and disdaining the march of modernity.
Such commentary appears a lot in Hardy's writing. ...
- 76.7k
4
votes
Who's this 'certain obliterator of historic records' in "Jude the Obscure"?
I think this is more of a general commentary on the state of the English countryside at the time, rather than a reference to any particular person.
Such commentary appears a lot in Hardy's writing. In ...
- 76.7k
3
votes
Why does my copy of "Jude the Obscure" use 'part first' instead of 'first part' or something like that?
Is this a printing error? A style that I've never seen before? Something else?
Definitely not a printing error; it's a style you've never seen before.
Jude the Obscure isn't even the only Thomas ...
- 76.7k
3
votes
Accepted
What view of marriage is presented in Jude the Obscure?
From the preface to my edition of the book:
"For a novel addressed by a man to men and woman of full age: which attempts to deal unaffectedly with the fret and fever, derision and disaster, that ...
- 3,103
3
votes
How was Jude obscure in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure?
TL;DR: you're getting the wrong meaning of "obscure".
You seem to be assuming that "obscure" means something like "strange" or "difficult to understand", but ...
- 76.7k
2
votes
Who was Sue’s mother?
Jude's father and Sue's mother were siblings. The Aunt who raised Jude was his maiden great-aunt.
It's easy to miss, but the very first mention of Sue, long before she became a major character, was ...
- 76.7k
1
vote
Was Thomas Hardy expressing his own religious intolerance or commenting on the general anti-Semitic sentiment of the time?
No, Hardy is not being anti-Semitic here. The passage you quote is a satire against the praying man: it's about how we rationalize why prayer doesn't work. The man's prayers weren't answered, so he ...
- 11
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible