Thomas Hardy and the Folk Horror Tradition

Thomas Hardy and the Folk Horror Tradition takes the uncanny and unsettling fiction of Thomas Hardy as fundamental in examining the lineage of ''Hardyan Folk Horror''. Hardy''s novels and his short fiction often delve into a world of folklore and what was, for Hardy the recent past. Hardy''s Wessex plays out tensions between the rational and irrational, the pagan and the Christian, the past and the ''enlightened'' future. Examining these tensions in Hardy''s life and his work provides a foundation for exploring the themes that develop in the latter half of the 20th century and again in the 21st century into a definable genre, folk horror . This study analyses the subduing function of heritage drama via analysis of adaptations of Hardy''s work to this financially lucrative film market. This is a market in which the inclusion of the weird and the eerie does not fit with the construction of a past and its function in creating a nostalgia of a safe and idyllic picture of England''s rural past. However, there are some lesser-known adaptations from the 1970s that sit alongside the unholy trinity of folk horror: the adaptation for television of the Wessex Tales. From a consideration of the epistemological fissure that characterize Hardy''s world, the book draws parallels between then and now and the manifestation of writing on conceptual borders. Through this comparative analysis, Thomas Hardy and the Folk Horror Tradition posits that we currently exist on a moment of fracture, when tradition sits as a seductive threat.>

Préface
Examines the recent resurgence of folk horror and argues that Thomas Hardy is one of its progenitors by analysing his prose (in particular his rarely examined short fiction) and its adaptations as foundational in the development of folk horror in literature, film and television.

Auteur
Alan G Smith is a researcher who specialises in screenwriting, TV drama and Thomas Hardy. He has contributed towards Adaptation for Screenwriters (Bloomsbury, 2019), the anthology Horrifying Tales (2021) and the forthcoming Venue Stories (2023)Robert Edgar is Professor of Writing and Popular Culture in the York Centre for Writing based in the School of Humanities at York St John University, UK. He has published on Screenwriting (2009), Directing Fiction (2009), The Language of Film (Bloomsbury, 2010 and 2015), The Music Documentary (2013), The Arena Concert (Bloomsbury, 2015), Music, Memory and Memoir (Bloomsbury, 2019), Adaptation for Scriptwriters (Bloomsbury, 2019), and Venue Stories (2023). He is co-editing the forthcoming Bloomsbury publication, Horrifying Children: Hauntology and the Legacy of Children's Fiction.John Marland is Senior Lecturer in Film and Literature at York St John University, UK, where he has both taught and developed undergraduate courses in literature and film. He has published on Screenwriting (2009), The Language of Film (Bloomsbury, 2010 and 2015), and Adaptation for Scriptwriters (Bloomsbury, 2019). He is co-editing the forthcoming Bloomsbury publication, Horrifying Children: Hauntology and the Legacy of Children's Fiction.

Résumé
Thomas Hardy and the Folk Horror Tradition takes the uncanny and unsettling fiction of Thomas Hardy as fundamental in examining the lineage of 'Hardyan Folk Horror'. Hardy's novels and his short fiction often delve into a world of folklore and what was, for Hardy the recent past. Hardy's Wessex plays out tensions between the rational and irrational, the pagan and the Christian, the past and the 'enlightened' future. Examining these tensions in Hardy's life and his work provides a foundation for exploring the themes that develop in the latter half of the 20th century and again in the 21st century into a definable genre, folk horror. This study analyses the subduing function of heritage drama via analysis of adaptations of Hardy's work to this financially lucrative film market. This is a market in which the inclusion of the weird and the eerie does not fit with the construction of a past and its function in creating a nostalgia of a safe and idyllic picture of England's rural past. However, there are some lesser-known adaptations from the 1970s that sit alongside the unholy trinity of folk horror: the adaptation for television of the Wessex Tales. From a consideration of the epistemological fissure that characterize Hardy's world, the book draws parallels between then and now and the manifestation of writing on conceptual borders. Through this comparative analysis, Thomas Hardy and the Folk Horror Tradition posits that we currently exist on a moment of fracture, when tradition sits as a seductive threat.

Contenu
Acknowledgements Introduction: 'Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs' 1. Foundations: Towards a Hardyan Folk Horror 2. Haunted Hardy 3. Cultural Bereavement 4. Re-Enchantment 5. Hardy Constructed and Re-Constructed 6. Hardy's Range of Narrative Perspectives 7. Wessex on Page and Screen Conclusion: 'Teach me to live that I dread the grave as little as my bed' Works Cited Index