'Boyish as a Ganymede': Greek Love and the Erotic Experiment in Jude the Obscure

This article demonstrates the importance of Jude the Obscure's Oxford setting to Thomas Hardy's project of writing a novel of maturation that refuses to conclude with successful reproduction. Linking the character of Sue Bridehead with Hardy's interest in writing about Greek love by O...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inELH Vol. 90; no. 4; pp. 1123 - 1157
Main Author Wiet, Victoria
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.12.2023
Subjects
Bildungsroman
Children & youth
Cognitive development
Eroticism
Experiments
Families & family life
Fiction
Heterosexuality
Literary characters
Love
Marriage
Novels
Personal relationships
Sexuality
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Summary:This article demonstrates the importance of Jude the Obscure's Oxford setting to Thomas Hardy's project of writing a novel of maturation that refuses to conclude with successful reproduction. Linking the character of Sue Bridehead with Hardy's interest in writing about Greek love by Oxford graduates, I show how Jude's coupling with Sue incites intellectual exploration rather than the reducing development to the ends of reproductive marriage or professional achievement. To narrate the effect of Sue's tutelage, I show, Hardy derails the novel's teleological progression in favor of a pastoral mode made possible by spaces where the couple can safely practice non-marital sexuality. By way of conclusion, I position Jude at the start of a queer pastoral tradition in British fiction in which setting is formally significant because of its historical significance to the sustainability of sexually nonnormative lives.
ISSN:0013-8304
1080-6547
1080-6547
DOI:10.1353/elh.2023.a914018