Christian Bryner and Professor John Bennion
For Professor Bennion’s Thomas Hardy project, I used my alloted 80 hours to research cultural and geographical information from five different novels: Jude the Obscure, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterville, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, and Under the Greenwood Tree. With each of the novels, I jotted down the page number of any reference to geographical locations, place names, descriptions of local history, references to local customs, songs, buildings, furniture, local plant and animal life, and clothing.
After making note of these references, I then used the 1912 Wessex Editions of Hardy’s novels, in which he collated all geographical references, and entered the entire passage and description of geographical locations, place names, etc. onto computer disk. As I went through each novel in this manner, I was able to detect important passages that I discounted on my initial reading and entered them into the program. Combined, these references make over 140 single-spaced pages.
As the second phase of the project, I researched eight or nine books dealing with the geography of Hardy’s Wessex. I noted the passages in these books that give descriptions of the actual places that Hardy used in his novels. I also noted the passages that attempt to correlate Hardy’s fictional place names with actual place names. Finally, I located several maps that compare Hardy’s conception of Wessex with the actual layout of the Dorset area. When these references are also put on computer and correlated with the descriptions from Hardy’s novels they will provide the basis for a very thorough and detailed hypertext map of Hardy’s Wessex’.
There are still a few things left to be done before the work on the novels I researched is completely done, but they are not too substantial.
1. The passages from the novels still have to be proofread. This is probably the biggest part.
2. Most of the library books I checked out in your name are due on October 1. Some are due November 1.
3. The passages I located in the travel books need to be photocopied, and the information from them somehow needs to be correlated with the passages on the computer disk.
4. I have some more passages from Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Under the Greenwood Tree that need to be added to the computer disk.
5. The passages from the novels are in chronological order. You may eventually want to organize them by topic or by place name, but I haven’t taken any steps to do so.