ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Thomas Hardy as philologist, an interest that paralleled his fascination with architecture and archaeology, but at level of the page. Hardy's novels abound with futile attempts to supersede or bury another's claims on paternity. Thomas Hardy's final novel, Jude the Obscure, begins with the inscription 'The Letter Killeth', which refers to the legal and biblical conventions that stifle Hardy's proto-modern protagonists Hardy's literary notebooks contain a clipping from an article entitled 'The Woman of the Future'. Hardy's narrative of Jude's education echoes debates that reemerged in late Victorian culture about value of classical education, the study of Greek and Latin, most vividly realized in Matthew Arnold's 'Literature and Science', written to counter challenges leveled by T. H. Huxley and others as proponents of technical, vocational training. Hardy's focus pairs him with George Meredith, ends the review, as one who forces readers of 'Wardour Street romancers and whimpering Scotch humourists' to move 'from a library into a schoolroom'.
