Previous Conferences
The Original Thomas Hardy Festival was held at Kingston Maurward in 1968 to mark the fortieth anniversary of Hardy’s death. The Festival lasted two-and-a-half weeks, started with a service in Westminster Abbey and was graced by the presence, amongst others, of Harold Macmillan, Lord David Cecil, C Day Lewis and John Betjeman; the Hardy Players performed The Return of the Native and The Queen of Cornwall with Gertrude Bugler (Hardy’s Tess) taking the leading roles. The festival ended with ‘A Garden Party to meet Well Known People’!
Out of this festival, the Thomas Hardy Society was born.
Following this, Summer Schools were then held at the Dorset Institute of Higher Education at Weymouth. In 1986, Jim Gibson as academic director moved the Conference to Dorchester, thus initiating the current format of a biennial International Hardy Conference and Festival in Dorchester. Apart from a bumper eleven-day event to mark the 150th anniversary of Hardy’s birth in 1990, the conferences are generally held during the final week in July, just after the schools have broken up.
+ The 19th International Thomas Hardy Conference. 24th July – 1st August 2010
Conference Report by Brenda Parry
As with most of you reading this, I am somewhat obsessive about Thomas Hardy. So when I go to Dorchester, especially to conference, I change into another gear. I literally move into a Hardy novel.
The golden cornfields of Dorset and the drive over the stone bridge into the town are so much the scene that Hardy knew and loved more than a century ago that it is impossible not to be immediately transported into his world.
I don’t see Marks and Spencer and Boots, Waitrose and Tesco unless I need them, of course. I’m angered by Waterstone’s who can’t be bothered to put one Hardy novel in the window let alone a window display during conference week, but we were all there--- the members of the Thomas Hardy Society at the 19th International Thomas Hardy Conference and Festival, marking the 170th anniversary of the writer‘s birth…..keeping the great name alive. And Dorchester’s wonderful architecture, even if it houses some less than appealing businesses these days, is still there and not to be missed. You only have to raise your eyes to the bay window and the chandelier at the King’s Arms to be back in Hardy’s Casterbridge
It wasn’t the biggest conference gathering ever, and I was there in 1968, although admittedly not at every conference thereafter, but I came away this year with an especially warm feeling that 2010, had been one the best conferences I had attended. No wonder there were complaints about the sound system in the hall, delegates were so busy talking about last night’s concert, this afternoon’s walk, or tea at Max Gate, it proved a major problem settling everybody down for the morning lectures. We are sorry if you couldn’t all hear everything you wanted to properly, but getting sound levels just right for all of the people all of the time is very difficult. But we will try even harder next time.
A well balanced conference is what we aim for, offering as much for the academic as the lay reader. And we seemed to have pulled that off in good measure this year with both tragic (Andrew Motion and Christopher Reid) and comic (Brian Patten) poetry; with high profile lecturers including Claire Tomalin, Professor Barrie Bullen and Alan Chedzoy, plus Chedzoy with his talented granddaughter.
It was a packed programme with something worthwhile going on from 9a.m. to 10.30p.m. Some of you thought it was too busy with parallel events overlapping. Given we only all get together every two years, we would hate it to be otherwise. For what better way to spend a day with all the senses being stimulated by riveting morning lectures---and some were quite outstanding not least from some of the inspirational postgraduate students; a walk taking in some of Hardy’s most magical places--- on occasions with musical accompaniment---followed by an evening concert and then some eventful poetry readings which meandered from the pub, to Maumbury Rings to the cloisters of the Casterbridge Hotel.
Not all of us made it to end of play each day, but one man who did was our current chairman, Tony Fincham. It was his first conference as chair, and did he work hard! His enthusiasm and stamina were quite remarkable.
The conference saw the launch of two new works on Hardy--“Thomas Hardy and the Jurassic Coast,” compiled by Patrick Tolfree and Rebecca Welshman, a quite delightful guide of the coastline that had such an influence on Hardy’s work. It is a conveniently sized book for the walker and beautifully illustrated by Somerset based artist David Brackston. Published by the Society it costs £5.
Tony Fincham’s “Hardy’s Landscape Revisited” is quite the best read on Hardy for many a year. It is enchanting and if a bit weighty for the rucksack is a wonderful fireside partner enough to encourage the laziest of us to get out and explore Hardy’s Dorset. Fincham’s love for the author is totally laid bare and I defy anyone only partly committed to Hardy not to be bowled over by this. Published by Robert Hale at £25 it is available from Amazon.
It was former poet laureate Andrew Motion who opened the week’s proceedings with some particularly beautiful readings, not only of his published work, but also a preview of new work to be published next year. Many of you felt his work was particularly moving, his references to his parents for instance, while others of you felt it was a rather sad Saturday night programme. Dare I remind you that Motion was greatly influenced by one TH, and his poetry was far from comedy.
But if you were looking for good laugh, then Brian Patten, the Liverpool poet, was certainly your man. You didn’t have to understand his “scouse” to enjoy every minute of his performance. He had most of us rolling in the aisles---not literally, we are talking about the Hardy Society, but you get the picture. Don’t be fooled into thinking Patten is simply a comic poet, read some of his work and you will be amazed by the variety encompassing love and tragedy as well as lots of fun.
The third of the poets, who was to conclude the conference, was this year’s Costa Prize winner, Christopher Reid, who brought a tear to almost every eye with his poems about his actress wife who died an untimely death a few years ago. His pain was obvious, and naturally we compared his work with Hardy’s love poems---but Reid’s were so much more subjective, so new and so raw. We loved him for it, but was not an altogether happy ending to the conference lectures. But no doubt Hardy would have approved---he who rarely sent us away happy and yet managed to secure our everlasting devotion.
The evening entertainment throughout the week was as varied as the conference itself. I won’t write about them all and I hesitate to single out any, but I think the most remarkable was the wonderful Iuventus String Quartet who played for us in the Victorian Gallery at the County Museum. They played works from Haydn, Beethoven and Dovrak and their leader told us that her father, who was in the audience had shaken hands with Hardy when a small child. Needless to say everyone wanted to shake his hand during the interval. And he was more than happy to oblige.
In another concert at the museum, Sarah Deere-Jones (harp) and her husband Phil Williams (cittern and guitars) had set some of Hardy’s poetry to folk music. I think the great man would have approved.
The new Hardy Players performed the Mayor of Casterbridge for us, and on another evening Alan Chedzoy and granddaughter Jane enacted some wonderful dialect pieces. Jane was quite captivating showing great promise as a future star.
Four talented Dorset poets read from Hardy and a selection of their own work; and in a setting called “Love Lures Life On”, it was good to see our own Furse Swan in action with Bernard Palmer and Margaret Howard, Roy Burton and Sue Theobald accompanied by folk violinist Colin Thompson. Both evenings proved delightful. We were simply sated with fine words----many of them TH’s, and some superb acting. Sue Theobald’s day job might be designing and making silver jewellery, but put her on stage and she is a very different person.
It must be obvious from this report of the conference, that I am one of the lay readers, rather than an academic, but the lectures were far from lost on me----Dr. Sophie Gilmartin’s: ‘Storms in Teacups: Hardy’s Quiet Catastrophes’, was riveting. Professor Barrie Bullen held his audience spellbound with ‘Expressive Places in Far from the Madding Crowd’ while Claire Tomalin, a Hardy biographer, proved popular when she told us of Hardy’s Cambridge connection and his friendship with Sydney Cockerell. Not surprisingly from Tomalin we heard more about Hardy the man, than Hardy the novelist and poet. It sent most people home anxious to re-read her splendid biography
The talent and obvious love of Hardy amongst the post graduates was terrific to hear proving what we know to be true that Hardy’s work has a significance and relevance for every new generation. There were more post grads than ever this year and may the trend continue.
The only tinge of sadness this year was the fact that we have seen the last of the delightful tea parties hosted by Andrew and Marilyn Leah at Max Gate. They have been a highlight of the conference for many years now and not to be missed, but things are changing at Max Gate and Andrew and Marilyn will no longer be in residence. But have no doubts they will remain very much a part of the Hardy Society, and hopefully the National Trust will arrange for someone to give them tea next time around.
And so the week of lectures, walks and talks, music and dancing drew to a close with the annual meeting, a farewell buffet supper and a barn dance at the Corn Exchange and if that was not enough, the Rev John Travell delivered a fascinating sermon at the United Reform Church Sunday service on ‘Thomas Hardy and the Chapel Folk’ and finally a new work by Peter John Cooper, ‘She Opened the Door’ a play about the women in Thomas Hardy’s life played to a full and appreciative house at the Corn Exchange. And making her traditional one off appearance at the conference, the now 104 year old Norrie Woodhall, the only living survivor of the original Hardy players, came along to applaud the cast.
I think it traditional in this piece to thank everyone for the hard work in making the conference such a great success---Tony Fincham, Mike Nixon, Heather Shean and our Academic director, Dr. Jane. Thomas. It wouldn’t have happened without them. There were, of course, many more of you from tea ladies, to sound men and et al. Thank you.
If you were there, you will know well what you best enjoyed; if you weren’t there I hope this will inspire you to attend in 2012 after any Olympic exertions. In the meantime, if you need to get yourself into a Hardy novel, just take a trip to Dorchester. It’s all there.
+ Conference Programme 2010
The programme for last year’s conference (2010) is typical of the breadth, depth and intensity of these events:
The 19th International THOMAS HARDY Conference & Festival
Dorchester 24th July – 1st August 2010
Saturday 24 July
From 12 noon
Registration at the United Church. Refreshment facilities are available and delegates may purchase light lunches.
7pm for 7.30 pm* *
Conference & Festival Launch, sponsored by Dorset County Council: Reception and Buffet Supper at The Thomas Hardye School for delegates and guests. Andrew Wadsworth, Director of the Brewery Square Development, will speak on ‘Arts in the community.’
8.30 pm
Sir Andrew Motion will present his own poetry, reading from his latest collection of poems, The Cinder Path, and references to Hardy’s writing. With Q&A. Book-signing afterwards.
Tickets: £10, £4 Students
Sunday 25 July
9.00 am
‘Thomas Hardy’s Cornwall’: all day coach trip led by Helen Gibson to Boscastle & St Juliot, 140 years after Thomas Hardy met Emma there. Readings at St Juliot, visiting the Old Rectory, Vallency valley and Beeny Cliff. Cornish lunch included.
9.00 am
‘Thomas Hardy and Archaeology’: all day coach tour led by Rebecca Welshman: Stonehenge, Pilsdon Pen, Devizes, Maiden Castle, other archaeological sites. Picnic lunch or café stop at Stonehenge.
10.00 am
Morning Service at St Michael’s, Stinsford.
Preacher: The Revd John Schofield. Refreshments to follow.
11.30 am
Circular walk from Stinsford led by Sue Clarke, lunch stop at Coach House Restaurant, Kingston Maurward or bring picnic.
3.00 pm
Keith Wilson will talk about ‘The Hardy Players’
3.30 pm
Casterbridge walk led by Helen Lange, exploring some of the places particularly significant to Hardy’s life and work
8.00 pm
United Church: ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’.
A performance by The New Hardy Players
sponsored by dorchester town council Tickets: £10, £4 Students
NIGHTLY at 10PM (APPROX) Informal Poetry Readings At ‘The Royal Oak’, High West Street
Monday 26 July
9.00 am each day: announcements to be given out by mike nixon
9.15 am
Lecture by Prof Philip Davis: ‘’”Of Individuality”: Significant Variation in Hardy’s Poetry’
11.00 am
Lecture by Prof William Greenslade: ‘”Out of the Way
Places”: Hardy’s Symbolic Geographies.’
1.30 pm
Local coach tour led by Furse Swann to Bockhampton, Frome Hill Barrow, with tea at The New Inn, West Knighton.
1.30 pm
Seminar with Prof Davis
1.30 pm
Seminar with Prof Greenslade
2.00 pm
Brian Patten: ‘Poetry for all the family’. Announcement of the winners of the Junior Bard of Dorchester Poetry Competition.
sponsored by dorchester town council
5.00 pm
The Gryphon School Film : ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’
7.00 pm
Corn Exchange (Magistrates’ Room) Cllr Leslie Phillips (Mayor of Dorchester) will open the David Brackston Art Exhibition and Dr Jon Murden will launch Thomas Hardy and the Jurassic Coast, compiled by Patrick Tolfree and Rebecca Welshman, with illustrations by David Brackston.
8.00 pm
A Poetry Reading by Brian Patten
sponsored by west dorset district council Tickets: £10, £4 Students
Tuesday 27 July Antiquarian and Secondhand Book Fair at Conference venue
9.00 am Announcements: mike nixon
9.15 am
Lecture by Prof Penny Boumelha: ‘”Bright Faces of the New”: Bodies, Children and Futures in Hardy’s Novels
11.00 am
Call for Papers: PANEL ONE: main Church:
Professor Keith Wilson (University of Ottawa) ‘Hardy and the Ethics of Looking’
Hugh Epstein ‘Desperate Remedies: the physiology of sensation and literary style’
Uehara, Sanae (Nagoya University, Japan) ‘Re-reading Newson’s and Susan’s Stories’
Professor Simon Gatrell (University of Georgia) ‘“Such a Sad Suit”: Mourning in Wessex’.
11.00 am
Call for Papers: PANEL TWO: Cerne Abbas Room
Dr Peter Robson ‘Hardy’s Dorset Ghosts’
Dr Neil Sargeant (Carleton University, Ottawa) ‘Caught between the Real and the Imaginary of Law: Divorce, Wife Sale and Living ‘Common Law’ in Hardy’s Wessex’
Dr Geoff Doel (University of Kent) ‘Mummers & Maypoles - Hardy’s Dramatic & Thematic Use of Seasonal Customs & Folklore in The Return of the Native’.
Christopher Sparey-Green ‘A Time-Torn Landscape’
1.30 pm
‘Fiddling Folk’, a walk led by Tony Fincham in area of ‘The Three Strangers’ with music and singing by Tim Laycock and Colin Thompson
1.30 pm
Coach tour ’Thomas Hardy: Church Architect’ led by JoAnna Mink, to Wimborne Minster, Hinton Martell and West Knighton.
2-3.30pm
Postgraduate Symposium: chaired by Prof Roger Ebbatson (Lancaster University):
Demelza Hookway (Exeter University):
Falling Over the Same Precipice: JS Mill and Hardy’
Tyleen Kelly (Oxford University): ‘Reading the Skies: Meteorology in Hardy’s Narratives’
Yekaterina Novokreshennykh (Tyumen State University, Russia): ‘Elements of Human Nature in the Wessex Novels’
Ellie Cope (Hull University): ‘A Symmetrical Existence undone by Ideal Passion: Boldwood’s Monomania’
3-5.00 pm* *
Tea at Max Gate by invitation of Marilyn & Andrew Leah, with poetry reading by Michael Thorpe Tickets: £5
4.15 pm
Reception for postgraduates and new scholars
5.30 pm
‘Love Lures Life On’: a review of ‘Hardy’s ballads and narrative poems’, devised by Bernard Palmer, with readers Roy Burton, Margaret Howard, Furse Swann,
Sue Theobald and Colin Thompson (violin)
8.00 pm
'Wessex Voices’: An Entertainment by Alan Chedzoy, with Jane Chedzoy Tickets: £5
Wednesday 28 July
Antiquarian and Secondhand Book Fair at Conference venue
9.00 am announcements: mike nixon
9.15 am
Lecture by Dr Angelique Richardson: ‘Hardy and War’
11.00 am
Lecture by Prof Barrie Bullen: ‘Hardy, Topography and Space’
1.30 pm
Seminar with Prof Barrie Bullen
1.30 pm
‘The Trumpet-Major and “The Melancholy Hussar”’: walk led by Tony Fincham in conjunction with South Dorset Ridgeway Festival and Jurassic Coast World Heritage Team: from Sutton Poyntz, to Bincombe
1.30 pm
Coach tour to Sherborne led by Helen Lange, to see settings for The Woodlanders, and ‘Anna, Lady Baxby’
2.00 pm
Call for Papers: PANEL THREE: main Church
Philip Budd: ‘Encounters with Ecclesiastes: Thomas Hardy and Old Eccl’iastes’ Ink Bottle’
Parris Bushong, United World College: ‘Sue Bridehead’s Theological Odyssey’
Dr Trevor Johnson, ‘Hardy and the Book of Common Prayer’
Dr Julia Courtney, Open University: ‘Too ‘Parsonical’? Religion and Region in Hardy, Barnes and T E Brown’
2.00 pm
Call for Papers: PANEL FOUR: Cerne Abbas Room
Professor Roger Ebbatson, ‘“In Front of the Landscape”: The Lyric Poet in a Destitute Time’
Frances Causer (Seijo University, Tokyo), ‘Thomas Hardy’s “Drummer Hodge” takes a starring role in Alan Bennett’s The History Boys’
Dr Ilaria Mallozzi, ‘When Literature meets Science’
Dr Emanuela Ettore, (G. d’Annunzio University, Italy) ,
‘The Paradoxes of Science and the Indeterminacy of the Visible’
4-5.30 pm
Postgraduate symposium: Chair: Prof Rosemarie Morgan
Indy Clark (University of Queensland):
Arcadia, Wessex and the South Country in Hardy’s Poetry’
Marianne Burton (Royal Holloway, London University):
‘“The Bride-Night Fire”: Hardy’s Erotic Fascinations’
Claire Potter (University of Paris VII):
‘A Picnic in Hades: Revisiting the Emma Poems’
Kitty Zhang (University of Hong Kong):
‘The Lover as Artist: The Well-Beloved and Poems 1912-13’
7.45 pm
The Iuventus String Quartet: a programme of music by Haydn, Beethoven and Dvorak. The Victorian Gallery at the Dorset County Museum
sponsored by dorchester b i d Tickets (includes wine etc): £10, £4Students
Thursday 29 July
9.00 am announcements: mike nixon
9.15 am
Lecture by Dr Sophie Gilmartin: ‘Storms and Teacups: Hardy’s Quiet Catastrophes’
11-12.30
Postgraduate Symposium: Chair: Dr Angelique Richardson
Thomas Paterson (Hull University): ‘Miasmatic Fog, Vice and Mixen Lane: Disease Imagery in The Mayor of Casterbridge’
William Abberley (Exeter University): ‘Language and the Extinction of Rural Consciousness in Hardy’s Fiction’
Samantha Briggs (Leicester University):‘Marriage and Survival in Jude the Obscure’
Rosalyn Gregory (Oxford University): ‘Projects for Staging The Woodlanders and Jude the Obscure’
1.30 pm
Seminar with Dr Gilmartin
1.30 pm
Coach tour led by Helen Gibson with Brian Caddy: ‘Two Fine Houses and a Rector’s Retreat’
1.30 pm
Coach tour led by Angela Bell to Swanage, Purbecks and Wareham including a five mile walk
2-3.30 pm
Postgraduate Symposium: Chair: Prof Roger Ebbatson
Jane Bownas (Open University):‘Primitive Wanderers,
Civilised Settlers? Breaking the Binary in Hardy’
Joel Hawkes (Bristol University): Corfe Castle and the Tourist: The Ritual Performance of Wessex’
Rebecca Welshman (University of Exeter): “Prehistoric Times”: Marriage and the Ancient Earth’
Zach Samalin (City University, New York):‘Boulders on a Plain: Casterbridge and the Languages of Critique’
3-5.00 pm* *
Tea at Max Gate by invitation of Marilyn & Andrew Leah, with poetry reading by Michael Thorpe Tickets: £5
6.00 pm
Book Launch: Hardy’s Landscape Revisited by Tony Fincham at Waterstones Bookshop
7.30 pm
Four Bridport poets present ‘Who’s in the Next Room’: poems by Hardy and other poets. sponsored by the National Trust Tickets: £10, £4 Students
Friday 30 July
9.00 am announcements: mike nixon
9.15 am
Lecture by Claire Tomalin: ‘Hardy and the Cambridge Connection’
11.00 am
Lecture by Dr Tim Armstrong: ‘Hardy’s Maths’
1.30 pm
Coach tour with 2 walks: ‘East of Egdon’, led by Tony Fincham in countryside of The Return of the Native
1.30 pm
Coach tour led by Sue Clarke, exploring Bridport, Beaminster, Abbotsbury and the Jurassic Coast
2.00 pm
General Readers’ Seminar: ‘A Forum for Hardy Enthusiasts' convened by Jeanie Smith and Ann Bliss
7.45 pm
Recital: Sarah Deere-Jones(harp) & Phil Williams (cittern & guitars). Folk settings of Hardy’s poems. Victorian Gallery, Dorset County Museum sponsored by blanchards bailey Tickets: £10, £4 Students
Saturday 31 July
9.00 am announcements: mike nixon
9.15 am
Poetry reading by Christopher Reid: ‘Woman Much Missed’
11.00 am
Thomas Hardy Association Forum chaired by Prof Rosemarie Morgan
3.00 pm
Thomas Hardy Quiz, introduced by Chris Rowe
5.00 pm
Annual General Meeting
7.30 pm* *
Corn Exchange: Farewell Buffet Supper, followed by a Barn Dance with the Climax Ceilidh Band
Sunday 1 August
10.30 am
Morning Service at the United Church. Preacher: The Revd Dr John Travell: ‘Thomas Hardy and the Chapel Folk’, with reader, Brian Caddy.
3.30 pm
Corn Exchange: World Premiere of ‘She Opened the Door’, a play about the women in Thomas Hardy’s life and literature, by Peter John Cooper, working with Jane McKell and AsOne Theatre Company.
Tickets in advance from the Conference/Festival Box Office or on the door: £10
* these events are for full conference & festival members only*