MAJOR AND MAYOR – ON TWO ‘TRUTHS’ IN HARDY’S NOVELS (BASED ON A READING OF HIS OWN PREFACES)

Abstract

The present paper offers a reading of the prefaces to Thomas Hardy’s The Trumpet Major (1880) and The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886). We focus mainly on the former novel and use the latter as a point of reference. In this study we try to get a better understanding of how close to past experiences Hardy used as a basis of his novels he actually was. The observations made in our perusal of the prefatory texts are influenced by the hermeneutical ideas of scholars such as Wolfgang Iser and Paul Ricoeur.