The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Temperament
A Wessex Tale of Sculptural Obsession, Idealized Beauty, and Frustrated Romantic LongingBy Thomas Hardy
Length7h 12m
About this audiobook
In The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Temperament, Thomas Hardy follows Jocelyn Pierston, a sculptor from the Channel Island–like Isle of Slingers, whose imagination is dominated by the elusive "Well-Beloved," an ideal of feminine beauty that appears to him in successive women and generations. His pursuit of Avice Caro, her daughter, and her granddaughter becomes a provocative study of aesthetic desire, memory, sexual psychology, and the instability of supposedly permanent ideals. Combining romance, satire, psychological introspection, and symbolic realism, Hardy places a familiar Victorian love plot within a more experimental structure, anticipating modernist concerns with fractured identity and subjective perception. The island setting, artistic vocabulary, and recurring motifs also expose the tension between idealized art and embodied human life. Hardy (1840–1928), trained initially as an architect, became one of the major English novelists of the late nineteenth century. His fiction repeatedly examines the conflict between individual longing and social, biological, or historical forces. Written in an early form in the 1890s and substantially revised for book publication in 1897, The Well-Beloved reflects Hardy's increasing dissatisfaction with conventional romantic narratives and his interest in the unpredictable workings of temperament. Its unusual treatment of desire also belongs to the period's wider debates about aestheticism, gender, and the authority of artistic vision. This intelligent, unconventional novel will reward readers interested in Hardy's development beyond the better-known Wessex tragedies. It is especially suited to those who value psychologically nuanced fiction, literary experimentation, and critical examinations of love's idealizing power.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 3.6 (3.5K)
Includes Goodreads, LibraryThing, StoryGraph, Amazon
GenreGeneral Fiction, Mystery and Thriller
Length7 hrs 12 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateNov 25, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres (Annotated)
2PREFACE
31. I. A SUPPOSITITIOUS PRESENTMENT OF HER
41. II. THE INCARNATION IS ASSUMED TO BE TRUE
51. III. THE APPOINTMENT
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61. IV. A LONELY PEDESTRIAN
71. V. A CHARGE
81. VI. ON THE BRINK
91. VII. HER EARLIER INCARNATIONS
101. VIII. ‘TOO LIKE THE LIGHTNING’
111. IX. FAMILIAR PHENOMENA IN THE DISTANCE
122. I. THE OLD PHANTOM BECOMES DISTINCT
132. II. SHE DRAWS CLOSE AND SATISFIES
142. III. SHE BECOMES AN INACCESSIBLE GHOST
152. IV. SHE THREATENS TO RESUME CORPOREAL SUBSTANCE
162. V. THE RESUMPTION TAKES PLACE
172. VI. THE PAST SHINES IN THE PRESENT
182. VII. THE NEW BECOMES ESTABLISHED
192. VIII. HIS OWN SOUL CONFRONTS HIM
202. IX. JUXTAPOSITIONS
212. X. SHE FAILS TO VANISH STILL
222. XI. THE IMAGE PERSISTS
232. XII. A GRILLE DESCENDS BETWEEN
242. XIII. SHE IS ENSHROUDED FROM SIGHT
253. I. SHE RETURNS FOR THE NEW SEASON
263. II. MISGIVINGS ON THE RE-EMBODIMENT
273. III. THE RENEWED IMAGE BURNS ITSELF IN
283. IV. A DASH FOR THE LAST INCARNATION
293. V. ON THE VERGE OF POSSESSION
303. VI. THE WELL-BELOVED IS—WHERE?
313. VII. AN OLD TABERNACLE IN A NEW ASPECT
323. VIII. ‘ALAS FOR THIS GREY SHADOW, ONCE A MAN!’
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