Article ID: CBB001030087

Hardy's Stargazers and the Astronomy of Other Minds (2008)

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This essay argues that Thomas Hardy compares the act of observing another person to the scientific practice of observing the stars in order to reveal structural obstacles to accessing other minds. He draws on astronomy and optics to underscore the discrepancy between the full perception one has of one's own consciousness and the lack of such sensory evidence for the consciousness of others. His scenes of stargazing show such obstacles being temporarily overcome; the stargazer turns away from the thick sensory detail of earthly life and uses minimal visual information as a jumping-off point for the imagination. these visual journeys into space are analogous to those Hardy's readers experience as he wrests them out of their bodies into imaginary landscapes and unfamiliar minds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Description On Thomas Hardy's use of astronomy in his fiction.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001030087/

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Authors & Contributors
Buckland, Adelene
Coccaro, Adam
Fisher, Philip
Frederickson, Kathleen
Gerstel, Jennifer Elisabeth
Gissis, Snait B.
Journals
19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century
Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology
Modernism/Modernity
Nineteenth-Century Contexts
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Victorian Literature and Culture
Publishers
Harvard University
Ashgate
University of Chicago
University of Toronto
New York University
Il Poligrafo
Concepts
Science and literature
Astronomy
Psychology
Darwinism
Metaphors; analogies
Science and gender
People
Hardy, Thomas
Eliot, George
Collins, Wilkie
Dickens, Charles
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord
Blind, Mathilde
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
Places
Great Britain
Ireland
France
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