The Well-Beloved
by Thomas Hardy
"Beloved" completes the cycle of hardy's great novels, repeating man's favorite themes about man's eternal desire for perfection in both love and art and impending pain. Celebrity sculptor Jocelyn Pearston tries to create a stone-made image of her ideal woman — her imaginary lover, just as she tries to find her from flesh and bone. The strong symbolism marks this romantic fantasy that Hardy firmly embodied in reality with a characteristically authentic reflection of the location, Slingers Island or Portland as we know it. A clear examination of the relationship between erotic passion and creativity makes this novel important in the persistent debates about art, aesthetics, and gender in the nineteenth century.
