Religion as Spectacle: Hardy and Christian Ritual

Abstract

Directly related to images based on Hardy’s knowledge of and interest in church architecture is his frequent use of motifs deriving from another external aspect of the tradition of Christianity — the music and ritual of the Christian Church. Temperamentally passive and conservative, always ready to return to the memories of his childhood and youth, and throughout his career trying to recapture in his works the moods and feelings of the past, Hardy always remained deeply attached not only to the traditional music of the Church of England, its hymns, psalms, and carols, but also to the entire external aspect of High Christian worship, with its theatricality, solemnity, and imaginative richness. It was indeed principally this sense of emotional bond with the Anglican liturgical tradition, which he got to know and admire as a young man, that prevented him from breaking away from the Church altogether and that led him, towards the end of his life, to recognise the role of Christianity as the institutional guardian of basic human values against the often cruel and thoughtless reality of the world.