Some Thoughts on… Far from the Madding Crowd and its Adaptations

Abstract

In the whole of Hardy’s work, Far from the Madding Crowd is probably to this day the novel having entailed the most numerous and varied adaptations. This essay seeks to offer some thoughts on the way several filmmakers as well as one opera composer and one cartoonist have made Hardy’s work their own. The multiplication of adaptations in very recent years naturally testifies to the modernity of Hardy’s writing. But one might also wonder what appealed to a variety of artistic practices in that particular novel of Hardy’s. This essay looks at fundamental features of Hardy’s novel – its pastoralism and blending of the tragic and the comical – and examines how such distinctive features have been transposed in cinematographic, operatic and graphic modes.