Book introduction

　What can a male writer see and what is beyond his vision? In the Victorian period (1837-1901), a male writer modestly yet boldly depicted the sexual ideology at the time, and his “eyes” were directed at the women living under the Victorian social system. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), one of the leading Victorian writers known for his literary works Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895), came from a working-class background. Based on the perspective of feminist and gender studies, this book aims to illuminate representations of sexuality in novels and poetry written by Hardy, who created literary works mainly in the Victorian period and even after the turn of the 20th century. I hope that this
book will help you read and appreciate Hardy’s poems, which have not been shed light on until now.