"Boyish as a Ganymede": Greek Love and the Erotic Experiment in Jude the Obscure

Abstract

Abstract: This article demonstrates the importance of Jude the Obscure's Oxford setting to Thomas Hardy's project of writing a novel of maturation that refuses to conclude with successful reproduction. Linking the character of Sue Bridehead with Hardy's interest in writing about Greek love by Oxford graduates, I show how Jude's coupling with Sue incites intellectual exploration rather than the reducing development to the ends of reproductive marriage or professional achievement. To narrate the effect of Sue's tutelage, I show, Hardy derails the novel's teleological progression in favor of a pastoral mode made possible by spaces where the couple can safely practice non-marital sexuality. By way of conclusion, I position Jude at the start of a queer pastoral tradition in British fiction in which setting is formally significant because of its historical significance to the sustainability of sexually nonnormative lives.