Response to Rejoinder

BOOK REVIEWS give detailed argument to show that Hardy's view of Nature, both in his commentary and in the scenes of the novel, is coherent. This is the opposite of the usual assumption, which is based on ignoring the specific contexts in which Nature makes its appearance in Hardy's novel. As Dewey wrote in "Context and Thought" (1931), the failure to observe context is responsible for more errors in intellectual work than is any other factor. The position I support on Nature is a refutation of criticisms raised by Lionel Johnson in the 1890s and echoed ever since. With regard to Tess as a character, I believe I am one of the first critics to take her seriously as a person with a mind, not just a body. In my concluding chapter, I propose that no feminist view of Tess can hope to achieve fully satisfactory results. Schweik finally credits me with exploring a lot of critics' views of the meaning of Hardy's designation of Tess a "A Pure Woman," but indicates that I myself have nothing worthwhile to say about it. He ignores my point (a new one in criticism, I suspect) that Tess acts sadistically toward her milkmaid companions. I also find that Tess has a specifically ethical intelligence. My experience of the novel is admittedly individualized—I am not in a condition of tabula rasa, as Schweik absurdly suggests—but that is not the same as saying that I have read the novel in a way that is solely my own, as he tells readers of this journal. On the contrary, I claim there are important features of Hardy's novel whose qualities are virtually undeniable on the part of any reader. Schweik ends by complimenting my "extraordinary range of reference " and my "engagement with so many different critical points of view." My book has "much that is solid and sane in it." I write with "humane clarity." He no doubt means these things sincerely, and I sincerely accept his good words. I just don't see how he can connect such remarks with what has gone before. ARTHUR EFRON University at Buffalo, SUNY Response to Rejoinder Arthur Efron's rejoinder to my review of Experiencing 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles': A Deweyan Account. ARTHUR EFRON accuses other critics of using ideas as "stencils" that distort "what is there"—while claiming for himself a special originality of perception. He assumes that "[W]hen the novel is approached from the perspective of the reader—myself—almost everything in it appears in a different light." In fact, Efron's book is replete with such banal assertions as that Tess "is purely herself, beyond the concept 483 ELT 49 : 4 2006 of sin." But to defend his claim to special originality, in his rejoinder he makes such remarkable claims as this: "I believe I am one of the first critics to take [Tess] seriously as a person with a mind, not just a body." Of course anyone familiar with the history of criticism of Tess will know that many critics have treated Tess "seriously as a person with a mind, not just a body." Moreover, what Efron claims as his particularly original interpretations—for example, his view that Tess "acts sadistically toward her milkmaid companions" or his assumption that he has resolved the problem of whether Tess was raped or not, or his claim that "no feminist view of Tess can hope to achieve fully satisfactory results"—are really records of Efron's "experiences" that for many other readers will be seen as the result of perceiving the novel through his peculiar sensibilities. In short, Efron imagines that other critics have "stencils" which distort their "experience" while he has not. I have called attention to that persistent weakness in Experiencing 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles,' and Fm not surprised that the author is unhappy that I have pointed it out. Now for some other specifics. Take, for example, Efron on texts. Having rejected a manuscript passage on the ground that he would not "welcome a Tess who would go to bed with Angel in order to avoid being cruel to him," Efron declares that he will adopt...