The Ring, Casterbridge, on the Budmouth Road (Maumbury Rings, Dorchester). Photograph courtesy of John Gould, Phillips Academy, Andover. 2002.
The Maumbury Rings [otherwise known as "The Ring"), south
Dorchester, built in the Stone Age as a sacred circle; the Romans
converted it into an amphitheatre for gladiatorial games. Hardy's
description of it in The Mayor of Casterbridge as a suitable
place for clandestine meetings he augments with supernatural
visitations of Roman legionaries watching Roman blood-sports. Here is
1685 Judge Jeffreys condemned the Monmouthshire Rebels to death [Philip V. Allingham].
References
Daiches, David, and John Flower. Literary Landscapes of the British Isles: A Narrative Atlas. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981.
Kay-Robinson, Denys. The Landscape of Thomas Hardy, photographs by Simon McBride. Exeter: Webb and Bower, 1984.
Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge. An Authoritative Texts, Backgrounds, Criticism. Ed. James K. Robinson. London & New York: W. W. Norton, 1977.
Lefebure, Molly. Thomas Hardy's World. London: Carlton, 1996.
The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to Great Britain and Ireland, ed. Dorothy Eagle and Hilary Carnell. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Pinion, F. B. A Hardy Companion. New York and London: Macmillan, St. Martin's Press, 1968.
Seymour-Smith, Martin. Hardy. London: Bloomsbury, 1994.
Last modified 19 April 2024