Varieties of Rural Experience: Country Communities in Virginia and Wessex.

After an initial reflection on just what might be meant by 'rural experience', the essay turns to an explicit comparison of the author's childhood experiences on his maternal grandparents' farm in Afton, Virginia, with Thomas Hardy's rendition in his novel, Under the Greenwood Tree, of his childhood experiences in Upper Bockhampton, Dorsetshire. Both Miller and Hardy seem to represent their childhood places as examples of genuine 'organic communities', but the essay shows in detail ways in which the model of organic community does not quite work in either case. This 'non-working', however, is not the same in each instance. The essay shows this in detail, especially by way of attention to the southern heritage of slavery in modern Afton, and by way of the narrator's ironic detachment in Under the Greenwood Tree as well as through the photographs that illustrated early editions of Hardy's novel and through the reference in the subtitle to the novel as 'A Rural Painting of the Dutch School'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]