Abstract

This book interprets Thomas Hardy’s _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_ with the openness toward experience recommended by John Dewey’s _Art as Experience_. The characters of _Tess_ are considered as real people with sexual bodies and complex minds. Efron identifies the “experience blockers” that the critical tradition has stumbled upon, and defends Hardy’s involvement in telling his story. Efron offers a new way of evaluating literature inspired by Dewey’s pragmatist aesthetics.