Microbial Matters: Form and Process in Thomas Hardy’s <i>The Woodlanders</i>

Abstract This essay reads Thomas Hardy’s 1887 novel, The Woodlanders, alongside nineteenth-century fermentation science in order to make a case for the value of ‘process’ as an interpretive keyword complementary traditional questions form and progress. In examining emphasis on maintenance work, it offers path through divergent poles ‘new’ ‘old’ materialism. Looking novel’s lively descriptions consumption, fermentation, decay, I suggest that attention Woodlanders’ processes both alternate modes reading dictated by assumption organic whole, insights into politics interdependence. To this case, begin way woodlanders’ bioregional consumption patterns index entanglement humans their environments reveal precarity exists within seemingly stable rural lifestyles. second section, argue precarious life surprising account preservation change: decay old socio-ecological relations opens possibilities catalysing new ones. third section builds Woodlanders along with Marx’s theories societal metabolism. Rather than vision social purity or boundedness, conjunction yields model body sees interdependence condition continuity.