Riassunto
Riassunto di Il trombettiere maggiore
A chi è rivolto
For readers who love gentle historical fiction, village life and love stories where goodness is tested. It is also a friendly way into Hardy.
Che cos’è questo libro
The Trumpet-Major is a historical novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1880. It is set in the Dorset countryside in the years 1804 and 1805, when England lived in daily fear that Napoleon would land an army on the south coast. Hardy grew up in that country and heard stories of those anxious years from older people, and he used them to build a book that is part love story, part comedy and part portrait of a nation waiting for war.
The story centres on the mill at Overcombe, near Weymouth. A young woman named Anne Garland and her widowed mother rent rooms there from the miller, Mr Loveday. His elder son John is a trumpeter in a cavalry regiment, and his younger son Robert goes to sea. Both men come to love Anne. A loud, cowardly local braggart named Festus Derriman wants her too. Around them move soldiers, sailors, villagers and even the king himself.
What do you get from it? A warm, often funny picture of ordinary people under threat, and a love story in which the best man may not be the one who is chosen. Let us begin where the book begins, in the quiet valley and the mill.
In questo riassunto
- 1A mill in Dorset waits for warFree
- 2A trumpeter comes home to the mill
- 3Festus Derriman struts and blusters
- 4Robert Loveday returns and charms Anne
- 5The king comes to Weymouth
- 6Love, jealousy and a flirt in the village
- 7A false alarm sends the countryside fleeing
- 8What the story is really about
- 9How Hardy tells the tale
Punto chiave 1 di 9
A mill in Dorset waits for war
The novel opens in Overcombe, a small village in the valley behind Weymouth. The mill stands at its heart, and a part of the building is let to Mrs Garland, a widow, and her daughter Anne. They are respectable people who have come down in the world, and Anne is a pretty, thoughtful girl of about twenty. Mr Loveday, the miller, is a cheerful widower, and he gets on well with his lodgers.
The year is 1804, and Britain is at war with France. Napoleon has gathered a great army across the Channel, and everyone knows that the south coast is the likeliest place for it to land. Hardy shows the effect of this fear on the valley. Volunteers drill in the fields. Beacons stand ready on the hills. Old men repeat stories of earlier wars and of how the French might come.
The village has its own gossips and tellers of tales. One of them is Simon Burden, an old soldier who has fought in earlier wars and who loves to describe battles to anyone who will listen. Hardy uses such characters to give the book a chorus, a group of plain voices who comment on events as they unfold. Their talk is full of warm humour, and it also keeps the danger always in the background.
Anne herself has a clear view of soldiers at first. She is not carried away by uniforms, as some village girls are. She has her mother to care for and a quiet life she values. Yet the war is coming into her life whether she wants it or not.
The opening chapters set out the place, the people and the mood. You should notice how small the stage is. The great events of the age will pass close to this mill, but the book is more interested in what they do to the people inside it than in the generals who direct them.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Il trombettiere maggiore
What is The Trumpet-Major about?
It tells of Anne Garland, who lodges at a Dorset mill in 1804 while England fears Napoleon's invasion. She is loved by a faithful trumpeter, drawn to his sailor brother, and pursued by a boastful braggart.
Is The Trumpet-Major a true story?
No, the main characters are invented, but the setting is real. Hardy wrote it in 1880 and used real history, including King George III's stays at Weymouth and the invasion fears of the early 1800s.
What is a trumpet-major?
A trumpet-major is the senior trumpeter of a cavalry regiment. He sounds the calls that direct the soldiers in the field and in camp. John Loveday holds this rank in the novel.
Is The Trumpet-Major hard to read?
No, it is one of Hardy's lighter and more approachable novels. The language is clear, the plot is simple, and there is plenty of humour.
Who is Festus Derriman?
Festus is a comic figure, the nephew of a miserly farmer and a member of the local volunteers. He boasts loudly about fighting the French but lacks courage, and he tries to win Anne.