Subverting the Anthropocene and Capitalocene in Tess of the d'Urbervilles while heading towards proto-Symbiocene

Hardy’s novel combines various temporal layers, the nostalgia of the fleeting past (the warm, idyllic natural landscape), the present when the author ponders over the demise of the traditional ecosystem and the transformation of his own self, and the temporality of “afterwards” (Lanone 2022), the future in which he will not participate and will not watch over nature and its idyllic atmosphere.This survey applies Glenn Albrecht’s notions of solastalgia, terraphthora and terranascia (2019), three neologisms which he invented to define the psychosocial effects of environmental degradation, to the analysis of Thomas Hardy’s Tess. Various scenes from this novel present either pessimistically or nostalgically the social and environmental consequences of industrialization. Each of these fragments criticizes the destructiveness Hardy observed in the Wessex landscape, as well as the spiritual, moral and economic changes brought about by this degradation, or provides the remedies to address these issues. While nowadays Hardy’s views may be viewed as outdated, we can learn from his recognition of ecocidal dangers which were evident more than a century ago, thus we can presume the Victorian writer was heading towards the proto-Symbiocene.