far from the madding crowd

¹

1. To be “far from the madding crowd” is to be removed, either literally or figuratively, from the frenzied actions of any large crowd or from the bustle of civilization. ( See also under “Literature in English.” )

far from the madding crowd

²

1. A phrase adapted from the “ Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard ,” by Thomas Gray: madding means “frenzied.” The lines containing the phrase speak of the people buried in the churchyard: “Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife / Their sober wishes never learned to stray.”

Notes

In the late nineteenth century, the English author Thomas Hardy named one of his novels Far from the Madding Crowd .