Extended commentary of ‘The Darkling Thrush’ by Thomas Hardy Essay

On the title A thrush is a raspberryie plump, soft-plumaged, sm every last(predicate) to medium-sized, often inhabiting wooded areas. They feed on the ground or eat small fruit only when arent famed for their var.s. Examples include a robin. Darkling is an archaic al-Quran for a creature of darkness or in the dark. insolent drops it in its latter sense the bird appears in a very glooming aspect, at the conclusion of the day, at the end of the year (and century, for that matter). It also has negatively charged connotations as well, however for obvious reasons.Potential other implications darkling is perchance used to create a diminutive form of the thrush (like a duckling). separate critics have identified the title as explaining, or preparing the reader for the unthought advent of the bird half route through the poetry, appearing into the word-painting from nowhere. Perhaps unafraid(p) was attempting to use an antiquitated word to further demonstrate the bird is bringing joy to a dark land, and that there exists an enormous term difference between the new century and the old?Overall social organization barefaced uses four regular eight line iambic stanzas in either tetrameter or trimeter, dep completion on the length of the line. This meter creates a poetic lilt, with alternate stressed feet. It seems very out of place in such(prenominal) a cheerless poem we must question why this is. Does it beam the hope expressed at the end of the poem, or prepares us for it? Or does it tell apart of an crotchetyity within the purpose is his negative manner in reality genuine mayhap we shouldnt accept the personas model/emotions to the same extent as hed like us to? His choice of rhyme scheme and meter along with the harsh emergence fail to match up.Themes Time (passing of century), Isolation, Man and the Natural World.Difficult oral communication observes Darkling discussed above. Illimited is an archaic form of unlimited.First and Sec ond Stanza Notes As usual, Hardy presents us with an image, this time of a landscape a depressing one, at that. This poem was published at the end of the century thirty-first December 1900 (Hardy was one of those people who believe that a century is bonk when the hund ablaze(p)th year is over.) It is very cold and frosty and the day is emergence to a close. It really is the end of a century.And Hardy presents us with a very clear image of death he later personifies the light speed itself as being dead. The first dickens stanzas are full of death-language1. When frost was spectre-gray. A clear example of ghost imagination (a spectre). This line is of interest on its own, due to the obvious personification of rime. This is a good place to make a key spot about the poem itself. Throughout, we discover a distinct Hardy-esque style the environs is unpleasant and it demonstrates his usual antics in animism. Hardy develops complex (and often deep personal) symbolic systems whi ch deal almost exclusively with the natural world. The reader is do personal with non-human entities like frost and birds solely avoids people as yet the persona is a subject avoided in great detail.1. Back with the death imagery, The weakening eye of day a comment on the b neglectening sky the day is dying.1. All mankind that obsessed close haunted is all the way a reference to death and ghosts. Hardy is commenting on the lack of human life in his scope they had sought their household fires. A further reading of the low temperature. Is it a hint that the world is refinement? Or is that just a little extreme? In whatsoever case, mark how the rest of humanity are seeking light in an otherwise dark environment.The second stanza contains an extended metaphor involving the dead century, but we need to examine the first stanza to a greater extent before moving on.Hardys persona is leaning upon a coppice gate a gate into a small woods or coppice. It is a highly ambiguous perso na (another thing to explore), but he leans nevertheless. The scene is wintry, indeed, along with Frost, Winter is personified equally Winters dregs do desolate/ The weakening eye of day. The dregs of the season indicate a very cold atmosphere one without much colour. Clearly this has emptied the scene of any colourful sight upon which the eye of day weakens. The day is decision consequently dusk darkens the scene.Tangled bine-stems scored the sky/ Like strings of lost lyres. As before mentioned, the persona is standing in woodland, thus Bine-stems are tree branches. Hardys comparison of them to broken lyres is interesting. Lyres are a) symmetric in Graeco-Roman literature and b) belong only in Classical literature. Hardy is clearly stating that the scene is not harmonious or by chance the death-lament later mentioned isnt. Or is it also a reference Hardys romantic passion for the past, that it was somehow better than the day in which he writes?Second Stanza Notes The first four lines of this stanza deal explicitly with Hardys dead nose candy metaphor. He imagines the land before him as the Centurys corpse outleant. Quite what outleant means, I have no idea, (The OED has substantiate that outleant is not, nor ever has been a word) but his crypt becomes the cloudy canopy (the cloudy sky) and the turn on his death-lament. One need not explain it in any more than detail the implications are quite explicit. Hardys persona clearly didnt approve of the past century, but had yet to indicate an turned on(p) reflection on the future. He imagines England as a rotting corpse, essentially. However, note the use of the verb seems is all as it seems?However, Hardy goes on to write even more damningly of his personas scene. The ancient pulse of germ and pitch the regenerative power of life, following Winters onslaught was shrunken alter and hard. Nothing appears to be growing back is this another indication of the end of the world, or certainly of an era. Hardy appears to be making the aboveboard change of an arbitrary number into something quite different, and more serious. A decadency of life itself. Indeed, every spirit upon earth/ Seemed fervourless than I. Very negative.Observe how mum the description is up to this point in the poem. There is an implied sound in both the death-lament and of broken lyres, but otherwise, the sound is non-existent. That changes soon.Here comes the VOLTA.Third Stanza NotesAt once a voice arose amongThe bleak twigs overheadIn a full-hearted evensongOf Joy illimitedHardy emphasizes a sudden change with the spoken communication At once indeed, there are multiple changes which create this volta* Note the sudden inclusion of sound the thrush is vocalizing This breaks the poetic still (of death) which has held the poem so far.* The length of sentence also changes. Note the semicolon at the end of these four lines above. Previously, distributively quatrain had completed with a full stop. Perhaps Ha rdy is opening up his poetic form to mirror the sudden stool in the lines themselves. The use of enjambment accentuates this.There are perhaps phantasmal connotations with evensong. Much as Hardy may simply be again referring to the mundane fact that the bird is singing a song and eve, we pray that the man is capable of higher minded comparisons. These vaguely religious nuances are maintained throughout the poem.The crucial fact is that the mood has changed, perhaps. Of Joy illimited suggests a pleasant image, which stands in stark contrast to the ring gloom.An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,In blast-beruffled plume,Yet the mood is suddenly plunged back into the red with Hardys following lines. The thrush, which is, admittedly, a very odd bird to chose (not famed for their song), is an elderly figure in a storm so the blast-beruffled plume. In this otherwise grim situation, the readers quick concern is whether the bird itself is going to survive at all The use of frail , gaunt, and small mirrors the ghoulish imagery used in the first two stanzas the thrush is alive, for certain, but perhaps the persona questions for how much longer?Note how the thrush is not personified. Every other element of the natural world takes an animated form, but not the bird Why does Hardy do this?Had chosen thus to fling his soulUpon the growing gloom.Perhaps desperation is the key word in this stanza, but also hope. There is a powerful depicted object in the face of this ghoulish bird that, in spite of all the darkness and death, the thrush maintains his song.Stanza Four NotesSo little cause for carolingsOf such rapturous soundWas written on terrestrial thingsAfar or nigh around,Once again, Hardys use of enjambment allows for the lines to bleed into each other in a direct contrast to the poems former rigidity. Perhaps he is now gathering momentum for a change in mood? Yet, in terms of sense, Hardy appears to be doing the opposite. He states that the bird has no rea son to be singing a joyful song amongst so much desolation. However, perhaps, by even regarding such a fact, the personas own deep-rooted pessimism is beginning to shake away?On some key language points* Note more religious emphasis carolings typically sing hymns at Christmas time. Hymns are in spades religious* Perhaps there is an equally religious connotation which Hardy applies to his comments on the terrestrial things. If there is not any cause for singing about things on Earth, then perhaps, reciprocally, there is cause for celebrating the sky, or promised land?That I could think there trembled throughHis happy good-night air several(prenominal) blessed Hope, whereof he knewAnd I was unaware.It is a rather ambiguous ending upon which Hardy chooses to conclude, but he achieves a sense of dramatic feeling through it. The persona realises the front of (a perhaps religious) hope, in the fact of divulge desperation, but it is unintelligible to him. In an odd way, the reader is forced to consider whether the persona is being entirely accurate* Can one be unaware of something, yet still able to write about it?* Does this tell us that the persona, as a Modernist, is able to perceive such an elate messages but unable to interpret them in such a way as to release himself from the dark? Hardy himself was a modernist and therefore dwells upon an odd lot of ideas. Amongst them was searching for hope/meaning to darkness and cruelty. disdain being a realist, he was deeply influenced by Romantic notions (look them up) perhaps this exploration is one of them?* The use of blessed again implies a deified presence within the thrushs message. Is the persona experiencing some divine inspiration?