Thomas Hardy
Addison Keim
Professor Hirschberg
Modern English Poetry
April 30, 2014
Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy is known to be one of the most renowned poets and novelists in the history of English literature. He was born in the English village known as Higher Bockhampton in the county of Dorset in the year 1840. Hardy was the son of a builder and worked as an architectural apprentice for six years, and an ecclesiastical architect for eleven. When finished with these jobs, however, he turned entirely to writing. He died in 1928, at the age of 87.
Although he worked as a master mason, Hardy’s father was also a fiddler, which may be an apparent rhythmic influence on Hardy’s poetry. It holds true that Hardy spent a lot of time in London. However, it was Dorset, his native county, which had the most influence on his fiction and poetry. Dorset had unfortunately been one of the poorest counties, and a representation of the rural life in the area was displayed through the rustic characters featured in many of his novels.
Hardy’s poetry is frequently described as somewhat gloomy or bitter, and his poems do seem to hold a tone of honest skepticism. However, his poems also display the transcendent possibilities of sound, line, and breath. They seem to play with the musical aspects of language itself.
In his poem, “The Darkling Thrush,” Hardy sets his readers up with dreary imagery from the moment the poem begins.
“I lean upon a coppice gate
When Frost was a spectre-gray
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.”
This is placing the reader right into the scene by providing us with a setting. We can imagine the speaker leaning against a brush-covered gate in the middle of a cold, brutal winter. Winter, however, is not described as the beautiful idealistic white, but as the dull ominous gray. The man seems to be alone, with nothing around him but the “dregs” of winter. It almost seems as if winter takes the form of a human or spirit-like
Professor Hirschberg
Modern English Poetry
April 30, 2014
Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy is known to be one of the most renowned poets and novelists in the history of English literature. He was born in the English village known as Higher Bockhampton in the county of Dorset in the year 1840. Hardy was the son of a builder and worked as an architectural apprentice for six years, and an ecclesiastical architect for eleven. When finished with these jobs, however, he turned entirely to writing. He died in 1928, at the age of 87.
Although he worked as a master mason, Hardy’s father was also a fiddler, which may be an apparent rhythmic influence on Hardy’s poetry. It holds true that Hardy spent a lot of time in London. However, it was Dorset, his native county, which had the most influence on his fiction and poetry. Dorset had unfortunately been one of the poorest counties, and a representation of the rural life in the area was displayed through the rustic characters featured in many of his novels.
Hardy’s poetry is frequently described as somewhat gloomy or bitter, and his poems do seem to hold a tone of honest skepticism. However, his poems also display the transcendent possibilities of sound, line, and breath. They seem to play with the musical aspects of language itself.
In his poem, “The Darkling Thrush,” Hardy sets his readers up with dreary imagery from the moment the poem begins.
“I lean upon a coppice gate
When Frost was a spectre-gray
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.”
This is placing the reader right into the scene by providing us with a setting. We can imagine the speaker leaning against a brush-covered gate in the middle of a cold, brutal winter. Winter, however, is not described as the beautiful idealistic white, but as the dull ominous gray. The man seems to be alone, with nothing around him but the “dregs” of winter. It almost seems as if winter takes the form of a human or spirit-like