Looking to Discuss two poems I am writing an essay on.

[ellajam]

Hi, Chris, why don't you start the conversation off with your own ideas so far?

The first thing I noticed was the immediacy of the voice in the first and how removed from the situation the narrator of the second seemed.

[milo]

I actually wrote a paper on The Darkling Thrush about a million years ago.  I think there is a lot about this poem that represents the difference in outlooks towards poetry  in general.  It is easy to forget that every successful poem ever written is about people - not land or skies or centuries.  

Setting:

Winter, countryside or rural area right around dusk.  I would suspect that it is around February as the Thrush is a migratory bird.  It probably should not return until March but this one is early.

Summary:

our narrator stands alone toward the end of day in winter pondering his surroundings and noting how ugly and desolate things are in winter.  He is in a foul mood.  He is surprised by the song of an early thrush.  He ponders the cause for the birds joy.

Analysis:

i would say this poem is about our narrator.  He is depressed.  Why?  i would guess that our narrator is a creative sort (much like Hardy himself) by the line "the ancient pulse of germ and birth" - both of these items are frequently used as symbols for creativity as far back as the Greeks.  i would say his latest endeavors are not going so well by the line "like strings of broken lyres" - the lyre, of course, is the symbol of the muse and of poetry.  Every spirit on the earth seems fervourless as our narrator - even though he is all alone!  Our narrator is in a funk.  All around him he sees signs of death, endings, pessimism.

Lo and behold we have a single bird - also looking like it has had a tough time - but it is singing joyously out to the world even though it is in the same desolate landscape as our narrator.  A weaker author at this point might have chosen to have our narrator suddenly see the "bright side" and perhaps overcome his melancholy but Hardy is a realist, his narrator dismisses the birds joyous caroling as unwarranted and finishes with the pessimistic thought that perhaps the bird knows something that he doesn't.

The poem, as far as I can tell, is about the difficult challenges of dealing with pessimism and depression.  Challenges made, perhaps, more cumbersome when others are joyful or telling you just to cheer the fuck up. Just my analysis.

The Title:

Ask yourself, why the DARKLING thrush?  How does our narrator view this singing bird?  Darkling is generally used to refer to ill omens, evil, etc.

I see no support at all that this poem has anything to do with industrialization but perhaps I am missing something?  Can you find something in the poem that refers to industrialization?

[Magpie]

Hi, I've read the second poem through a few times and the more I read it the more I am convinced that it is referencing other poems. I hope someone jumps in to correct me if they think that I'm totally wrong, but firstly this line "But darkling thrush and dancing daffodil" I'm presuming are references to the Thomas Hardy poem with Darkling Thrush and the Wordsworth poem "I wandered lonely as a cloud". So if this were the case you would have to see what you think they represent and I would say that Milo has helped you out a lot with his analysis of the first poem.
The other reference I think that I am getting is a Ted Hughes poem called "Hawk Roosting" which begins

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.


And is in basic terms a "meditation in the woods" by a Hawk. The hawk in Ted Hughes poem has lots of human qualities and represents tyranny and power and human nature at its most evil. The word "rehearse" in the fourth line of Hughes' poem would seem to correspond to the second stanza in the Don Thackrey poem,

He listens to the whispering of leaves
Rehearsing striking colors in surrender,
Then notes a wheeling hawk that screams and grieves
To mock the season's bold deceits of splendor;


Especially as it is the hawk that interrupts the very moment. If this is the case then you need to bring all this together in the sense of knowing what is a representation of what and work from there.

Just my thoughts, but I'd be interested to see what others think.

Mark

[Erthona]

"...I would ask for your help in discussing them with me, it would mean a lot." I shall so discuss

S3 L4 " illimited" what a strange word to use. Very obscure with the same meaning as unlimited.

"So I believe that "The Darkling Thrush" is about Hardy's distaste for Modernisation (Modernization), in particular, the industrial revolution"

Hardy had an affinity for the Romantics and much in this poem echo's their disdain for imposing structure on nature. In concept his poetry seems to particularly mimic William Wordsworth, in ideology if not in form. The structure in this poem is ballad meter, one of the simplest formal forms of poetry. Alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and Iambic trimeter with an AXAX rhyme pattern. Despite that he combines two stanzas into one, it is still most definitely ballad meter. Some of his rhymes seem a bit dodgy to me, such as "outleant" and Lament. I have never seen the word "outleant" used before and I question its validity even in Hardy's time. Not to brag, but I have for most of my life read at least 250 to 300 pages a day and a fair portion of which would be those works of writing called classics as well as literary criticism. If I find a word I don't recognize, and it is neither a provincial colloquialism or a specific area nomenclature and neither found in the dictionary I consider it obscure. To me this suggest that "outleant" was an obscure word in Hardy's time, and therefore a reach for a rhyme. Some of his lines seemed structured to follow meter scheme at the expense of good writing:

"Seemed fervourless as I"  

I'll not even quibble that "fervourless" is probably only listed in the OED unabridged if there, as it obviously means without warmth.

"Like strings of broken lyres" There is no need to have "lyres" plural, as the singular would make more sense while making it plural only confuses the matter. The only reason Hardy used the plural was so it would fit with "fires" two lines forward.

Hardy cannot stay on meter even when scrambling the line "In a full-hearted evensong". There are three words before the first stressed syllable. despite these errors and more, the structure is most reminiscent of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner".  Just an example the lat two lines, especially the last echos a line from Coleridge's poem.

Hardy
"Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

Coleridge
"A spring of love gush'd from my heart,

And I bless'd them unaware"


I think Hardy was very much a Romantic and it would be best to read him with that in mind. There are certain devices he uses, such as using the Thrush as a Herald (see Blake's songs of innocence). I generally prefer a clean read without relying on external material, but these days it seems teachers/ professors want things to be referenced, and this poem gives little in way of explanation as to the "why" of things dying.  

"I believe is him saying that the Century is dead due to industry" I think this is difficult to prove just within the context of the poem, but casting Hardy as a Romantic or a neoromantic (which is easy to assert when examining the form and the wording he uses), gives substance to your supposition.  

""Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew/And I was unaware." as being that Hardy only saw this as a momentary thing, the idea that something seemed good but only for that one moment." I agree with this, especially in the context of the Romantics. In effect it is nature's swan song. Viewing it any other way would be contradictory to the rest of the poem. By this time we are well into modernism and beyond the Romantics "This is happening, let us return to nature." Instead for Hardy it is a case of this has happened, Romanticism has been rejected. The best nature can offer is a thrush (a darkling thrush and here I think this can be interpreted as a "shadow" thrush as nature fades away), not some majestic aspect of nature that the Romantics would call upon, or use as a metaphor for a spirit of something that is powerful and wise (here I think he is closest to Wordsworth). I think this idea is further enforced by this line, "An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small..."  This seems to say very clearly that the spirit of nature, represented by the thrush, has also become "aged..., frail, gaunt, and small..." This is important to your overall thesis, but first.

Your second interpretation I think can only be gotten by "cherry-picking" the poem, and not taking the poem as a whole, so at best it is a secondary interpretation. Sure everyone likes to go Jungian but I simply do not see the support for it.    

If your overall thesis is "Why do things die?" then as far as Hardy is concerned there is a problem. There is little in his poem that speaks to the "why", as it is mainly a statement that this has happened. If we can assume, and we need the tie-in to the Romantics to support this, then industrialization can be the reason, keeping in mind this is only inferred through Hardy's connection to the Romantics. What they perceived as in the process of happening, beginning in the seventeenth century with the over cultured lawns, and the hard rationalism of philosophy and science that was evolving as Wordsworth notes in the line, "we murder to dissect." So if you make the case for the tie-in to the Romantics and cast Hardy as a latter day Romantic; he sees as happened what the Romantics had prophesied, that 19th century industrialization has in fact almost killed nature, or the spirit of nature, and there is no doubt she is on her way out and that the rigid structures of Reason and Science have given birth to the technology that has powered her death: industrialization.

So in terms of why things die in Hardy's poem, and supposing the tie-in to the Romantics, then the answer would be Science and Reason in their expression of the industrial revolution.

Sorry, I am a bit tired at the moment and think I will forgo the second poem, at least for the moment. I also do want to say that most here appreciate a good discussion on poetic topics, however this goes beyond that into the realm of academics and what often flies in academics usually has little bearing in terms of writing good poetry, The meaning of a 150 years old poem, or how to compare and contrast (although such topics are generally limited to lower level English classes) does not fall within the sites purview, although I am sure people will be happy to give their interpretation of the poems if they feel they have ones to give. We also insists that you give back to the people who form this community in the form of poem critiques (5) in one of the three critical poetic forums. "Serious," "Mild," and "Novice, Critic." Should you fail to accomplish this your post will be taken down as well as any answers you have received. As you have already shown the ability to analyze poetry I am sure this will not be a problem for you.

Thanks, and Welcome to the site,

Dale            

[ellajam]

Hey, you  two, appreciate the defense of the rules, and the site, but even though it doesn't happen often I'm pretty sure it's okay to post on the site without posting critiques if you aren't posting your own poems and asking for them.

But your enthusiasm is appreciated.

[milo]

The site has always supported poetic discussion without critique as it provides a nice recreational aside for members to enjoy betwixt the grueling task of critiquing poetry.

[milo]

There is a common sonnet form, the heroic sonnet, which adds an extra quatrain. I believe trueenigma was a fan for a bit.
http://everysonnet.blogspot.com/2012/11/...t.html?m=1

[crow]

Well, I wrote a good 600-word response, and then the Internet ate them. The highlights are: organize your essay by first rehearsing the basic narrative of each poem, second noting the tonal and emotive elements/entities of each, and only then move on to the compare contrast. Discuss Meditations first, because it's the fall poem and Darkling Thrush is winter--it'll just come out smoother that way. Throughout the essay, demystify the imagery:


eye of day is the sun
Summer candles are flowers 
bine is a vining plant, basically
The blast is a strong wind
"Grieves" probably means complains, and not mourns
And the Darkling thrush is a daring thrush of mystery, the champion of night (jk)--"darkling" doesn't mean a creature of darkness, but rather it means a creature *in* darkness, so that the darkling thrush is just a songbird singing at night
"Life's debris" is, apparently, the dead narrator and the dead hawk lying under the snow

Authoritative definitions of terms are essay gold.

I'd go after that into a discussion of dichotomies in each poem individually--for instance DT has a terrestrial vs ethereal dichotomy that references heaven, I'm guessing, whereas Med goes after a displayed vs actual condition setup. Then talk about mirrored images between the poems--the birds, the noises the make, daffodils vs bine stems (both are symbolic), and so on.

You can't quit the essay without talking about sin and death, so just collect, identify, and compare the death omens and the sin referents.

If you have spare room after that, discuss the weird and effortful pronoun usage in each poem and attempt to locate or define the identity of each poems' narrator.

Something like that, I think, would be an essay that gets all the points. I hope.

Let us know! 

(Also, Milo, that was a rad breakdown up top)


Lastly, I'd