The darkling thrush is a poem written by the Victorian poet Thomas Hardy. The poem is set on a cold and bleak winter evening, and the speaker reflects on the bleakness of the season and the sense of despair that it brings. However, despite the bleakness of the setting, the speaker is drawn to the sound of a thrush singing in the distance.
The first line of the poem sets the scene, describing the "bleak December" and the "desolate shore." The language used here suggests a sense of loneliness and isolation, as the shore is described as "desolate," or empty and abandoned. This sense of loneliness and isolation is reinforced in the next line, which describes the "frosty wind" as "moaning." The sound of the wind adds to the sense of despair and hopelessness that the speaker feels.
The third line introduces the thrush, which is described as "perched" on a "leafless tree." The fact that the tree is leafless suggests that it is winter, and the thrush is the only living thing in the bleak landscape. The thrush is described as "singing" despite the "icy clouds" and the "frosty sky." This line suggests that the thrush is able to find joy and beauty in the bleakness of winter, even when everything else seems cold and lifeless.
The fourth line describes the thrush's song as "full-hearted," suggesting that the thrush is singing with all of its heart and soul. This line also suggests that the thrush's song is able to lift the speaker's spirits and bring a sense of hope and joy to the bleak winter landscape.
The final line of the poem describes the thrush's song as being "frail," or delicate and vulnerable. This line suggests that the thrush's song is a fragile thing, and that it could be easily silenced by the cold and bleakness of the winter season. However, despite this fragility, the thrush's song is able to bring hope and joy to the speaker, and to the bleak winter landscape.
Overall, The darkling thrush is a poem that reflects on the bleakness of winter and the sense of despair that it can bring. However, it also celebrates the beauty and resilience of nature, and the ability of even the smallest and most fragile things to bring hope and joy to even the darkest of times.
Thomas Hardy: Poems “The Darkling Thrush” Summary and Analysis
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom. The theme of hope is introduced with the appearance of a songbird. The seeds of germ and birth are shrunken hard and dry. All of a sudden out, of all that silence and death and never ending grayness, the speaker hears something. The narrator finds a place with no connection to anyone. The first two stanzas provide the setting of the poem. Consequently, the poet feels lifeless fervourless.
Critical Analysis of THE DARKLING THRUSH BY Thomas Hardy
The thrush's song breaks the mood of unhappiness. These metamorphoses had changed the entire nature of the Victorian era to a bag full of miseries, disbelief, bleakness etc. But now that you have it in front of you, why not try to look for signs of the different elements in the other stanzas? The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires. The mood feels lonely and meditative, the speaker watching as a silent bystander leaning upon the coppice gate — a gate that opens onto the woods. The other sound devices used in the poem are: Assonance: Repetition of similar vowel sounds. So, what if it is a bird that has made the discovery, which the narrator fails to see even though he is a human being. The speaker looks around, both near himself and far out, and can see no justification anywhere for such joyful singing.
Analyse Of “The Darkling Thrush” Analysis And Critical Analysis Essay
In the third stanza, despite the "growing gloom" of the end of the 19th century, the song of the thrush is a symbol of hope for new meaning in the new century, which emphasizes Hardy's search for meaning. There are no remedies inferred by the poet to address the present problem. The narrator describes the atmosphere in a desolate tone, with minimal possibility of rebirth or revitalization. The poet looks out at the wintry landscape, which appears to him to be the corpse of the previous century with its land barren and shrunken. Poems such as "The Darkling Thrush" did nothing to dispel that image. To make the weather more potent, Hardy has personified the season and frost and has also given it humanlike qualities. On a deeper level, we deal with despair and death of the century.
Line By Line Analysis Of The Darkling Thrush ISC Class 11, 12 English Literature
The incongruity of a joyful bird amidst such a stark landscape is striking, and it puzzles the speaker who, though he can recognize joy, cannot experience it himself. Seemed fervourless as I. That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware. Hardy seems to be converted from a lively man in the former century to that of a pessimist in the succeeding one. The change of wording suggests a shift in the tone of the poem. The thrush might even represent the figure of Hardy himself. The lines one, three, five and seven have four stressed syllables, whereas lines four, six and eight carrying three stressed syllables.
The Darkling Thrush: Poem, Summary & Analysis
The poet was sad because he felt that the New Year would bring in nothing to be happy about. To personify something is to give human qualities to inanimate things. Add the winter landscape to this, and things get more dismal. Eliot, Erzra Pound, James Joyce, Marianne Moore, and Gertrude Stein. An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom. This is what we call an octave.
