Form
- Four quatrains
- Alternate rhyme
- Each stanza has an equal amount of lines of three lines; however some have longer lines than others. For example: ‘with an old horse that stumbles and nods’ creates a drawn out rhythm adding to the lengthiness of the poem. It suggests the war is long or that it has been much anticipated for a long time.
Language-Double meaning of "harrowing" - preparing the ground for seeds - deeply upsetting
- Assonance in only, clods, slow, horse, nods and sibilance in "In a slow, silent walk" create a soft pace which mimics the subject of the poem
- "Only thin smoke without flame" - contrasts to the violance of war , suggests that rural life is much gentler
- The idea of solidarity - Everything will be "the same"
- Archaic language "Yonder a maid and her wight" - Love is timeless
- "War’s annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die"
Annals are books on a particular period of time and ere is an old word for before . So hence the line is suggesting that war will be forgotten about long before love is . This evokes a sense of timelessnes
- The writer uses sibilance (‘in a slow silent walk’) to create an ethereal tone; it may represent the fatigue of the soldiers on one level but on another it may imply a walk to deaths door – does it imply the longness of death?
- ‘Harrowing clods’ hints to a farmer turning over the ground but perhaps it is a hint to the loathsomeness of the soldiers implied by ‘harrowing’ OR it may be that the farmer who fertilizes this ground is in a sense digging their graves before battle; therefore Hardy foreshadows once against the inevitability of death.
Structure:
- Short fragmented lines
- Enjambment slows the meter and creates a sense of timelessness
- Rural images trhoughout suggests that nature is persistant
- Hardy uses enjambment a lot to anticipate the coming of great battles; with chivalric images of ‘yonder a maid and her wight’ (‘wight’ means knight), Hardy alludes to the reproach of a battle and therefore uses this romanticized chivalric image to show the greatness of war. However, this is contradicted by the ‘their story die’ with the sharp full stop to show the inevitability of death and critcize the romantic depiction of war that has previously been presented.
- The sharp blunt full stop creates an air of bitterness throughout the poem. It is like a piece of anti-war propaganda.
Tone:
- Calm peaceful tone
- Endearing mood towards love
- Sence of triumph to finnish through the suggestion that love will continue eternally
- The tone is quite ethereal created by the archaic imagery of the ‘maid’ and ‘wight’ which suggests that war is surreal and out of the ordinary further implied by the regularity of the stanzas which creates a more Georgian tone.
Reader response:
- Some people at the time were critical of the fact that the poem appears to gloss over the horrors of war
- However for some people it would have been a welcome break from the horrors
- Some may find the underlying message of the poem a fitting distraction from war and a great lesson to humanity
Links :
- Nineteen- fifteen because of its archaic and fertile images.
- Contrasts with the horrors expressed in Sassoon's poems
- It may link to the Leveller because of its allusions to nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment