Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Frank & Chelsea
Here are a few poems and things to write about.
The Man he Killed
The short lines, simple rhyme scheme, and everyday language make the piece almost nursery rhyme like in simplicity, again in ironic contrast to its less than pleasant subject.
The Voice
Though the vigorous anapaestic metre of the poem helps convey this initial hope, it proves unwieldy for Hardy, as is evident in the clumsy third stanza, where “listlessness” rhymes with Hardy's unfortunate coinage (invented word) “existlessness”, and we find the gauche and repetitious phrase “no more again” in the stanza's final line.
Wind and Rain n this poem Hardy adopts an almost mathematical precision in his rhythm and in his choice of words. The second line of each stanza, for instance, lists the members of the family: * “He, she, all of them” stanzas 1 and 4, * “Elders and juniors” stanza 2, * “Men and maidens” stanza 3, * and each stanza begins with “they”. he poem is a series of pictures of typical incidents in the life of an ordinary family: * Stanza 1: the family sing songs by candlelight, one playing a musical instrument; * Stanza 2: they work in the garden clearing moss, tidying paths and building a seat; * Stanza 3: they breakfast in summer under a tree from where they can see the bay, and pet fowl come to their knees; * Stanza 4: they move house and all their possessions are laid out on the lawn all day. * Rhyme is also a significant part of the construction. Each verse is rhymed a b c b c d aso the first and last lines are held together by rhyme emphasising the contrast. Each second line - the semi-refrain line - rhymes with the fourth line of each stanza, which is part of the descriptive first half, and is the same rhyme throughout the poem. This has the effect of emphasising continuity: each of the four distinct memories hands on a rhyme to the next verse - “yea/play”, “aye/gay”, “yea/bay”, “aye/day”. * The whole poem
Frank & Chelsea
Here are a few poems and things to write about.
The Man he Killed
The short lines, simple rhyme scheme, and everyday language make the piece almost nursery rhyme like in simplicity, again in ironic contrast to its less than pleasant subject.
The Voice
Though the vigorous anapaestic metre of the poem helps convey this initial hope, it proves unwieldy for Hardy, as is evident in the clumsy third stanza, where “listlessness” rhymes with Hardy's unfortunate coinage (invented word) “existlessness”, and we find the gauche and repetitious phrase “no more again” in the stanza's final line.
Wind and Rain n this poem Hardy adopts an almost mathematical precision in his rhythm and in his choice of words. The second line of each stanza, for instance, lists the members of the family: * “He, she, all of them” stanzas 1 and 4, * “Elders and juniors” stanza 2, * “Men and maidens” stanza 3, * and each stanza begins with “they”. he poem is a series of pictures of typical incidents in the life of an ordinary family: * Stanza 1: the family sing songs by candlelight, one playing a musical instrument; * Stanza 2: they work in the garden clearing moss, tidying paths and building a seat; * Stanza 3: they breakfast in summer under a tree from where they can see the bay, and pet fowl come to their knees; * Stanza 4: they move house and all their possessions are laid out on the lawn all day. * Rhyme is also a significant part of the construction. Each verse is rhymed a b c b c d aso the first and last lines are held together by rhyme emphasising the contrast. Each second line - the semi-refrain line - rhymes with the fourth line of each stanza, which is part of the descriptive first half, and is the same rhyme throughout the poem. This has the effect of emphasising continuity: each of the four distinct memories hands on a rhyme to the next verse - “yea/play”, “aye/gay”, “yea/bay”, “aye/day”. * The whole poem