Poetry Essay: "The Darkling Thrush" by Thomas Hardy

Economic and Societal Concern through Naturalism

            Thomas Hardy was born in 1840, during the second century of the Industrial Revolution, of which England was at the center of. He wrote “The Darkling Thrush” in 1900, on the brink of a new era, the end of the Industrial Revolution. Despite the significant innovations that resulted from the Industrial Revolution, the effects of this period were very controversial. These confusions about its effects are reflected in “The Darkling Thrush.” In his poem, “The Darkling Thrush,” Thomas Hardy utilizes tone, imagery, and personification to describe the nature of England at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, expressing his mixed concerns for his present time and the new era to come.

            The glum tone of “The Darkling Thrush” is set through Hardy’s use of nature to describe the status of England, more than likely London, as he spent a good chunk of his twenties there. According to Cristopher Nash, editor of Narrative in Culture: The Uses of Storytelling in Sciences, Philosophy, and Literature, in which value is given to authors, Hardy being named specifically, in literature in regards to evaluating and correlating economic status through the use of naturalism, even in the primordial sense, is useful in terms of covering all bases of argument (Nash 181). Although he doesn’t name specifics, “The Darkling Thrush” is a reflection of his thoughts and feelings on the economy, and all those encompassed in it, before and following the Industrial Revolution through the use of the natural world. The poem begins, “I leant upon a coppice gate/ When Frost was spectre- gray,/ And Winter’s dregs made desolate/ The weakening eye of day,” immediately personifying elements of winter (Hardy 1-4). It seems he personifies the characteristics of this season in order to get across a certain cold feeling that he feels is reflected in London as a result of the Industrial Revolution; the coldness of winter has been allowed to dominate the land because it is in alignment with the author’s growing concern with the future the period has left the new generation. The last line of this passage further supports this as it contrasts with the typical signifier for day time, the sunrise, bringing light and warmth to the land. Hardy feels as if the cloud cover of English winters parallels the looming pollution that would have been over the London sky during this time, using the words “The weakening eye of day” as a symbolic reference for waning “light” of the country’s future and his lack of hope for it (4).

            Another instance in which despair and ruin is shown is in the second stanza. The first half of this stanza reads, “The land’s sharp features seemed to be/ The Century’s corpse outleant/ His crypt the cloudy canopy,/ The wind his death-lament” (Hardy 9-12). Personification is used again here to reflect the narrator’s perspective of the country following a time of revolutionary innovation; Hardy feels the Industrial Revolution has ultimately left the country in ruin, a shell of its former self, a “corpse.” In addition, a marked cloudiness is also present in this passage, guiding the reader back to his previous parallels between the elements of winter time and the country’s state discussed formerly.

Another technique Hardy uses to express his concern is his continuous association between nature and death, as if the land itself is mourning. He describes the wind as being a song of lament for the features of the land the narrator is looking upon, which have been rendered “sharp” by the Industrial Revolution, describing it as relatively resembling a corpse (Hardy 9). The clouds seem to be symbolic of a tomb, as Hardy alludes to in line eleven, “His crypt the cloudy canopy” (12). This suggests that the Hardy believes the Industrial Revolution has entombed the country in two senses: literal and figurative. Literally, the sky above London was known for being rather smoggy during this period. Figuratively, the effects the Industrial Revolution has had on humanity, veiling it from morality, leaving it entombed in the resulting negative habits through the new era.

            The same concept of lack luster and despondency is demonstrated again in the second half of the second stanza, but in relation to the effect of this period on the human spirit. For example, “The ancient pulse of germ and birth/ Was shrunken hard and dry” suggests the life of humanity has shriveled (Hardy 13-14). A pulse can be associated with the human heart and the rhythm it projects to keep humans alive. This is symbolic in both a bodily sense as well as a spiritual sense because of the ever-present affiliation with human livelihood and character of heart. In addition, this “pulse” is described as being ancient, hinting that perhaps Hardy feels as if people have lost the values that once made them a proud as a people; Hardy feels as if humans have lost touch with their roots as a result of this period of high inventiveness. To more simply put it, as artful as this poem is, Marjorie Levinson in her work Object-Loss and Object-Bondage: Economies of Representation in Hardy's Poetry quotes Kevin Moore saying that Hardy’s poetry “…imagines the imagination dead,” which perfectly describes the fear Hardy has about the soul of humans resulting from the Industrial Revolution (Levinson, 552). The last section of this stanza continues with, “And every spirit upon earth/ Seemed fervourless as I” (Hardy 15-16). In this passage, Hardy simply lends support to his feelings by globalizing the era’s negative effect on humankind, once again expressing how he feels that this period has only hindered the luminescence of the human spirit, not failing to point out that he has also been a victim.

            Despite the gloomy tone expressed through imagery and personification, “The Darkling Thrush” is not completely without optimism, as limited as it may be among so much pessimism. The first sign of hope is found in words such as “weakening,” and “little cause.” Both of words suggest that a process is still taking effect; the snuffing out of this figurative light is incomplete (Hardy 4, 25). In the last two stanzas, the thrush is used to symbolize this glimmer of hope, even if the narrator himself fails to perceive it:

At once a voice arose among

The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

In blast- beruffled plume,

……………………………………….

His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hoped, whereof he knew

And I was unaware. (17-23, 31-33)

In his failing to see hope, he admires this songbird because it persists in having the fervor, despite its decrepit condition, that he believes contrasts with how society used to be before the Industrial Revolution. This thrush is also the first piece of nature used in this poem that isn’t employed to draw deteriorating parallels between the natural world and the human world. So, despite all of the negative aftermath he feels surrounds him, this bird is symbolic of the tenacity the human heart and the capabilities within it to overcome and persist on against the odds.

            Thomas Hardy’s “The Darkling Thrush” is an example of Hardy’s reflections at the end of a paramount couple of centuries, as well as how it compares to those that came before it. Ultimately, his concern in this poem is in regards to what the Industrial Revolution has left for the generations of the twentieth century. What Hardy failed to realize is that change is just a part of life, and with it comes easy and hard times. It’s easy to sympathize with Hardy’s concern about the loss of connection to the peoples’ roots, but this is inevitable with change that he himself, like everyone else, has undergone; each generation usually finds it more challenging to truly trace back where they came from. In addition, his concerns about the Industrial Revolution directly correlate with the debate about the level of integration and role technology should have in education, for which, similar to the Industrial Revolution, there will be both positive and negative consequences for regardless of the degree of amalgamation.

 Works Cited

Levinson, Marjorie. Object-Loss and Object-Bondage: Economies of Representation in Hardy's Poetry. 2nd ed. Vol. 73. N.p.: John Hopkins UP, n.d. 549+. JSTOR. Web. 22 Sept. 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/30030023>

Nash, Cristopher. "How Primordial Is Narrative?" Narrative in Culture: The Uses of Storytelling in the Sciences, Philosophy, and Literature. London: Routledge, 1990. 9+. Print.