The sadness in the third verse is shown in this quote, ‘Where no picnics are, And one – has shut her eyes’.
This reflects how Hardy is feeling because this is a one of the things he uses to reflect his mood. The theme of this poem is a place of special significance, remembering something he use to do and loss and loneliness which is shown more in the third verse. The same themes are treated differently by the moods. For example, in Thomas Hardy’s poem, The Walk, the same theme is used which is remembering something he use to do but the mood is generally sadder throughout the poem.
Neutral Tones is about a different relationship as it was written before he met Emma. It is about a woman and how they spent time together but the poem is mainly a description of the relationship and the woman. The title suggests neither one thing nor the other and also reminds you of paleness and blending in with everything. The overall tone of the poem is sad and depressed. This is shown in a quote from the poem, ‘And a few leaves lay on the starving sod’.
This quote means the ground is dry, and the nature is dry and cold which is pathetic fallacy were the nature echoes the mood. Hardy is feeling sad in nearly all the poems he has written after Emma’s death. A quote to show this from ‘Neutral Tones’ is ‘They had fallen from an ash, and were gray’.
The theme is about love which has died or just gone wrong and also loss.
The Voice is about Thomas Hardy missing and remembering Emma as this poem was written a month after her death on December 1912. It is basically about Hardy remembering Emma and hearing her voice. A quote from the poem is, ‘Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then’.
The title suggests Hardy hearing Emma’s voice since the poem was only written one month after her death. The general tone of the poem is sadness and loneliness which is echoed by the natural setting. The season he uses in this poem is winter which is a metaphor for feeling and emphasises loss and death. A quote from the poem is, ‘Leaves around me falling’.
The quote is saying that Emma is ghostly and seems to be haunting Hardy
The theme of this poem is remembering loved ones and death. It is the overall theme that goes through Hardy’s poems written after 1912 which was the year when Emma died.
‘The Voice’ and ‘Neutral Tones’ have a simple structure, showing Hardy’s strength of feeling. There are four stanzas in both poems. The lengths of the lines are quite long and about the same length in the poem but get bigger and smaller. The rhyme scheme of ‘The Voice’ is ABAB. The rhyming words I have picked out from ‘The Voice’ are ‘falling’ and ‘calling.’ ‘Falling’ is what Hardy is probably feeling right now as he has lost someone close to him and ‘calling’ sums up the poem as that is what it is about, hearing Emma’s voice as she is calling him.
The rhyme scheme of ‘Neutral Tones’ is ABBA. The rhyming words I have chosen from the poem are ‘deceives’ and ‘leaves.’ ‘Deceives’ could be suggesting what happened in the relationship between this woman. He could have been deceived by her. ‘Leaves’ even though it is related to a tree, could mean how she left as this is the last word in the poem.
The rhythm in both poems is irregular. The lines get bigger and smaller alternatively. I think that the rhythm in the poem can say a lot as an irregular rhythm can show confusion.
The last stanza of ‘The Voice’ talks about him falling or staggering and is much smaller than the other three stanzas. This could be an effect Hardy is using to show Emma going. The last stanza of ‘Neutral Tones’ is more about remembering. A quote from the poem is, ‘And a pond edged with grayish leaves.’
This quote means that every time he thinks about love going away, he remembers her. Hardy uses these rhymes and rhythms to reflect his feelings. ‘Where The Picnic Was’ has three stanzas unlike the other two poems as Hardy gradually comes to the death of Emma. The lengths of the lines are short and the rhyme scheme used which is ABACBBDDC is not simple at all. The rhyming words which I have chosen are ‘fire’ and ‘briar.’ They are both natural. They could suggest anger as fire is red and fierce and could be showing his anger because of the death of Emma. Briar is a large thorny branch which could show the pain he is going through from the death of Emma. The three rhyming couplets which are used in the last stanza of the poem are ‘here/year,’ ‘brine/line,’ and ‘same/came.’ These couplets are used to emphasise Hardy’s memories of Emma. There is a regular rhythm to the poem. Hardy has picked these rhyming words in the poem to make the poem flow for a regular rhythm and also reflect the theme of the poem. The mood in the last stanza is oriented more on the death of Emma and less on natural setting. A quote from the poem is, ‘But two have wondered far, And one has shut her eyes for evermore.’
The quote is showing that Hardy is now alone, without Emma or his friends which emphasises his loneliness.
Hardy uses a lot of natural setting in his poems to echo his feelings and the mood. A quote from ‘Neutral Tones’ is, ‘And a few leaves lay on the starving sod’.
This quote means that the ground was dry and nature was dry and cold. Hardy uses quite a lot of alliteration and assonance in his poems, especially in ‘Where The Picnic Was’. Hardy uses the poetic devices to help the poem flow. A quote from the poem is, ‘And the sea breathes brine’.
This quote contains alliteration and assonance. An example of alliteration from ‘The Voice’ is, ‘faltering forward.’ Another example of assonance and alliteration from ‘The Voice’ is, ‘Wind oozing thin through the thorn.’ Another poetic device Hardy uses is personification which is giving an object human characteristic. Hardy often uses personification to help emphasise his point. A quote from ‘Neutral Tones’ is, ‘The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing’.
The personification used in this quote helps emphasise death. Pathetic fallacy is a very good poetic device which can help show feeling very well. Pathetic fallacy is when the weather echoes the mood. A quote from ‘The Voice’ is , ‘Leaves around me falling’.
The pathetic fallacy in this emphasises sadness and weakness as it helps show that Hardy feels like he is falling. A simile is comparing things by using ‘like’ or ‘as’. Hardy uses these to exaggerate feelings. A quote from ‘Neutral Tones’ is, ‘And a grin of bitterness swept thereby Like an omnibus bird a-wing.’
Another example of a simile from ‘The Walk’ is, ‘By the gated ways, As in earlier days.’ The last thing that Hardy uses is repetition. Repetition is useful when a point has to be made clear. A quote from ‘The Voice’ is, ‘how you call to me, call to me’.
This quote which contains repetition is trying to get the point clear that he is hearing her voice calling him.
The themes of loss and loneliness are used by Hardy throughout his poems. These express how he feels because he is lonely now that Emma is gone. I personally feel that the poems would not have been good if Emma hadn’t died. Emma’s death was what made Hardy write his feelings down as a poem. I preferred The voice. This was because the poem was very easy to understand and got straight to the point. All the lines in the poem meant something that I understood and that is why I preferred that poem. The poems are effective in the way that they show how Hardy feels because Hardy uses both strength of feeling and natural setting and linguistic effects such as pathetic fallacy to draw the reader into his thoughts. Without these things, the poems wouldn’t be very effective at showing how Hardy feels.
