In the third stanza, the language becomes much less formal - a couple of puns are used, and Hardy begins to express more of his feelings. When he speaks about feelings, the language becomes simple, monosyllabic and plain – a state of honesty, or perhaps a state of regret for someone he is missing who is now dead. Pathetic fallacy is made use of with the weather as rain can be seen as ominous and foreboding, which then leads on to reflect the characters. Line 8 could be seen as metaphorical for the happiness that Emma and Thomas used to share before she died:
“And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain”
In the whole of stanza 3, the audience reads how the clouds close up but then the sun suddenly bursts out. This use of nature signifies the love as the love stopped when she died (clouds close) but now he wants to make a new start and begin to love her again (sun bursts out).
The 4th stanza begins with a very descriptive line:
“Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky”
The idea of “chasmal beauty” represents the care and love that is still there, unchanging and dramatic. A chasm is a big hole in the ground which could signify that the love is never ending like a hole. Then, as the line continues, hyperbole is used as it says “Beeny to the sky” which suggests that the cliff is so grand and tall that it almost touches the sky. This yet again shows how the love is so big, powerful and grand that it is almost as big as the cliff.
On conclusion, Thomas Hardy uses personification and a variety of language devices to show his feelings for nature. Since he uses nature, in particular the idea of a cliff, to represent the love between his wife and himself, this shows how nature is a powerful and dramatic thing to him, just like love is.
The second poem that I am going to discuss is To Autumn by John Keats. It was written in Winchester on 19 September 1819 and first published in 1820. Keats described the feeling behind its composition in a letter to his friend Reynolds, To Autumn is evidence of his way of thinking, as the poem is a vivid, lyrical portrayal of the English autumn, as he imagined it. The poem celebrates autumn as a season of abundance, a season of reflection, a season of preparation for the winter, and a season worthy of admiration with comparison to what romantic poetry often focuses upon - the spring. The poem was written to convey a sense of purpose to life and the worth of death. The poem achieves this by using descriptive and vivid expressions to describe the essence of autumn. The poem uses powerful language to achieve effect. It often makes use of imagery, exaggerated language and onomatopoeias to create an atmosphere of the English autumn for the reader. Autumn has to be the most overlooked season of the year. There are plenty of poems about the regeneration and new life from spring, the beauty of summer, and the festive winter, but this is one of few poems that discusses the splendour of autumn. John Keats fully recognizes autumn’s importance as he touches on the amazing things that occur during the harvest season. To illustrate the amazing things that take place in autumn Keats uses personification so we can identify with autumn’s beauty and also to bring autumn to life in the form of a soft haired girl who doesn’t recognize her beauty or impact on nature.
In the first stanza of “To Autumn,” Keats uses a vast amount of imagery to force the reader to stop and reflect on the wondrous things that happen each autumn. In the midst of Keats’ description of autumn comes the first evidence of personification. Keats tells us that the sun and autumn are great bosom friends, and that they work together in order to achieve the ripening of the fruit, the opening of the flowers, and the plumping of gourds. Keats then goes on to explain how autumn is sitting on a granary floor (meaning the ripened grain that is stored in the granary is autumn). He claims that this woman is everywhere if you just look for her. Keats tells autumn of the grown lambs that wonder about the hills, about the swallows chirping as they get ready to fly south, and about the robins singing from the garden. And for autumn to be portrayed as a woman who cannot recognize her own individual worth and has to be convinced of it, to me reflects upon the women of today’s society. He says autumn is lounging by a brook and even watching apple cider being made in a cider press (again the cider is a direct result of autumn’s presence). John Keats makes an intense description of autumn at least at first sight. The first stanza begins showing this season as misty and fruitful, which, with the help of a ‘maturing sun’, ripens the fruit of the vines. Next, we can see clearly a hyperbole. Keats writes that a tree has so many apples that it bends (line 5), while the gourds swell and the hazel shells plumps. Finally, Keats suggests that the bees have a large amount of flowers. And these flowers did not bud in summer but now, in autumn. As a consequence, the bees are incessantly working and their honeycombs have been overflowing since summer. This proves how Keats sees autumn as a season that is very productive.
Throughout this stanza, hyphens are also used a lot to create meaning and emphasise the point. For example, “cottage-trees” , “thatch-eaves” and “bosom-friend”. In line 3, the word “bless” is used which is religious imagery and gives the reader the idea of a sense of wonder, beauty and significance, and tells the reader that this is how Keats feels about autumn.
In the second stanza, there is yet more personification as autumn is personified at work as a human(s). It is evident to the reader that there is a lot of human work involved with the harvest and that the people work together with nature in harmony to produce such beautiful and significant produce. The poet starts by asking a rhetoric question (line 12) which is addressed to autumn which now is not only a woman but also a gleaner. However, this woman is apparently resting in a granary or in the landscape:
‘Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies…’
In line 15, Keats uses the phrase “winnowing wind” which has alliteration in it to create meaning and add to the fast pace. I think he also chose to use the word “winnowing” because it means the lifting off of the waste from the corn, so as to leave the useful parts. Therefore, this shows again how nature works with autumn in harmony.
In stanza three we discover that autumn has a character flaw—insecurity or disregard of her own abilities. As stanza three progresses however, Keats assures autumn that she too has amazing things and beauty—he calls this” music”. In stanza two Keats uses stronger personification “to give birth to” a figure of a woman-autumn. When women feel they don’t have that importance anymore they need to be reassured, just like autumn does here in stanza 3. He even goes on to list more of autumn’s accomplishments as a way of illustration, in an effort to convince autumn that she is precious and important. Also in this stanza, words related to death are used such as “soft-dying day”, “wind lives or dies” and “mourn”. This is because after autumn comes winter and stanza 3 acts as a sort of valedictory poem with suggestions of death to the approaching winter.
To conclude, although my first impression was that John Keats was simply describing the main characteristics of autumn, and the human and animal activities related to it, a deeper reading could suggest that Keats talks about the process of life. Autumn symbolises maturity in human and animal lives. John Keats uses a variety of language techniques to celebrate and romanticize the season, especially highlighting the idea that nature and autumn work together in harmony to produce such wonderful things. Also, the poem is an ode which expresses noble feelings to a person, a place or a thing. This tells me that John Keats felt strongly that autumn should be seen as a very important season to everyone. It could be speculated that To Autumn is a metaphor for existence. Death, or ending, is just as important as life, or the beginning, for without one, there could not be the other. But I believe that it could be simply, that to appreciate the simple things in life, such as the warmth of summer or the new life of spring - the decay of life, and the almost monotonous experience of autumn, is essential to existence.