Short Questions
Part – 1
(a) Referring closely to the poem ‘The Darkling Thrush’, describe the scene in nature as depicted by the poet.
Answer : Thomas Hardy beautifully describes the scene in nature in his poem “The Darkling Thrush’. In order to make it sensuous, he employs concrete imagery. The poet, in a sad mood, is leaning upon a wooden gate. He is all alone as there is no one else visible at this time of the hour on a very cold, wintry evening. It is the evening time. The light of the sun is fading fast. The thick, tangled stems of the climbing plants that line the sky lyres. Frost and winter , it seems, have made everyone , except the poet, go inside to seek warmth and protection.
It is important to note the use of the image of clouds hanging in the sky which seem to form a canopy. This dark canopy from above reminds the poet of the death of the century (19th century).
The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
HIs crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind its death-lament.
Seeing the clouds in the sky, the poet feels, that the clouds would serve as a tomb for the dead body of the present century.
The scene in nature, thus, is totally gloomy. The mood in nature corresponds to the poet’s mood. There is sadness and hopelessness within and without. Perhaps it is the poet who projects his feelings of sadness on to the scene. But the poet suddenly hears the shrill note of an aged thrush. The happy note of the thrush is surprising. It indicates that nature cannot be totally gloomy. The music of nature never dies.
(b) Comment on the significance of the happy song of the thrush in the poem.
Answer : It is important to keep in mind the mood of the poet. The poet is in a gloomy, hopeless mood. He is thinking of the death of the nineteenth century and is perhaps worried about the new century that is going to take birth soon. In the nineteenth century all old values and beliefs had come to be disrupted and undermined by the new scientific and technological discoveries. The people were unsure of the next century. They had no hope for something positive in life.
When the poet is lost in these thoughts he suddenly hears a shrill happy note of an old thrush.
The aged bird whose plumes have been battered by the storm is about to die, yet it chooses to pour out its heart in a forceful manner. It reveals that the music of nature never dies. It is heard is some way in every situation. Though the poet seems to be confused as to why the bird has sounded a discordant note, we feel that there is a veiled hint that there is yet some hope and the new century (20th century ) will come with some good to mankind.
(c) What does the poem ‘The Darkling Thrush’ tell you about man’s relationship with nature?
Answer : Nature, in whatever form it is conceived in ‘The Darkling Thrush’, seems to reflect the mood of the poet. At first, it seems there is correspondence between the mood of Nature and that of the poet. There is utter gloom in Nature. The light of the sun is fading. Frost appears like a ghost. The clouds in the sky seem to form a canopy. The wind blowing seems to be lamenting over the death of the century.
What the poet hears suddenly and unexpectedly reveals that Nature wants to convey that nothing is permanent. The music of nature never dies. The happy shrill note of the thrush in the utter gloom reminds us that there is no real communication between man and nature. Both are perhaps indifferent to each other. If Nature seems to be gloomy it is only the projection of the gloom within the poet’s mind. The poet has failed to interpret Nature properly.
Part – 2
(a) Is ‘The Darkling Thrush’ an elegy? Discuss with close reference to the text of the poem.
Answer : An elegy is a poem written to lament the death of a poem or a celebrity. ‘The Darkling Thrush’ may be considered as an elegy, though it does not express any direct sorrow over the passing of a century (19th century). The speaker in the poem is sad and lonely. Whatever he sees in Nature is gloomy and desolate, which is symbolic of the old, dying civilization. There are enough references to death. The light of the setting sun is fading fast. The whole landscape appears to be grey as a ghost. The stems of climbing plants are reminiscent of old, broken musical instruments which provide no music. The clouds in the sky seem to form a canopy which is likened to a tomb. The wind sounds as if giving out a death-lament. The wintry setting is to remind us of the death of the present century.
There is ghost-like quality attributed to the speaker and even to those who have withdrawn themselves to the warmth of their fires within the privacy of their homes. The poet finds the world a bleak, cold place.
The bird in the dark gives out loud, ecstatic sound. What prompts the bird to sing while it is dying remains obscure to the poet. It provides little hope to the suffering mankind. However, if we consider this loud ecstatic sound of the bird as a sign of hope in the bleakness we find that the poem cannot be considered an elegy. The speaker or the poet may not find any signs of rejuvenation but the bird, as the voice of Nature, contradicts him by underlying the fact that music of Nature never ceases. If there is Winter, one cannot close one’s eyes to the coming Spring.
(b) In from ‘The Darkling Thrush’ is a lyric. Comment.
Answer : The poem employs traditional structure. It is a beautiful , regular lyric, divided into four stanzas, each stanza with the rhyme scheme, ababcdcd. The poet uses mostly perfect rhymes, though there is use of near rhymes in stanza 3 (“small”, ‘soul’) and in stanza 4 (‘through’, ‘knew’). Most of the rhyming words – ‘grey’, ‘desolate’, ‘sky’, ‘lyres’, ‘fires’, ‘canopy’, ‘evensong’, etc. – are linked to the theme of the poem, and help build up the required atmosphere.
The rhyme scheme is regular and the metre normal. This creates a tension in the poem. This regularity clashes with the mood of the poem itself. If everything is wrong and the world is ending, why should the poet use a regular structure? Does it mean that we should not trust the speaker?
(c) Write a note on the imagery used in the poem.
Answer : Most of the images used in the poem are concrete and sensuous. Similes and metaphors are used to build up visual and auditory images before us. The sun is likened to ‘the eye of the day’. The present century (19th century) is visualized as a corpse, the tomb to which is provided by the cloudy canopy in the sky. That the whole atmosphere is bleak and barren is compared by a similie in these lines:
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres.
The companion of the tangled stems of bushes which go upward the sky to the broken lyres is quite apt, as there is no musical sound in the atmosphere. However, the sudden sharp sound of an old thrush in the dark sounds a contradictory note. This auditory image is used aptly to bring in the sign of slight hope of something positive in the bleak wilderness.
The poem is, thus, replete with concrete images.
Long Questions
Question 1 : Discuss ‘The Darkling Thrush’ by Thomas Hardy as a representative poem of the Victorian Era with close reference to the text. Give examples from the text.
Answer : Thomas Hardy, like Tennyson and Arnold, also seems to express the temper of his age in many of his works. In the Victorian Age, the conflict between science and religion resulted in a sense of general gloom, doubt and uncertainty. A lot of people had lost all hope because of the loss of faith.
‘The Darkling Thrush’ by Hardy was written on the eve of the New Century. The poet clearly visualizes the death of the 19th century in the 2nd stanza of the poem:
The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind is death-lament.
Thus he visualizes a bleak wintry day. The light of the sun is fading. There is extreme cold. Frost appears to be like a ghost. No one is outside. Most of the people have retreated to their homes. Owing to extreme cold the rhythm of conception and birth have slowed down. Every living creature, including the speaker, is devoid of zest and enthusiasm:
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
This kind of melancholy note can be discerned in many poems of Tennyson. In ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold, a note of everlasting melancholy and sadness is heard when the poet listens to the trembling music of the waves.
In the third stanza of the poem, the sudden happy voice of a hidden thrush startles and confuses the poet. In the midst of signs of so much gloom there is no cause of rejoicing:
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound……
The cheerfulness of the song of the thrush brings in the unexpected note of hope. The poet seems to suggest that the next century may come as a solace and the atmosphere of general gloom may be lifted, but there is no certainty.
Question 2 : Give an account of the scene on a winter day as described by Thomas Hardy in the poem ‘The Darkling Thrush’.
Answer : ‘The Darkling Thrush’ uses concrete, sensuous imagery to describe a scene in nature. The poet who is in a gloomy mood seems to project his own feelings on the perceived scene. He is a loner, leaning upon a wooden gate, watching the dreary scene outside. It is an evening time on a cold wintry day. The light of the sun is waning fast. The thick, tangled stems of the climbing plants that line the sky seem to be broken, useless lyres. This image is quite effective. Lyres are broken, and do not produce any sweet music, just as there is no music in nature outside.
Is the speaker an abnormal person? Every body, except he, is inside the home warming themselves by the fireside . Importantly, for him the non-living things are as important as the living ones. Frost and winter are personified . Even the day has an ‘eye’ (the sun).
There are clouds hanging in the sky. They seem to form a canopy. It is to be noted how the poet, looking at them, is reminded of the death of the century:
The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind its death-lament.
The poet feels that the clouds would serve as a tomb for the dead body of the century – the 19th century. Thus the image of death is predominant in the second stanza of the poem. The outside scene in nature prompts the poet-watcher to reflect on the importance of the day. It makes him conscious of the death of an era.
The scene is totally gloomy, and yet its gloom is suddenly disrupted by the shrill, happy note of an old thrush. The aged bird whose plumes have been battered by the storm is on the way-out, yet it chooses to pour out its heart in a forceful manner. It indicates that no scene in nature can be totally gloomy and bleak. The music of nature never dies. It is heard in some way in every situation. It is this song of the thrush that comes as a solace to us, even though the speaker is confused as to the cause of this rapture on the part of a weak, dying bird.
Question 3 : ‘The Darkling Thrush’ by Hardy depicts a general mood of gloom and desolation. How does the song of thrush come to disrupt it? What do you think of the importance of this birdsong?
Answer : ‘The Darkling Thrush’ consists of four stanzas. In the first two stanzas the poem focuses on the atmosphere of gloom and desolation in the world of nature. In reality, this external gloom is the reflection of the internal gloom of the poet who, as a loner, comes to watch a twilight scene on an extremely cold winter day. In the last two stanzas, this gloomy mood is contrasted with the note of cheerfulness suddenly brought in by the shrill voice of a hidden thrush.
In the first two stanzas, the images of desolation and bleakness are used to convey the correspondence between the mood and atmosphere of nature and the state of mind of the speaker, who is a loner with keen poetic insight:
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
It is indeed a very cold wintry day. Frost has been visualized as a dull, pale ghost. Winter is coming to a close. The dregs of remnants which are worthless and tasteless are recalled to covey the unpleasantness of the remaining portion of winter. The sun, imaged as the ‘eye of day’, is weakening, indicating the coming of darkness after it is completely gone. So there is nothing cheerful to view. The speaker looks at the interwoven stems of a creeper lining the sky. He is reminded of the broken lyres, no longer in use. So there is no music anywhere.
It is only in the second stanza that we learn that the poet is thinking of the nineteenth century that is dead and is perhaps worried about the new that is to take birth soon. In the nineteenth century, scientific and technological advances, industrialization and urbanisation caused the death of a golden era in which people lived a happy contented life even in poverty and deprivation. Old values withered and the new ones only created tensions. The people were unsure about the next century. It is this anxiety of the people shared by the speaker that makes him think of the old rhythm of life getting slowed down:
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
It is at this point that a shift in the tone and mood is introduced. A voice from among the leaves is heard. It is the heart-felt, powerful song of a thrush. The thrush seems to be expressing its joy. Strangely and significantly, the thrush is a weak and aged bird and its feathers have been battered by the storm. It is on the way-out, but still is happy. The speaker is puzzled as to why the bird is so happy. He can only think that the bird is throbbing with some ‘blessed Hope’.
This happy note of the song is perhaps meant to remind the speaker, as to the readers also, that there is no cause for desperation. If this century is dead, the new one will take birth soon and come with some good to mankind. Thus, the song of the thrush becomes central to the understanding of the poem.