The Darkling Thrush by Hardy, Background and Commentary
Author
Hardy was born in Higher Bockhampton June 2, 1840. In 1848 Hardy began attending Julia Martin’s school in Bockhamton. In 1853 Hardy’s education became intensive, he studies Latin, French and began reading widely. During the early years of Hardy’s life, Hardy’s father, a stonemason, let his son apprentice him in restoring old local churches. From 1862 to 1867 Hardy worked for an architect in London. Meanwhile, he was writing poetry with little success this caused Hardy to turn to writing novels and by 1874 he was able to support himself by writing. During the same year (1872) Hardy married Emma Gifford. Their marriage lasted until her death in 1912. Emma’s death prompted Hardy to write his collection of poems called Veneris Vestigiae Flammae ( Vestiges of an Old Flame). In 1914, Hardy remarried to Florence Dugdale.
Hardy anonymously published two early novels, Desperate Remedies ( 1871) and Under the Greenwood Tree (1872). Hardy’s best novels are The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895). A critic named G.K Chesterton wrote that Hardy “ became a sort of village atheist brooding and blaspheming over the village idiot.” This criticism was so harsh that Hardy stopped writing novels.
At the age of 55 Hardy returned to writing poetry. The Dynasts, written between 1903 and1908 was considered Hardy’s most successful poetry. Hardy died on January 11, 1928.
Origin of the Poem
“The Darkling Thrush” is a poem occasioned by the beginning of a new year and a new century.
Content
I I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings from broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
Stanza I
The gate which the speaker is leaning on represent the threshold of the new century. The spectral quality of frost suggests the ageing and the ghostly quality of the landscape. The scene has the mere trace of life, in which natural and human presences are ghostly. The figure of the “weakening eye” symbolizes the ending of the day along with the ending of the century. The “tangled bine-stems” represent a harp which all the strings have been broken emphasizing the “winter’s dregs”. The stanza ends with the speakers awareness that he is alone, the people who usually occupy the land have returned to...