Color-marking sample rough draft
The Voice
BY THOMAS HARDY
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.
Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!
Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?
Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.
BY THOMAS HARDY
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.
Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!
Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?
Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.
The writing following the above text:
TOPIC: How do poets make use of detail to present a realistic or unrealistic representation of the world? Refer to works by at least two poets you have studied.
The works of Alfred Tennyson and Thomas Hardy both explore the themes of nature, memory, and the intensity of human emotion, manipulating details in the imagery and form in order to present them as more abstract concepts, complexly intertwined with the characters and their experiences. In Hardy’s poem, “The Voice”, he deliberately blends the concepts of memory, reality, and human imagination to illustrate the mental deterioration of a deluded protagonist, whilst his poem, “The Darkling Thrush” features an exploration of the physicality of nature, using color and texture to create an atmosphere of darkness and despair. Similarly, Tennyson’s “Mariana” brings nature to life through its representation of the protagonist’s turmoil, whereas in “The Lady of Shalott”, the reader is emmersed in an ungraspable fantasy world through Tennyson’s inversion of the conventional laws of reality.
“The Voice” by Thomas Hardy presents the reader with a dramatic monologue, told from the perspective of a man who claims to hear the voice of his deceased wife. The reader is initially given the impression that the delusion is in fact real; however, as the poem progresses, they witness a gradual deterioration of the protagonist’s self conviction, portrayed primarily through Hardy’s use of form. The opening line reads, “Woman much missed how you call to me, call to me”, taking on the dynamic form of four consecutive dactyls, followed by a repetition of “call to me” at the end. The fluent and fast-paced tone of this line immediately engages the reader in the daydream, the effortless fluidity of each syllable conveying the narrator’s self conviction and sense of elation. The repetition of the phrase “call to me” reflects the behavior of an echo, adding a sense of surreality to the atmosphere. It is features such as this coupled with the constraining form of the quatrain stanzas that present the scenario as imaginary rather than realistic, due to the reader’s natural association of free verse with the real world, rather than an ABAB rhyme scheme and a dactylic metre. After this element of the imaginary is introduced, the narrator recalls a moment during which he saw the “voice”, wearing “the original air-blue gown!” Hardy’s employment of the colour “air-blue” can be interpreted on two levels: on one hand, the specificity of the colour signifies the narrator’s sharpness of memory as well as the passion he felt for his wife. Alternatively, it may suggest the vagueness of the memory; “air” has connotations of transcience and the unsubstantial, whilst the colour “blue” is often associated with the celestial, implying the narrator’s struggle as he attempts to relive the past. As the stanzas progress, Hardy permeates this bubble of the past with rhetorical questions, such as, “can it be you that I hear?”, and “or is it only the breeze?” This suggests to the reader that the memory is slowly fading and that the narrator is gradually beginning to recognize reality. The rhetorical questions create a sense of doubt within the reader, leading them to question the nature of this delusion…
The works of Alfred Tennyson and Thomas Hardy both explore the themes of nature, memory, and the intensity of human emotion, manipulating details in the imagery and form in order to present them as more abstract concepts, complexly intertwined with the characters and their experiences. In Hardy’s poem, “The Voice”, he deliberately blends the concepts of memory, reality, and human imagination to illustrate the mental deterioration of a deluded protagonist, whilst his poem, “The Darkling Thrush” features an exploration of the physicality of nature, using color and texture to create an atmosphere of darkness and despair. Similarly, Tennyson’s “Mariana” brings nature to life through its representation of the protagonist’s turmoil, whereas in “The Lady of Shalott”, the reader is emmersed in an ungraspable fantasy world through Tennyson’s inversion of the conventional laws of reality.
“The Voice” by Thomas Hardy presents the reader with a dramatic monologue, told from the perspective of a man who claims to hear the voice of his deceased wife. The reader is initially given the impression that the delusion is in fact real; however, as the poem progresses, they witness a gradual deterioration of the protagonist’s self conviction, portrayed primarily through Hardy’s use of form. The opening line reads, “Woman much missed how you call to me, call to me”, taking on the dynamic form of four consecutive dactyls, followed by a repetition of “call to me” at the end. The fluent and fast-paced tone of this line immediately engages the reader in the daydream, the effortless fluidity of each syllable conveying the narrator’s self conviction and sense of elation. The repetition of the phrase “call to me” reflects the behavior of an echo, adding a sense of surreality to the atmosphere. It is features such as this coupled with the constraining form of the quatrain stanzas that present the scenario as imaginary rather than realistic, due to the reader’s natural association of free verse with the real world, rather than an ABAB rhyme scheme and a dactylic metre. After this element of the imaginary is introduced, the narrator recalls a moment during which he saw the “voice”, wearing “the original air-blue gown!” Hardy’s employment of the colour “air-blue” can be interpreted on two levels: on one hand, the specificity of the colour signifies the narrator’s sharpness of memory as well as the passion he felt for his wife. Alternatively, it may suggest the vagueness of the memory; “air” has connotations of transcience and the unsubstantial, whilst the colour “blue” is often associated with the celestial, implying the narrator’s struggle as he attempts to relive the past. As the stanzas progress, Hardy permeates this bubble of the past with rhetorical questions, such as, “can it be you that I hear?”, and “or is it only the breeze?” This suggests to the reader that the memory is slowly fading and that the narrator is gradually beginning to recognize reality. The rhetorical questions create a sense of doubt within the reader, leading them to question the nature of this delusion…