Poem Analysis--Hardy and Hopkins

UnJi Nam

Mrs. Elliott

AP English Literature

9 March 2009

Poem Analysis

In both “The Darkling Thrush” and “The habit of Perfection”, the two poems delve into the relationship between man and spirituality. In “The Darkling Thrush” Thomas Hardy explores the human capacity for hope and faith even in the face of pessimism. “The Habit of Perfection” in contrast delves more into how an individual can expand spiritually by reining in one’s fleshly appetites and selfish desires. Both explore the idea of divinity and enlightenment beyond a person’s scope. However, the two poems differ widely in their methods suggested for how a person does achieve or even relate to higher spirituality in the universe. For Hardy, the speaker of his poem comes from an apathetic, degenerating world who sees no reason for hope nor belief in God or the good, “All mankind that haunted nigh had sought their household fires, the lands sharp features seemed to me the Century’s corpse outleant…and every spirit upon earth seemed fervorless as I.”. In contrast, “The Habit of Perfection” sees the redemption of man’s soul and purpose in life inherent in the individual themselves, who must self-discipline themselves to find spiritual elevation. Written in the same period in Victorian society, these two poems are singular in their contrasting views for mankind’s abilities and place in the universe, as well as differing attitudes of optimism for the former. For “The Darkling Thrush”, the general point of pessimism with acknowledgement of man’s limitations in understanding the universe beyond him is delineated by imagery and structure. In “The Habit of Perfection”, the poem’s meaning of how a person can transcend their earthly limitations by ignoring earthly pleasures is enhanced by the poet’s use of personification and allusion.
The use of imagery in “The Darkling Thrush” is key to its overall mood set throughout the poem. Repetition of the theme of death and degeneration is emphasized by the use of words such as the frost of the winter evening being “spectre-gray”, “The weakening eye of day”, and a whole stanza on the subject of “The lands sharp features seemed to me the Century’s corpse outleant, his crypt the cloudy canopy.” Such words and lines contribute to the first two stanzas pessimistic and contemplative mood, touched with melancholy that only the speaker gives voice to, but the whole world feels. “And every spirit upon earth seemed fervorless as I.” Other images used add to the depths of the speaker’s depression, such as the “household fires” that humans have retreated to, suggesting that man with their ambivalent ability to create and destroy have isolated themselves from the growing darkness of the world with artificial light. This suggest even further the isolation between man and the universe—the universe that includes divinity and the natural flow of life beyond human vanities and short-lived passions. But it is with the third and fourth stanza that the imagery employed changes from reminiscent of aging and death to hope and regeneration. With the use of the singing thrush, “A voice arose among in a full-hearted evensong of joy illimited, an aged thrush in blast-beruffled plume.” The song of the thrush is symbolic. Its symbolic of human hope, not only for better things in the physical world, but of humans and the natural universe—represented in the singing bird—having a truer relationship with each other, of when people can accept their fleshiness and their ultimate unimportance instead of gouging and shaping the earth with memorials to themselves and their selfishness. It also is a stand-in for spring, the season of hope and regeneration, for which the thrush is preparing for. The speaker, with the last line “So little cause for carolings of such ecstatic sound…that I could think there trembled through some blessed hope, of which he knew, and I was unaware.” is acknowledging that somewhere, there could be a higher purpose, a divinity, a higher state of human spirituality and enlightenment beyond his ken. Structure is also essential in delineating this change from matter of factual depression over the state of the world to hope for better things. The first two stanzas are quite structured and orderly, following a familiar rhythm throughout and written dispassionately. It is with the introduction of the bird that the stanzas rhythm and structure change drastically, the rhythm no longer it’s easy, familiar beat, but a rapid, emotional fluttering. The structure becomes more emotional in nature, with interjections added onto sentences and lines made shorter as the speaker is gripped with new feeling. The speaker, along with the thrush, ends the poem with hope, the eternal scourge and blessing of men.
With “The Habit of perfection” the poet comes from a different spiritual place. The speaker is almost exuberant with hope and resolution in comparison to Hardy. He claims that with deprivation and self-discipline comes a greater understanding of the divine in the universe, and that such understanding brings joy to its believers. The poet, Gerard Hopkins, works with the underlying assumption that divinity does exist, that it does care for the growth of the human soul, and that man has the capacity to elicit positive change in their life and the world permanently. In short, he is emphasizing the power and importance of the individual, whose hard work and dedication ends in such delightful rewards such as being closer to God, as opposed to Hardy who finds the individual powerless in the face of the universe to ultimately change anything, spiritual or physical, their efforts meaningless and ultimately marred by their own arrogance of their importance, and any divinity to be uninterested in the doings of men. Hopkins emphasizes his optimism of human individuals and the benevolent universe they live in by use of personification. The senses and human desires he speaks to are treated as sentient, separate beings from him “Elected Silence”, “Nostrils, your careless breath that spends” and “O feet, that want the yield of plushy sward.” By doing so, Hopkins elevates the position of these senses, and by doing so, also elevates the human individual by making a person and their fleshy accompaniments almost like a club of enlightened, reasonable beings who can consult each other to achieve higher spiritual elevation. By personifying and addressing these senses that often lead a person astray from a spiritual path to God, he also separates the human soul from its fleshly limits, further emphasizing the importance of a human individual. By allusion to the Bible, mainly in the last stanza, Hopkins ends the conversation between the speaker and his fleshly senses with the final result of spiritual elevation that comes by depriving one’s fleshly desires and senses. It all culminates in a marriage between the individual and poverty, “lily colored clothes not labored at, nor spun”, which is a reference to the teaching of Jesus emphasizing how God takes care of his believers, the final word in Hopkins point of a benevolent universe with a benevolent God with important human individuals.
In the end, both Hopkins and Hardy deal with spirituality being beyond human abilities, but they differ in the importance of the individual in finding this spiritual state, or even how advisable it is. Hopkins finds it the goal to aspire to in all humans, Hardy ends the poem ambivalently—it could be a true redemption, or yet another manifestation of human arrogance over its importance.