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C ritique #1

Hardy's Pessimism
During Wind and Rain isoneofmanypoemsinThomasHardys Moments of Vision.InHardyswords
thesearepoems[which]mortifythe human sense of self importance by showing, or suggesting, that
humanbeingsareofnomatterorappreciablevalueinthisnonchalantuniverse(Hardyviii).Thisviewis
epitomised in the poem During Wind and Rain where the characters travel predictably through their lives
and appear to leave no lasting mark on the universe other than their names left carved in a tree.

During Wind and Rain

ThepoembeginswithyoungandcarefreecharactersasTheysingtheirdearestsongs(1).Theuseof
thewordplayinlinefourgrantsthestanzaalight-heartedfeel.Withthecandlesmooningeachface
(5) lends a halo effect, which indicates youth and innocence. The seventh line alters the tone of the stanza
dramatically.Howthesickleavesreeldowninthrongs(7),describestheadventofastormusingthe
action of wind. Just prior to a storm the wind will pick up, and blow loose leaves from trees. In this scene
theleavesarentjustloose,theyaresick,hintingatsomethingfarmoreominous.Decayhasalready
beguninthecarefreelivesofHardyscharacters.Usingthewordreel(alivelysongordance)mimics
andmocksthecarefreesingersinthefirstfewlinesbyassociatingthemwithsickleaves.

Instanzatwo,thesubjectsbuildtheirlivesbyMakingthepathwaysneat/Andthegardengay(10-11).
Andtheybuildashadyseat(12)hasthemconstructing a home, and family. Yet, on the horizon the
threatofthestormgrowsneareraswhitestorm-birdswingacross(14).Hardyremindsusthatnomatter
what we do to protect ourselves, time will march closer to an end, and the universe will do as it pleases.

InstanzathreethecharactersgoabouttheirlivesandbyusingthewordblithelyHardyinterjectshis
philosophy that they are unaware of their ultimate end. Withaglimpseofthebay(18)thecharacters
are privy to the oncoming storm and yet,theyareunconcernedasthepetfowlcometotheknee(19),
and they feed the birds astheyadvanceinyears.FinallythestormbreaksAndtherottenroseisript
fromthewall(21).Wheretheleavesweresickinthefirststanza,nowtherosesare dead and rotten,
andbeingrippedawayastheirlivesend.Hardyillustratesthathischaracterslivesarenomore
important than mere flowers in the grand scheme of the universe.

Theychangetoahighnewhouseinfersthatthecharactershavemoved on to an afterlife. While

belongings are often set out on a lawn temporarily on a moving day, these belongings are Onthelawn
allday(25)whichintimatesanafter-death auction. Possessions are as transitory as life and are simply
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recycled. The universeplacesnosentimentalvalueonthem.ThefinallineDowntheircarvednamesthe

rain-dropploughs(28),confirmstheonlymemoryleftofthecharactersistheirnamescarvedinatree.

Thomas Hardy. Image Credit: Google Images

Structure
Thepoemsstructureisrelativelyregularandstable,yetlittleinconsistenciespreventitfrombeingrigid,
and lend it more feeling. The rhyme scheme in all four stanzas flows in an abcbcba pattern with the sixth
line of each stanza imperfect,andtwoofthesixlinesrhymingwithinthemselvesAh,notheyearsO!
(6 and 20). Each of the sixth lines stands out; Hardy wants us to notice his lament about the passing years.
Further structure is visible in parallelism from corresponding lines in each stanza. Every first line
describestheactionofthecharactersthroughthewordssing,clear,breakfasting,andchange.
The second line in each stanza describes various stages of theirliveswhichmovesfromheandsheto
Eldersandjuniors,tomenandmaidensandbacktoheandshe.Thisprogressioncreatesthe
passing of time and by ending where they began, Hardy takes life through a cycle where we are all just
victims of time. Each final line illustrates the advancement of the storm, or time; an inevitable progression
.

The imagery of each last line is vibrant and contrasts with its stanza. The stanzas start out benign in their
descriptions of life through pleasant imagery. The music and play of youth in the first stanza is interrupted
with sick leaves reeling down. Storm birds in the last line of the second stanza contrast with the image of
gardens and the cool calm creeping moss. The birds bring with them the vision of dark skies with multi
layeredclouds.Therottenrosebeingrippedfromthewall,probablyfromthepreviousstanzasgarden,
opposes the picture of summer fun and pet fowl domesticity. Rain drops ploughing through the carved
names reminds one of a dreary day where rain takes over thebrightestthingsstrewnacrossthelawn.
Through his imagery Hardy paints a portrait of contrast, and by limiting the startling final lines to one per
stanza, the contrast is abrupt and effective.

Emma Lavinia Gifford. Image Credit: neal.oxborrow.net

Justified Pessimism
Perhaps this poem and its edge of regret and the cruel indifference of life grows from
HardysownregretofthedeathofhiswifeEmma.Yearsofestrangementpriortoher
passinglefthimwithgriefforhisownindifference(Hardyix)afterherdeath.YetpriortothisHardy
frequently wrote about theinjusticeofuncompensated,needlesspain(Hardyviii).Itisaprevalent
theme in many of his poems such as Neutral Tones, Where the Picnic Was, and The Voice. Hardy defends
his pessimistic view in the preface Apology to Late Lyrics and Earlier byallegingthathispessimismis,
intruth,onlysuchquestioningsintheexplorationofreality,andisthefirststeptowardsthesouls
betterment,andthebodysalso(Hardy527) a clear and logical justification for his pessimism.
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Works Cited

Wordsworth, ed.The Wordsworth Poetry Library; The Works of

Thomas Hardy. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1995.

C ritique # 2

Some T houghts on W ind and Rain

By John F oy
WhenbeginningtothinkaboutthepoemDuringWindandRainbyThomasHardy, I thought it might
be useful to go back for some context to the old pessimist Yvor Winters, who always had provocative
things to say about form. If he was a pessimist, well, so was Thomas Hardy. In his book Defense of
Reason, Winters speaks of form as being in some way equivalent to moral content:
Formisnotsomethingoutsidethepoet,somethingaesthetic,andsuperimposeduponhismoral
content; it is essentially a part, in fact it may be the decisive part, of the moral content, even though the
poet may be arriving at the final perfection of the condition he is communicating while he communicates
itandinalargemeasureasaresultoftheactandtechniqueofcommunication.(Page22)
This may sound today like too grand a claim for the formal aspectofapoem,andthewordmoral,
cheapened as it has become in political and religious discourse, requires careful handling. Butletssee
howWintersideamightapplytoDuringWindandRain:
They sing their dearest songs
He, she, all of themyea,
Treble and tenor and bass,
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face. . . .
Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!
They clear the creeping moss
Elders and juniorsaye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat. . . .
Ah, no; the years, the years,
See, the white storm-birds wing across.
They are blithely breakfasting all
Men and maidensyea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee. . . .
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.
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They change to a high new house,

He, she, all of themaye,
Clocks and carpets and chairs
On the lawn all day,
And brightest things that are theirs. . . .
Ah, no; the years, the years
Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs.
The poem is made up of four seven-line stanzas, each one beginning with a tableau of conviviality and
domestic concord among members of a family. These cheerful pictures, outlined with the simplest
efficiency, are carried in the first five lines of each stanza. The last two lines of each stanza (the sixth and
seventh) act as a ballad-stylerefrainthatlooksawayfromthehappinesstotheinevitabilityoftimes
erosion. Letslookatthesecondstanzaasanexampleoftherecurringstructuralunit.
They clear the creeping moss
Elders and juniorsaye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat. . . .
Ah, no; the years, the years,
See, the white storm-birds wing across.
The first five lines show family members of different generations clearing and preparing the lawn,
perhaps for a garden party. The scene is festive. Youngandold,eldersandjuniors,areclearingaway
moss from the pathways and building a shadyseatamidthegardenstrees. Itsagladstateofaffairs,but
then the last two lines of the stanza turn bleak:
Ah, no; the years, the years,
See, the white storm-birds wing across.
The storm-birds are harbingers not only of a particular storm but also of the general work of wind, rain,
and time, which will erase the joyful moments in the garden along with the garden itself and the cherished
people in it. Hardysdouble-looking stanza points to both life and oblivion. This rhetorical pattern,
replicated in all four stanzas, contains two thematic perspectives, where the first five lines point one way
and the last two point another. ItacknowledgesHardysunderstandingofthedualityinherentinthe
nature of things. We are here for a while, and then we are gone. In his stanza, the heedlessness and the
impendingdissolutiondontcanceleachotherout. They exist together in tragic equipoise, symmetrically
bound together by the structure.
Another formal element that serves the meaning is the shortened fourth line of each stanza. While the first
five are mostly in iambic trimeter, the fourth contains only two feet and two stresses. When you come
upon that fourth line, the change in sound pattern creates a sonic effect of falling short, a disappointment
in the ear when the expected third stress fails to sound. We can think of it this way: the rhythmic
deflation of the fourth line hints at the inadequacy of gardens, nice houses, and families to save us in the
grand scheme of nature and time. Listen to how it plays out in the third stanza:
They are blithely breakfasting all
Men and maidensyea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee. . . .
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.
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Thereisadistinctnoteofsadnessinthemetricallytruncatedfourthline(Withaglimpseofthebay)
despite the fact that it conveys the pretty image of water seen in the distance across a summer lawn. How
does this happen? It may have something to do with psycho-acoustics, but I would explain it this way:
the shift from a quick, tripping three-beat line to the shortened two-foot line with only two beats falling at
the end of two anapests imparts a sense of the fleeting and fragile. By sonically suggesting things that
will not endure, the line itself embraces the binary view inherent in the whole poemthe lovely image
and the note of sadness. EzraPound,remarkingonHardyspoetry,calledthisqualityexpression
coterminouswiththematter.Theminorkeyinthiscaseisachievednotonlybytherhythmicchange-up,
but also by the way the image is set in the overall context of the poem.
What about the rhyme scheme? It does not vary: a b c b c d a. In each stanza, the end of the first line,
which is part of the happy tableau, rhymes with the end of the last line, seven away, where the doomful
message sounds. In a well-wrought poem, this kind of sonic equality will suggest a relationship beyond
mere sound. In this case, the equivalence points up the radically ironic contrast in meaning:
They sing their dearest songs /
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!
They are blithely breakfasting all /
And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.
Theychangetoahighnewhouse,/
Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs.
This musical echo reaching across the stanza is another technique for yoking together the happy five-line
unit with the dark two-line ending. Itsyetanotherwaythatthepoemsstructureembracesthedouble
truth that Hardy understands. Thisbindingsecret(toslightlymisuseSeamusHeaneysphrase)isthere,
too,intherepeatedlongaattheendoflinestwoandfour. This rhyme, repeating in those positions in
each of the four stanzas, works againstand perhaps refutesthe discontinuity that the poem is about.
What does all this have to do with a moral attitude? RobertMezey,inhisintroductiontoHardys
Selected Poems, notes that in great poetrythemoralandtheaestheticarerarely,ifever,separate
things. What does that mean? Well,letsstartbyacceptingthatapoemnegotiatesitswaybetweenthe
realandtheideal.InHardyspoem,therealincludesthefactthattransitoryjoyis obliterated by time,
wind and rain. The ideal comes into play as language organized formally that controls time and imparts
order to chaos. Likeanygoodpoem,DuringWindandRaintriestorectifytherealwiththeideal.
Letssayitthisway. Time passes, people perish, nature overwhelms. This implies the futility of having
a garden and a house. Gardens and houses are the result of techne. A house is built, a garden is shaped,
andHardyspoemdemonstratesthattheycometonaught. Butisnta poem like a house or a garden? It,
too, is born of techne. Can it last? Is it worthy? Worthy of what? I would say it should be worthy of the
idea that it expresses. It must be commensurate in its form and comportment (the ideal) with the
accurately observed truth that it conveys (the real). Such a poem at least stands a chance of outlasting the
specific garden, the house, the wife, the man.
I think this is what Yvor Winters meant when he said that a poem, even in its structure, implies a moral
stance. The fact that Hardy has arrived at an understanding of life and oblivion is important to him as a
man. That he has been able to reflect his understanding in the structure of how he expresses it makes this
an important poem. What Hardy has understood is terrifying, but he has not tried to turn from it, he has
not committed suicide, he has not thrown up his hands, unmanned by despair. He has, instead, patterned
a communication that conveys in the arrangement of its parts the full, balanced meaning of the thing he
has come to know. When looked at in this way, it becomes a bit more clear, I hope, how form can be
equated with moral content. Here, again, is Yvor Winters:
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Hardyspoeticstyle,inhissenseofform,isidenticalwiththewillortheability to control and

shapeonesexperience. The tragic necessity of putting by the claims of the world without the
abandonment of self-control, without loss of the ability to go on living for the present, intelligently and
well,isthesubjectofHardyspoetry.(In Defense of Reason, page 26)
If,asWinterssays,theartisticprocessisoneofmoralevaluationofhumanexperience,bymeansofa
techniquewhichrenderspossibleanevaluationmoreprecisethananyother,thenthetechniqueHardy
used was the writing of this poem. As a man, he subjected himself to the iron logic of his world view and
accepted its logical consequences; as a poet, he subjected himself to the rigors of his chosen form.
Simultaneously,Imightadd,hedisavowedthejeweledline,keepinghislanguagewithinthenarrow
register of the plain to fit the sobering truth he had come to terms with. InDuringWindandRain,
Hardyhassucceededinunderstandinghisexperienceinrationalterms,asWinterswrites,andhas
conveyedthekindanddegreeofemotionthatshouldproperlybemotivatedbythisunderstanding. In
Hardy, there is no emotional exaggeration. There are no alcohol-fueled linguistic rampages, as in Hart
Crane. This is a contrast that Yvor Winters is very fond of. He will bash Hart Crane at every turn.
WintersconsideredCranesaesthetictobeafancyescapefromreality,oranevasionofreality. Ifthats
true,thenwemightsaythatHardysaesthetichasdonejusticetoreality. But how? DuringWind and
Rainisstructurallyconsistentwiththedualityitdescribes. It enacts the falling short and embodies the
ironies of circumstance that it dramatizes. In this way it both acknowledges and rectifies the real. As a
highly organized structure, it is a gesture of faith in our ability to create order. It reflects the will and
effort that shaped it, and only in this way does the poem survive its truth.

C ritique # 3

Raina Lorring

had a very realistic, sometimes dark, view of life and this made his work contrast with many other notable
writers of his time period. According to the biography on notablebiographies.com, he was born in 1840 in
England as the son of a stonemason and Hardy trained as an architect. His writing career began with
novels, but he later moved on to poetry when his prose was not popular with the readers of that period.

Much of his work dealt with time robbing memories away and how death could take away loved ones
permanently.Inaperiodofprimarilyromanticwriters,Hardysworkwasastiffdoseofreality. The
poem DuringWindandRain keepstothistheme.ThepoemdealswiththelossofHardyswife,Emma,
and it contrasts her death with her childhood.

DuringWindandRain is set up very simply. The poem consist of four seven-line stanzas with the first
fiveaboutmomentsinEmmaslifeandthefinaltwolinesaredarkimagesofdeath.Thesecond line of
each stanza has a semi-refrain such as the lines:He,she,allofthem- yea,Eldersandjuniors- aye,
Menandmaidens- yea,andHe,she,allofthem- aye.Structuringthepoemthiswayaddsflowto
DuringWindandRainandhelpstoaddimpacttotheimagesHardyinvokesinhisreadersminds.

As the biography on notablebiographies.com shows, music was important to Hardy because he was taught
to play the violin by his father. Moments involving music were very dear to Hardy and are used as a
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symbol for joy in much of his work. The poem startswith,THEYsingtheirdearestsongs-andfollows

with four lines describing the happy scene. The last line still uses the sense of sound but the beautiful
singingofahappyfamilyhasbecomethedarkmelodyofsickleavesreeldowninthrongs!Hardy
masterfully twists a lovely image into mournful and yet still lyrical depiction of decay.

The next stanza is about time looming above to ravish the beauty of life. The lines,Theyclearthe
creeping moss- / Elders and juniors-aye, / Making the pathways neat / And the garden gay; / And they
buildashadyseat....helpcreateanimageoflifeflourishing.The poem nextmentionstheyearsand
leavesthereaderwithdeathwaitingasthewhitestorm-birdswingacross!InmanyofHardyspoems
timeisdeathstool.

The third stanza uses the sense of smell to convey the message of death. The first line of this stanza finds
thefamilybreakfasting.Incontrast,thelast line,Andtherottenroseisrippedfromthewall"leaves
the reader with the stench of death in their nose.

The last stanza tellshowthefamilyfinallyachievedsuccessbysayingTheychangetoahighnew

house,andgoesontoexpressthelavishnessoftheirlife.Onceagaintheyearsrobthe people in the
poem.Thereaderisleftwiththeimageofraindropscomingdowntocarve[d]thefamiliesnameson
their tombstones. This is the darkest and most final image in the poem. It also brings the reader back to
the last line of the first stanza that had the image of decay.

These dark images conveyed in DuringWindandRain are one reason that readers of the time found
Hardysworktobedepressing.Deathbythewayoftimeistheultimatevillainthatthepoetshowsinhis
work; there is no escaping the cold hand of mortality. However, there is beauty to the words just as there
is beauty to be found in life.