The Darkling Thrush - PowerPoint Presentation

Presentation on theme: "The Darkling Thrush"— Presentation transcript

Slide1

The Darkling Thrush

BY: Thomas HardySlide2

Author of the poem and brief biography

Thomas Hardy , who was unusual in being both a great novelist and a great poet, was born in Dorset, a region of southwest England on June 2

nd

in 1840 . He used this region as the basis for the imaginary country of

Wessex

that is the setting of many of his novels.

Early life : The son of a stonemason, Hardy grew up in a rural cottage near a tract of wasteland .He received a fine education at a local school, although he never went on to study at a university. As a teenager, he began working for a local architect, and later he became a draftsman for an architect who specialized in churches. While on a business trip to

C

ornwall, Hardy met a women who later became his first wife. She encouraged him in his literary activities and he soon committed himself to writing.

When Hardy’s early poetry did not gain notice he turned to writing novels. Far from madding crowd was the first to gain success. Hardy used his fiction writing to elaborate his own pessimistic view of life. In tragic novels like Tess of the D’urbervilles(1891) and Jude the obscure (1895), he showed the difficulty people experience when trying to rise above their circumstances.Slide3

Historical background

Hardy’s poetry marks a transition from Victorian verse to the Modernist movement of the twentieth century. In his use of strict meter and stanza structure, hardy was clearly Victorian. However his

nonpoetic

language and odd rhymes , his devotion to English countryside, and his fatalistic outlook inspired twentieth-century poets like Philip Larkin.Slide4

Stanza 1

In the opening lines of "The Darkling Thrush" Hardy establish the tone and the setting of the poem. Hardy underscores the speaker's mood by describing him leaning upon a "coppice gate," meaning opens onto the woods. 

I leant upon a coppice gate

When Frost was

spectre

-grey,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

The weakening eye of daySlide5

In this poem Thomas Hardy , uses the literary devices of Alliteration, Assonance, Allusion , Connotation,

Personification, Rhythm, that describes

his own pessimistic view of life.Slide6

Theme & tone

The

theme & tone

in the speaker’s attitude change from hopeless to hopeful came as the result of the singing thrush . The thrush , representing firm hopefulness , helps express the theme of hope and faith . Through his

spiritual

revelation, the speaker sees the goodness and happiness in the future and he is able to be at peace with the passing of time.Slide7

Poem Interpretation

Basically my poem is about the ending of a century. The speaker is very pessimistic . Until this song bird comes along singing an joyful song. From the speaker description the bird is very old looking ,like it has been beating. The speaker now wonders if the bird knew something that he didn’t know about the up

coming century.Slide8

Work cited

Prentice Hall Literature :The British Tradition