Form and Meter
For a guy who's all about apocalypse and ending the earth, Thomas Hardy sure plays it safe when in comes to form. After all, with all that chaos and nothingness out there, it just doesn't make much...
Speaker
Our speaker has a very active imagination. He uses elaborate turns of phrase and whimsical references to things like the seasons and feelings as if they're honest-to-goodness people. Which is lucky...
Setting
If you've seen Fargo, you know just how quiet and desolate all of those quiet frozen Nowheres are in this world. You know, the kind that don't even make it onto the map. That's where Hardy's speake...
Sound Check
This poem sounds a little like that dude that sits in the corner of a bar at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning moaning to himself. Either that, or he's the odd guy on the street corner reminding you that...
What's Up With the Title?
Hold on a second. "Darkling" isn't a word, is it? No, no it's not. (OK, we're fudging here. A loooooong time ago, way before the poem was written, "darkling" was sometimes used to mean "a creatur...
Calling Card
Animism. Or, "It's alive. IT'S ALIVE!!"Hardy develops complex (and often deeply personal) symbolic systems that deal almost exclusively with the natural world. Notice how we get up close and person...
Tough-o-Meter
(4) Base CampTechnically speaking, "The Darkling Thrush" isn't too challenging. Hardy relies on dense imagery and occasional metaphoric language to drive his gloomy-with-a-tiny-bit-of-happy-at-the-...
Brain Snacks
Sex Rating
GNo sex. Not anywhere. All death and sadness.…unless, of course, you think that the "germ and birth" was once fertile. Don't get us wrong: Hardy doesn't shy away from scandalous sex scenes. Check...