The poem echoes the degeneration of modern society. Hardy seems to critically translate not only the sociological realism but also of the psychological distress of modern culture. As Hardy belonged to the transitional phase between Victorianism and Modernism, his writings also captures the modernist tendency that Eliot and other modernist writers input in their writings which is the psychological realism.
The poem is not modernist in its essence but one should take note of the psychological realism that Hardy portrays in the poem. He uses the gloomy imagery of the natural landscape that translates the psychological realism as well. The imagery of “winter’s dregs” , ‘desolate” and ”weakening eye of the day” evokes a sense of nostalgia and the unconscious realm of isolation and alienation of an individual. This imagery is heightened as a mood of sad and gloomy atmosphere that culminates where the human beings have isolated themselves from the dead of the season and its impact on the world of nature. The psychological realism is further developed where the speaker states that every living beings on earth is sad and depressed like him. One has to note that the season of winter is a symbolical force for dead and the impact of winter season in the world of nature reflects the sociological realism.
The poem also showcases the sociological realism of modern society and degenerating culture. The modern society was emerging during Hardy’s time and he uses the perfect analogy of nature that is affected by the cold winter season. The nature is frosted as a silent as a ghost and it has disrupted the stems of the forests where they look like a strings of broken musical instrument. This comparison of nature to fragmented lens projects the decline and degeneration of modern society and culture. He further adds the death of civilisation and progress where the land’s harsh hills and cliffs look dead meaning there are no productivity of civilisation or it is the dead of the century . Here Hardy could imply the end of 19th century which is dead like a cloud hanging above and the wind triggers the musings of sad melody of its death.
Hardy was a optimistic poet in a sense that he hoped for the better future. The speaker hears the voice of the bird and the bird here becomes a symbol of hope. He observes the bird who is singing amidst the frosty dead of the winter with his feathers rumpled by the wind. The bird sings with his soul while the landscape grew darker and gloomy. The speaker believed that he had not seen such meaningful musings from the bird around him before and this triggered the poet the sense of hope in the declining civilisation where the bird knows some ray of hope that he do not.
Critically, the poem gives a meaningful sense of hope from an objective understanding of the world. One could assess the modernist tendency here where the poet translates the reality using the objective world and go flow with it. The bird is an optimism for the speaker and the hope that the bird sings amidst the degeneration of modern society and culture is something that the bird knows about and the speaker is ambiguous. The poem is beautiful and translates both sociological and psychological realism of the modern society. The poem also translates the abstract feelings of hope with the help of the natural resources that gives a poem its objectivity and justifies Hardy as a poet that bridge both Victorianism and Modernism.
The Role of Fate and Chance in Thomas Hardy Tess of the d’Urbervilles – https://getsetnotes.com/role-of-fate-and-chance-in-thomas-hardy-tess-of-the-durbervilles/
