Thomas Hardy's poetic style: tone, humor, and word choice

Thomas Hardy's Writing Style

Thomas Hardy was a successful writer of novels, short stories and poetry. While each of these areas could be used to analyze his writing style, the area of choice is his poetry. This is based on two reasons. Firstly, poetry is an area of writing that comes closest to representing the writer's style because of its personal nature. Secondly, it is known that Hardy had to revise many of his short stories to make them acceptable for publication. The short stories then, do not only represent Hardy's own style, they also represents what publications wanted to see. Hardy's poetry is thought to be the best example of Hardy's own individual style, and for this reason the poetry will be considered as a means of investigating his style.

This overall style has been described saying, "His style is rugged, his tone often melancholic, and his humor grim, but his choice of words is magical and his meaning is always clear" (Kamm 201). This summary of this style includes reference to three areas of Hardy's style: tone, humor and word choice. A final consideration is the common themes of Hardy's poetry. To consider Hardy's style further, each of these aspects will be discussed in turn.

Tone

The tone of Hardy's poems can best be described as melancholic, a tone that is created by a combination of reflection and sadness. Hardy's poems commonly reflect on some aspect of his life or his past and do so with a sadness in them, this sadness bordering on depressive. An example is in the poem "In Tenebris," which begins with the verse:

Wintertime nighs;

But my bereavement-pain

It cannot bring again:

Twice no one dies" (Hurford 504).

This beginning immediately creates the melancholic tone. Another example is the poem "The Oxen" which has been described as a poem where, "The poet looks back regretfully to his boyhood days when he believed in miracles" (Firor 150). This poem also has a tone of regret, longing and sadness, with this emphasized in the last verse of the poem where the poet described what he would do if asked to see the oxen:

In the lonely barron by the yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,' should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so" (Hurford 492).

This captures both the longing for the past and the sadness that is characteristic of Hardy's melancholic tone.

Humor

The humor in Hardy's poems is not an obvious humor but a dry humor that tends to evoke a sense of sadness in the reader, rather than a sense of laughter. An example is in the poem "Afterwards," the third verse capturing Hardy's approach to humor:

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,

When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,

One may say, 'He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,

But he could do little for them; and now he is gone" (Hurford 330).

This second line describing the hedgehog travelling furtively over the lawn is a humorous image and in some context may make the reader laugh. However, Hardy's first lines with the 'nocturnal blackness' creates a sense of darkness that takes away from the humor. The final two lines expressing his inability to do anything for the creatures and his death, make the verse a sad one. Any humor that Hardy created then adds to a sense of sadness. This creates an impact where the reader experiences the humor in a negative way. They see the humor for a moment and then continuing reading, the humor dies and the reader feels sorry that they saw humor at all. This quality adds to the meaning of the poem. Hardy is looking back on his life at the momentary good things but with an overall sadness. The same effect is created in the reader, with the humor there for a moment and then becoming sadness. This is an effective tool that Hardy uses in many poems, where the humor actually adds to the sadness in the poem.

Overall, Hardy uses slight humor but in such a way that rather than be humorous it actually adds to the sadness of the poem, while also evoking emotions in the reader.

Word Choice

Hardy's word choice can be described as archaic, with Hardy often using unusual words that suggest a link to the past.

In "The Oxen" Hardy includes the line "In the lonely barron by the yonder coomb" (Hurford 492). The words 'barron,' 'yonder' and 'coomb' are all unusual choice and create the impression that they may be ancient words unused in modern times. This gives the verse a quality that suggests the meaning and significance of it. This also matches with Hardy's tone of longing for the past. In sound, this line is quite distinctive and beautiful. This creates a sense of longing in the reader as well for these past times when everything was simpler and more beautiful.

Another poem that illustrates word choice is "In Tenebris." This poem ends with the verse:

Black is night's cope;

But death will not appal

One who, past doubtings all,

Waits in unhope" (Hurford 504).

This also uses unusual word's like 'appal,' 'doubtings' and 'unhope.' 'Unhope' is also a good example of how Hardy invented words to express himself. In this case, the word is the most significant one in the verse, being the final word and the one that emphasizes the poet's feelings. This invented word 'unhope' captures the feeling of being completely devoid of hope, a sadness in this that no other word could quite match. Hardy could have used various other words to express himself, such as 'distress' or 'despair,' but none of these would have quite captured the same thing. The invented word has the ability to express something greater, to capture attention and to ensure Hardy's poems are not seen as contrived. These invented words are common in Hardy's poetry.

Conclusion

The poetry of Thomas Hardy has now been examined to show the common features of his writing style including tone, humor and word choice. Finally, the common themes of Hardy's poetry have been described, these including the suffering of the human condition, the fact that people are helpless against suffering, and the longing for the past. The final thing worth noting is that the tone, humor and word choice all contribute to developing these themes. The tone is a melancholic one that suggests both the longing for the past and the sadness of human life. The humor is used not to make the poems light-hearted in any way, but rather to make the reader feel as melancholy as Hardy does, something that contributes to the themes. Finally, the word choice which often uses archaic words contributes to the sense of longing for another time, enhanced by the fact that the archaic words are so unique and beautiful.