Everyone knows the tragic story of the great Titanic. Hardy has found a way to creatively put all that we know of the Titanic into one poem. As he writes, Hardy paints a clear picture of what happened that disastrous night that the Titanic sank, killing over 1,000 people.
And as the smart ship grew
In statute, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.
(pg 1076, lines 22-24)
If this poem were evaluated, I would call this stanza the climax. I feel as though the descriptions before this stanza were nice, but quite boring; they were simply descriptions of the night, boat, sea, and items found once the shipwreck was discovered. Nonetheless, this stanza sets a feeling of action into motion. I can almost feel the crew members' panic myself as the iceberg drew nearer and nearer.
Alien they seemed to be:
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,
(pg 1077, lines 25-27)
This stanza alone makes the reader feel a sense of panic and curiosity. For those that do not know the story of the Titanic, this stanza puts them at the edge of their seat. Hardy made me feel very sympathetic for those that died on the Titanic and especially those that survived. Men, women, and children all died this night due to, in my opinion, a mixture between carelessness and nature. I believe that the Titanic taught the world a lesson that needed to be learned to prevent events like this from happening again in the future.
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2 comments:
Mishawn,
Good poem to discuss, and some apt selections for the quotations for analysis. At times, though, it appears your interpretation of the poem is more informed by the film than by this poem. Hardy doesn't mention any of the people who died, and seems to have little concern for the human suffering of this tragedy. He looks at it instead as an emblem of human vanity and pride, and as the unseen hand of Fate or Destiny at work, to teach us a lesson. I can understand how you came to the reading you did, since the story of the shipwreck is so famous, but be sure to pay attention to what the poem says, not what you think it ought to say.
I would like to point to another substantial idea that could be infered from the poem. It is the poet's remorse that was fully devoted to the loss of the Titanic regardless the hundreds of people that met their creator at that night. And here we can say that the Titanic is a real concern for the poet and her drowning is a real disaster for him too.
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