18 pages • 36 minutes read
Thomas HardyA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
'Ode to a Nightingale' by John Keats (1819)
While John Milton first connected the word “darkling” to birds in Paradise Lost, it was John Keats who made it famous in his “Ode to a Nightingale.” Comparing “Ode to a Nightingale” to “The Darkling Thrush” illuminates the divergence between Keats’s Romantic worldview and Hardy’s more Modernist approach. While Keats’s nightingale seems almost supernatural in its power and beauty, Hardy’s thrush is a grubby, scrawny thing, perhaps reflecting Hardy’s more sober realism.
"To A Skylark" by William Wordsworth (1825)
William Wordsworth, an important influence on Hardy, addresses his poem’s title bird, the skylark, directly. He ascribes an almost divine quality to the bird, linking the beauty of God’s creation—nature—with His divinity itself. In “The Darkling Thrush,” Hardy takes some of the shine off of these Romantic (and religious) interpretations of the natural world.
"Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold (1867)
In “Dover Beach,” Hardy’s contemporary Matthew Arnold also uses poetry to reckon with alienation and loss of faith against the tide of scientific progress. Like “The Darkling Thrush,” these sorts of elegies mourning the passing of a historical era were a popular genre for the Victorians.
By Thomas Hardy
Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave
Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave
Thomas Hardy
At an Inn
At an Inn
Thomas Hardy
Channel Firing
Channel Firing
Thomas Hardy
Far From The Madding Crowd
Far From The Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure
Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy
Neutral Tones
Neutral Tones
Thomas Hardy
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy
The Convergence of the Twain
The Convergence of the Twain: Lines on the loss of the "Titanic"
Thomas Hardy
The Man He Killed
The Man He Killed
Thomas Hardy
The Mayor of Casterbridge
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Thomas Hardy
The Return of the Native
The Return of the Native
Thomas Hardy
The Withered Arm and Other Stories
The Withered Arm and Other Stories
Thomas Hardy
The Woodlanders
The Woodlanders
Thomas Hardy