In Time of "The Breaking of Nations" Flashcards
Context of poem
The poem was written for a Sunday conservation paper in January 1916. At this time the public started to turn against the war. Hardy was asked for a heartening poem.
The title of the poem is a reference to a quote from the Bible Jeremiah 51:20. ‘Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms.’ This adds emphasis to the war’s magnitude since it is compared to a biblical battle.
The poem itself is a series of comparisons between what Hardy considers the parts of country life to live on forever, never to be forgotten and the First World War which Hardy believes will not be remembered forever. So this poem really depicts war to not have significance since it will be forgotten however farmyard practices and youths falling in love will outlast war this giving to them more significance.
“harrowing clods”
This can have a double meaning. A farmer breaking up and turning over land so he can sew seeds and man breaking up Europe in terms of breaking boarders and physically breaking the ground with artillery.
“harrowing” also can mean depressing and a horrific thing to experience, a meaning which is much better suited to war.
What can you say about the structure in stanza 1?
The first stanza is very slow. It is slowed in a series of ways. Firstly, the whole stanza is one long sentence with no commas or pauses. It is also slowed down by the sibilance in line two, slow silent walk’. The ‘s’ sound slows it down. Also the frequent use of ‘a’ and ‘o’ sounds slow it down. It is seen in the words ‘stalk’, ‘slow’, ‘horse’. This gives more of an impression of a slow paced country life, rather than a fast paced war.
“stumbles and nods” “stalk”
Represents the soldiers walking, they are clumsy and inelegant
“Only thin smoke without flame”
Not burning properly, represents the aftermath of war, with the smoking remains
However, this shows a rural life much more than war since in a war the smoke is thick and the fires are fierce.
“Yet these will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass”
Excitement fades, the pulse of human life is ongoing, agriculture doesn’t go outHardy says the rural things will go on for ‘dynasties past’ whereas war will not, this he sees war as inferior and less significant than country life since it will be out lived by it, it will be lost and forgotten whereas country life go on.
“Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by”
“a maid and her wight” - “wight” is an old word for knight, this shows a country love seen is timeless since it has gone on since wight was a fashionable word and will remain timeless through ‘dynasties past’, whereas war’s horrors will pass become temporary.
“whispering” - lighter verb
“War annals will cloud into the night
Ere their story die”
Hardy sees the couple scene as eternal whereas he thinks ‘war’s annals’ are temporary and will be forgotten, ‘Ere their story die’.
The clouds will disappear into the night, much like the smoke
Is the ending of the poem positive?
I think that the end of the poem is positive because he is saying that once war ends it will be forgotten. The message is that love and rural life (or just lives of people in ordinary days without war) are much more important, and the memories made here will send away the memories of the war.
