The Voice Flashcards
Context of the poem
The Voice, written in the spring of 1913, is from a collection of elegies (a serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead), entitled “Poems of 1912-13.” These were written following the death of his first wife Emma in November 1912, about which he felt great remorse, guilt, and grief. This poem was written in Cornwall, which he was visiting with his brother. This was also where he first met Emma.
“Women much missed how you call to me, call to me,
“Woman” - first, stressed word, could be taken as him already being estranged from her, not called her by her name, impersonal and vague, however could be taken as affectionate, passionate and intimate as though she is the only woman that matters, he is calling out to her and has stripped her personality down to one,single, strong word
“Woman much missed” - the alliterative “m” sound is soft and muted, revealing his subdued nature, and syntax brings “woman” to the front, emphasis
“call to me, call to me” - repetition creates an empty, echo like effect which creates an air of melancholy and isolation, repetition could also be interpreted as Hardy desperately trying to grapple at the memory of his wife, perhaps with some regret of their emotional estrangement, he is so desperate for her to call to him, reinforces “missed”
“call” could also seem like she is taunting him, deliberately making him miserable
“Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me
But as at first, when our day was fair.”
“now you are not as you were” - now she is not like the recent past, when they were estranged and he probably had more negative feelings to her, now she is more like she used to be when they fell in love
In the second line the syntax is awkward, and the enjambement all the way through to the end of the following line is in complete contrast to the first line, which is very broken rhythmically, a contrast which highlights his confusion, and mental or emotional turbulence.
“me” - end of line, from “women” to here, his thoughts are fully on her
“all to me” - rhymes with call to me, endearing, meaningful line but saying how she “changed” from this to bad
“But as at first” - hope
“when our day was fair” - he is saying that she has changed, relating to the deterioration of their relationship, and that he “miss”es the times when the day was “fair,” instilling a sense of painful nostalgia too, complex changes between time periods, shows his turbulent state of mind
“Can it be you that I hear?”
“Can it be you that I hear?” - caesura, question mark, hallucinations, shows the insanity that he has been reduced to by the loss of his love, creates pathos for the speaker because we can observe the psychological trauma he has
It also creates a personal dialogue between the speaker and the memory of the woman which is touching and sad, the rhythmic stresses on “can” and “you” sound sad and desperate
“Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,”
“,then,” - heavily isolated by commas, shows desperation and uncertainty as the sentence is so heavily broken up, could also be referring to the past, when the speaker and woman were not estranged and were lovers, this link to the past, when contrasted with Hardy’s desolate present and future, shows his loss and therefore is very moving to read
“you” “me” - placed closer together
“Where you would wait for me:” - the repeated “w” sound in the third line, with its connotations of question words, and the conditional mood of “would” subtly undermines his hope that she is there, and increases the sense that it isn’t quite real.
“yes, as I knew you then” - colon followed by this stressed confirmation, shows how much he desires the past and again contrasts heavily to the tragic present he is forced to face
“yes” - introduces some optimism into the poem and it is made all the more tragic when this optimism is undercut by the last two verses, also ironic as he didn’t value her when she was alive
“Even to the original air-blue gown!”
“blue” - introduces flash of colour which has not been seen so far in the poem, for the first time the palette of the poem has been illuminated, blue is also not a neutral colour - colour of ocean and sky, brings optimism and a real presence, OR blue can be seen as a melancholy colour, which adds to the air of sadness and nostalgia
“air” - connotations with the intangible and invisible and insubstantial which shows the reader that Emma is gone, or at least not completely with Hardy, it also gives a sense that she is somehow elevated in a different place to him, air takes up infinite space, compared to Hardy who is rooted alone in one spot, highlights the fact that she is gone and he will never get her back
“gown” - connotes grace and beauty, and the detail of this snapshot memory really conveys how much Hardy misses her
This image is in stark contrast with the volta in the second half of the poem and the “wind oozing thin” at the end of the poem, and juxtaposes the idyllic memory with the dark reality
The exclamation mark, which finishes the stanza, shows intense emotion, which adds a pang of nostalgia to this fantasy remembrance that he describes.
‘Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness
Heard no more again far or near?”
“Or” - represents a volta, a turning point in the poem in which Emma begins to fade from Hardy’s mind as he faces his lonely future
“only the breeze” - links back to image before of “air-blue gown”, this was a fragile image and now she is now “only the breeze”, as if for a brief moment the wind Hardy saw before him aligned in the right way to see his wife, before being “dissolved” and lost forever, to be seen “no more”
“listlessness” - without energy
“breeze” “listlessness” “wistlessness” - these words create a sense of emptiness and disappearance, the “s” sound repeated is airy and evokes a sense of uncertainty - air passes, which connotes moving on
“dissolved” - first image of her actually being gone, ghostly word, meaning she has disappeared, melted into some sort of fluid, perhaps the air
“Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,”
In this final stanza we have a change of mood, moving away from nostalgia and immersing in past memories, and coming back down to Earth, the harsh reality of life.
The last verse has shorter lines, evoking giving up
“Thus I;” - spondee, emphasis on Hardy, stressed sounds like a conclusion
“Thus” - brings the poem back to the present, which is lonely and tragic since Emma has disappeared
“faltering” - means to stumble, to walk with difficulty, and Hardy’s weakness without his wife and his struggle is exhibited here
“faltering forward” - alliteration, shows stumbling, still confused and unsure, except now he is falling forwards instead of downwards and recovering from his loss
“Leaves around me falling” - the thoughts and memories of her are falling around him but not on him, represents how even though the memories are there, he lets them fall to the ground instead of looking back and trying to remember them, moving on, leaves falling is a slow action, slow change, slowly moving on
“Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.”
“oozing thin” - “oozing” has connotations of blood, creates an unpleasantness as it connote some sort of squeezing, representing the difficulty is Hardy’s life and the struggle he has trying to move on
“norward” - cold wind, adds to unpleasantness
“Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward” - unusually long lines, stands out, the fluctuating line lengths in the poem could represent Hardy’s mental instability at this time, shaken up by the tragic events of his wife, this helps to create a sad atmosphere - also links back to caesuras like the exclamation mark and question mark at the end of the second and third stanza, represents his state of confusion and passionate desperation for his wife, creating pathos
“the woman” - links back to first word, still generalisation, anonymity, perhaps shows a lack in progression of Hardy’s feelings, still confused
“calling” - here it does show a progression as it seems as though she is calling to him, but he is not listening anymore, showing that he has moved on, also maybe by calling her “woman” it shows he has moved on
Structural points?
The stanzas are full of dactyls - a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed - this gives a sense of falling away, breaking down, or an echo. This reflects the growing tragic distance between the speaker and the woman
The poem is set out like an elegy - a sad song reflecting on a loss or a death. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, a common one for songs and indeed hymns. Sometimes there are links between rhyming words that are suggestive of meaning e.g. “forward” and “norward” describing the cold desolation Hardy has to face. Also “falling” and “calling”, which is the last rhyme of the poem. Hardy links these together to remind the reader of his growing distance from Emma, as she “falls” away from him despite his desperation, evoked by the word “calling”
Possible conclusion? ( stolen from Roberta’s essay)
In conclusion, this poem is undoubtably tragic because of the imagery of difficulty and struggle of Hardy’s solitude, as well as the idea is poses that love is like air, it is insubstantial, and can easily be dissolved or disappear. However Hardy makes this disappearance seem so unbearable by ending the poem with the word “calling” - signifying that although everything has been taken away from him, it mocks him in addition. And perhaps the saddest aspect of the poem for me, is how Emma has disappeared in person but could never disappear in his mind - and she continues to mock him and disturb him for the rest of his lonelife, which is oddly ironic as the memory of a loved one should be fond, but in this case it is tragic.
