Where The Picnic Was by Thomas Hardy Flashcards
Context:
- An autobiographical poem about Hardy visiting a special place where he, his wife, and two other poets used to have picnics.
- Compares the place in the past and as it is in the present, depicting a highly reminiscent tone with a melancholy undertone.
- He was married to Emma Gifford, had a problematic relationship towards the end of their marriage - he neglected her.
- After her sudden death, Hardy wrote this elegy as well as other poems as part of a collection, devoted to her wife, perhaps out of guilt.
- May have been influenced by the industrial revolution.
Form:
- An elegy, written to mourn the death of Hardy’s wife.
- 3 stanzas of unequal length, with irregular meter and rhyme scheme, suggesting Hardy’s shaken state of mind after the death of Gifford.
- Caesuras slow down the pace of the poem, emphasising the speaker’s build-up of overwhelmingly powerful emotions.
Structure:
- The speaker shifts from the past to the present regularly, exemplifying the reminiscent tone and the extent to which he has been affected by his wife’s death.
- Perhaps the use of first person for the present and collective pronoun “we” for the past amplifies the speaker’s sense of isolation since Gifford’s death.
KEY QUOTE: Happy, warm memories of the past, shown by “fire”, a symbol of warmth:
“Where we made the fire, in the summer time”
KEY QUOTE: Sudden shift to first person perspective, with a depressing tone to show isolation:
“I slowly climb through winter mire”
KEY QUOTE: The speaker’s description of the place in the present, exemplifying his loneliness:
“forsaken place”
KEY QUOTE: Further depressing tone to describe the wind and grass:
“a cold wind blows, and the grass is grey”
KEY QUOTE: Haunting remnants of the old picnics:
“a burnt circle […] charred”
KEY QUOTE: Cathartic release of emotions when the speaker reminisces about the group’s picnics:
“Last relic of the band who came that day!”
KEY QUOTE: The alliteration and sensory imagery, as well as personification of the sea create a monotonous tone, contrasting with the upset mental state of the speaker:
“the sea breathes brine”
KEY QUOTE: Perhaps signifies Hardy’s disapproval of the industrial revolution; furthermore, highlights the fact that the speaker’s friends have moved on as well, while picnics are associated with happiness:
“from this grassy rise into urban roar where no picnics are”
KEY QUOTE: Poem ends on a final note of death, emphasising the speaker’s agony and desolation, with the caesura furthering their inner pain:
“one - has shut her eyes for evermore”
Summary
This poem employs a highly reminiscent, despondent tone and reflects the piercingly overwhelming feelings of agony one feels at the loss of a loved one; the speaker visits a place that reminds him of his dead wife, invoking feelings of true loneliness and desolation within him - the alternation between past and present accentuates this agony even further.
