I was hoping you were going to explain what's deep about the Hardy poem. It seems to me to rest on a pretty obvious opposition, between the mundane and the grand, or the individual and the state. It makes a claim for the continuity of human life and experience across times and places, in spite of differences, which is not an original idea. The reason the poem is effective has to do with technical elements: though the stanza is 3-2-3-2, the fourth line is significantly faster than the second, until the third stanza, which reverses that movement. The first three lines, with their clashing stresses ("man harrowing," "old horse,"), and the rhythmical heaviness of line two ("slow, silent") mimic the ungainly stumbling of man and horse, while the last line's speed has something in it of the brevity of life. The knotted rhythms persist in the second stanza, until the beautifully placed "Dynasties" (the only other tri-syllable up to that point is "harrowing") contrasts in register and speed with what has gone before; the rhythmical signature of the word, its top-heavy capital letter, makes it feel like it's toppling right there in the accelerated fourth line. That feeling is amplified by syntax: the first main verb (not in a dependent clause) is "will go." Before that the two sentence fragments, each balanced with 'only', suggest the stasis of agrarian (and, according to Hardy, all) life. The third stanza reverses the rhythmical movement of the other two; the first two lines are quicker, moving with the lightness of love and the swiftness of youth; the clashing stresses of the last line ("their story") seem to throw "one last long lingering look behind." In that stanza as well "cloud" seems to me a lovely word, a bit of mysterious prestidigitation as the "annals" morph into (mushroom?) clouds, then are blown away, leaving only the "dividing and indifferent" not blue, but sky of night. There is alchemy of substance and time; the sun sets within (behind?) the verb. So it seems to me such depth as this poem possesses is a matter of technique and imagery. (Naturally, the grim particulars of S1 and 2 as well prevent this from being a mere abstract and obvious utterance.)
In general, I tend to find 'depth' in surfaces that are initially a little opaque, that demand a little more work but invite one in under the surface. I'm thinking of things like repeated motifs, multivalent imagery, pointed allusions, unity of form and content (which itself is a kind of metaphysical statement about existence), suggestive paradox, consideration (preferably covert) of religious or philosophical topics in a way that takes a subtle but meaningful stand, and psychological complexity. Some examples of poems I find "deep" are "Lying" & "In Limbo" (Richard Wilbur), "Black Ice and Rain" (Michael Donaghy), "Lost in Translation" by James Merrill, "The White Lie" (Don Paterson), "An Arundel Tomb" & "Church Going" (Larkin), "Among School Children" by Yeats, Eliot's "Four Quartets," Keats' "Nightingale," Herbert's "Prayer." & many more I'm sure. Hardy's depth seems to me mostly psychological and personal. His anti-religiousness is fearsome but a little one-dimensional (with the exception of "The Oxen"), his poems move me but don't often make me think. It's likely I haven't spent enough time with them. I greatly value depth but often feel as though others don't or they have very different attitudes toward it than I do, so I will be interested in what emerges from this discussion.
Chris
|