Neutral Tones - Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
English Lit: AQA GCSE Poetry - Love & Relationships, topic 17.1.5
Key Quotes: Neutral Tones
Here are some examples of key quotes from Hardy's Neutral Tones:
‘The deadest thing’
- ‘The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing’.
- The narrator uses juxtaposition (a smile being 'the deadest thing') to show the incompatibility of the lovers.
‘Keen lessons...'
- ‘Keen lessons that love deceives / And wring with wrong, have shaped to me / Your face’.
- Alliteration in ‘wring with wrong’ and assonance in the line ‘keen lessons that love deceives’ creates a bitter sneering tone, reflecting the narrator’s bitterness towards his past relationship.
Test yourself on Neutral Tones - Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
Which of these quotations uses alliteration?
What adjective best describes the narrator's tone?
‘Keen lessons that love deceives / And wring with wrong, have shaped to me / Your face’