Summary & Structure
English Lit: AQA GCSE Poetry - Love & Relationships, topic 5.1.1
Summary of Neutral Tones
Thomas Hardy's Neutral Tones is about two lovers coming to the end of their relationship.
Summary
- The poem follows two lovers coming to the end of their relationship, as they stand next to a pond in winter.
- The weather and the landscape reflect the stagnation (standing still) of their relationship and the bitterness between them.
- Hardy uses ominous imagery throughout to signal the end of their connection and the bitter mourning his narrator feels at the end of the poem.
Hardy
- Thomas Hardy was the author of novels such as Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
- He was known for the dark realism (focusing on presenting reality) of his prose.
Context
- Neutral Tones is focused on an earlier, failed relationship.
- We see a relationship that has stagnated (stopped moving) and frozen. It is like the stillness and lack of vitality (life) in the winter setting of the poem.
Structure and Form of Neutral Tones
The poem is a lyric poem with a circular structure.
Circular structure
- The poem has a circular structure as the first line is echoed in the final line.
- This creates a sense of frustration. It reflects the narrators’ awareness that his relationship is over, and that he is stuck in his feelings of sadness and disappointment.
Lyric poem
- Neutral Tones is a lyric poem (expresses personal feelings or emotions) following the bitter feelings around a relationship ending.
Indenting
- The indented final line of each stanza slows the pace of the poem.
Test yourself on Summary & Structure
What stage of a relationship does Hardy's Neutral Tones depict?
Which of these statements about Thomas Hardy are true?
Which of these are features of Neutral Tones' Structure and Form?
What effect does the indenting of the final line of each stanza have on the poem Neutral Tones?