Aspects of narrative in Hardy Poems, AQA English Literature B

So guys exam on Monday, I made this thread so people can contribute notes, significant quotes and ideas and it would be a huge help if poem references were made when explaining ideas. Feel free to contribute and expand

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Voice

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Setting

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Characterisation

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Destination

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Time

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Viewpoint

Reply 1

donzy

At Castle Boterel

narrative perspective/voices: first person retrospective narrative, etc
• setting: specified rural setting, Castle Boterel, specific road and rock formations, present
time ñ drizzling rain, past time ñ March setting firmly located ñ a dry day, etc
• use of seven 5-line regular stanzas, etc
• begins with the narrator in the present at a junction, leads to his reflecting on his past, the
moment in time when he was with a young woman and an important exchange took place
(though dealt with anti-climactically), ends with a comment on the present and the speakerís
being alone, fractured chronology, use of the flashback, poem held together by the ababb
rhyme scheme, etc
• natural imagery, time references, use of personal pronouns, journey motif, death imagery,
references to stories, importance of the title, use of pathetic fallacy, changes of tense,
personification of Time, geological references etc

Reply 2

donzy

Afterwards

? Form: five quatrains with an abab rhyme scheme, philosophical and lyrical, like an elegy, etc
? Structure: begins with the adverbial ‘When’ as the speaker anticipates his death, then each
stanza anticipates what might be said at the speaker’s demise, ends with a non-climactic
ending – just another voice, heavily patterned sequences, etc
? Language: simple language, use of choric voices, use of natural imagery, use of time
references, delicate imagery, use of euphemisms for death, use of the subjunctive and
simple connectives, etc
? Narrative perspective/ voices: first person narrator, possibly the speaker is writing
autobiographically and is the 77 year old Hardy, use of choric voices, sense of a
sympathetic audience, elegiac tone but not maudlin or overtly sentimental/modest and
unobtrusive, etc
? Setting: rural landscape, country church, etc

Reply 3

donzy

Darkling Thrush

• narrative perspective/voices: first person, voice of the thrush, etc
• setting: unspecified rural landscape, may be Dorset, importance of the new century, winter setting,
end of the day, etc
• use of ottava rima with a variation in the traditional pattern (ababcdcd) with regular rhyme scheme, 4
regular stanzas, etc.
• begins with the narrator leaning on a gate looking at the landscape, feeling desolate, central impulse
is his hearing the thrushís song and his reflection upon it, ends with a tentative resolution that the
song might signal some hope, linear chronology, etc
• natural imagery, use of capitalisation/personification of Frost, Winter, Century, Hope, death imagery,
sound imagery, use of modal verbs, accumulation of detail, time references, etc

Aspects of narrative in Hardy Poems, AQA English Literature B

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