Titanic: poetic analysis

The Convergence of the Twain

Thomas Hardy (1912)

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 (Lines on the loss of the "Titanic")

          I

     In a solitude of the sea
     Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

          II

     Steel chambers, late the pyres
     Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

          III

     Over the mirrors meant
     To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls -- grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

          IV

     Jewels in joy designed
     To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

          V

     Dim moon-eyed fishes near
     Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?". . .

      

    VI

     Well: while was fashioning
     This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

      

    VII

     Prepared a sinister mate
     For her -- so gaily great --
A Shape of Ice, for the time fat and dissociate.

  

        VIII

     And as the smart ship grew
     In stature, grace, and hue
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

  

        IX

     Alien they seemed to be:
     No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history.

   

       X

     Or sign that they were bent
     By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one August event,

       

   XI

     Till the Spinner of the Years
     Said "Now!" And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

 

 

 

Titanic

 

Who does not love the Titanic?

If they sold passage tomorrow for that same crossing,

who would not buy?

 

To go down...We all go down, mostly

alone. But with crowds of people, friends, servants,

well fed, with music, with lights!Ah!

 

And the world, shocked, mourns, as it ought to do

and almost never does. There will be the books and movies

to remind our grandchildren who we were

and how we died, and give them a good cry.

 

Not so bad, after all. The cold

water is anesthetic and very quick.

The cries on all sides must be a comfort.

 

We all go: only a few, first class.  

 

Understanding Poetry

"Titanic" by David Slavitt   

a)      What diction in the poem particularly build’s the speaker’s tone?

b)      The poem seems to have a deliberate absence of sound devices and figurative language? How does this help contribute to the speaker’s message?

"Convergence of the Twain" by Thomas Hardy   

a)      Look up meanings for these: pyre, salamandrine, third, opulent, cleaving wing, consummation.  

b)      What diction in the poem particularly build’s the speaker’s tone?

c)      What is that tone?

d)      What sound devices are used? Have you detected a pattern in how they are used?  Describe that pattern.  

e)      The poem does not feature onomatopoeia.  Why do you think the poet passed on this particular sound device?

f)       How many times is the idea of vanity mentioned? Fate?  Are those connected?

g)      In the sixth stanza, the poem says, “Well, while was fashioning this creature,” intentionally leaving out the creator of the creature.  Yet, in the next stanza, the “Spinner of the Years” is identified as the creator of the ice berg.  Why is this exception made?

h)      Write a statement of theme for each poem.