What methods does Thomas Hardy use to create settings in The Darkling Thrush, At Castle Boterel and Under the Waterfall?

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Three of Thomas Hardy’s poems; ‘The Darkling Thrush’, ‘At Castle Boterel’ and ‘Under the Waterfall’ stand as examples of Hardy’s use of imagery and allegory to create strong, tangible settings. These settings vary between these three poems, reflecting Hardy’s talent with imagery. In ‘The Darkling Thrush’, one of the ways the setting is portrayed is where certain words of common connotation are used together to create an almost solid, visible scene. For example, in the first two stanzas, ‘grey’, ‘spectre’ and ‘corpse’ are all words which suggest a melancholic and somewhat darkly spiritual tone, as though the character is seeing ghosts of the past, and little optimism for the future. The poem is set on New Year’s eve, and the end of the 19th century. The protagonist of the poem, the man, paints the scene as twilight dusk; ‘the weakening eye of day’, and except for the bird, he is isolated from those who ‘sought their household fires’. The use of the line ‘the weakening eye of day’ not only suggests dusk, but also, specifically the word ‘weakening’ is a reflection as to how the man sees himself, and the earth. The second stanza continues in the same manner, with more dark, somber words like ‘germ’ and ‘death-lament’. ‘The land’s sharp features’ reinforces a feeling of pain, with the alliteration of ‘his crypt the cloudy canopy’ intensifying this. These dark, gloomy descriptions of the landscape mirror the characters depression and pessimism. During these first two stanzas, the character seems pensive and meditative, with only the sudden ‘full hearted evensong’ of the thrush to awaken him. Beyond the first two stanzas, where ‘a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead’, the dark tone seems to deteriorate, as the ‘aged thrush’ begins to sing. The narrative of the poem suggests a sense of loneliness surrounding the man, which seems unusual, as it is New Years eve,

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