Neutral Tones - Poetic Method

Neutral Tones:

Poetic Method

Narrative Voice:

In Neutral Tones, a various mixture of iambs and anapaests builds a powerfully dulled monotone. The reader can almost hear the melodramatic voice of Hardy, with only slight hints of disgust and spite. Rather, the melancholy monologue carries on in a dull and withdrawn manner, only supporting the neutrality of the speaker. This dramatic monologue consisting of four tetrameter quatrains expresses themes of love and life and their interconnection, while simultaneously emphasizing death.

Structure and Form:

The poem is composed of four tetrameter quatrains that emphasise on the inevitability of the passing of time and Hardy’s attempt to rationalise and control. The ABBA rhyme scheme ends each of the four stanzas on the same rhyme they started on. The words "gray", "pond" and "God" are repeated from the first stanza to the last stanza giving 'Neutral Tones' a cyclic quality.

Genre and Style:

The emotional intensity of the poem doesn't come from any particularly emotive language, but in fact the lack of it, the detachment plaguing the speakers attitude seems to be the most shocking aspect of the poem. The poem is an elegy, and mourns the loss of an early relationship, as is evident when Hardy says, “The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing”.

Setting:

Winter and the lack of colour in the world around them, especially in the first stanza, are also chosen as part of the setting because it truly reflects upon the cold and dull changes that Hardy’s ever deteriorating love has presented. Winter paints the bleak theme of death and season change. The setting is quite colourless; the gray of the “grayish leaves” suggests Hardy’s depression and a forlorn look of the tree. The “starving sod” holds connotations of winter and cold, and the loss of fertility, and the beginning of an end. It symbolises the end of a life cycle, emphasising Hardy’s feeling of neutrality and emptiness. The “pond” signifies stagnancy; it could refer to the abrupt end of a relationship Hardy shared. However, in the last stanza, Hardy refers to “a tree,” – the lone tree could signify Hardy’s being marooned in life and his loneliness in the world around him.

Language:

Hardy witnesses the sun as being white, “as though chidden of God”. In this, the bitterness and tone that is emphasized throughout the poem is projected as guilt upon the Almighty. It seems Hardy feels that just as God could allow the sun to shine in its full splendorous yellow but has instead replaced it with a gloomy hue of white; his relationship with this woman is also cursed by a divine intervention.

The leaf which had “fallen from an ash, and was gray”, is symbolic of the way in which they too had fallen out of love. It is such a clever choice for Hardy to have included the ash tree within the poem. The bark of this tree is of a silvery-gray colour, and indeed, the colour of ashes themselves is gray, a decidedly "neutral tone". If the leaves are themselves symbolic of the couple then an image is painted of the two holding on to a life source that no longer has anything in store for them.

The statement, “Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove,” expresses that it does not go unnoticed by Hardy that the woman looks him up and down with wandering eyes. It projects the image of her searching every part of him, looking for something that had once captivated her, but now she finds nothing of interest in him. Perhaps the way her eyes rove also reflects the shallowness of her sight since there is no reference to her ability to look into him.