There are fifteen poems in the GCSE Love and Relationships anthology.

For your exam, you will be given one poem in full, printed on the page, and you will be asked to compare this poem to another from the anthology.

All of the GCSE English Literature course is closed-book, meaning that you will need to learn at least three lines from each poem.

It is possible to get top marks for this question by making sure that you know the following:

• What the poem is about

• What the poem means

• The methods the poet uses to convey their message

• The links between the ideas of other poems in the anthology

Synopsis

This section includes:

• A general overview of the poem

• A detailed look at the poem line-by-line

• Analysis of the poem, giving Thomas Hardy’s intention and message

A General Overview of the Poem

"Neutral Tones," written in 1867 by English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, is a sombre reflection on the final moments of a romantic relationship. Told from the speaker's perspective, the poem conveys a tone of bitterness and resentment, illustrating how loss can profoundly change an individual. It explores the speaker’s deep sorrow and sense of hopelessness as he reflects on a past relationship, recognizing that its emotional end had occurred long before the final separation.

Line-by-Line

We stood by a pond that winter day,

And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,

And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;

– They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

The poem opens with a speaker reminiscing about a ‘winter day’.

The speaker was near a pond with a former lover as their relationship comes to an end.

The word ‘chidden’ means reprimanded or told off.

Grey leaves fall to the ground, reflecting the lack of passion, colour and life.

The poet uses pathetic fallacy to show how bleak the world is but also how bleak the relationship has become.

There is a depressing mood in this poem.

There is a sense of decline, of things falling apart – the natural world seems to be decaying.

The writer uses personification to describe the leaves and the ground – ‘leaves lay’ and ‘starving sod’ – the relationship between the two is filled with despair.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove

Over tedious riddles of years ago;

And some words played between us to and fro

On which lost the more by our love.

The eyes of the speaker’s ex are dull – as though they have lost all passion.

The speaker describes a conversation about emotional suffering.

Hardy draws our attention to the couple who are uninterested in each other – there appears to be no desire.

The woman is not paying much attention to the speaker – as though the speaker is an annoyance.

The use of ‘tedious’ suggests a feeling of boredom and frustration.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing

Alive enough to have strength to die;

And a grin of bitterness swept thereby

Like an ominous bird a-wing….

The speaker focuses on the mouth of the ex – which has become void of emotion – ‘deadest’.

There is a powerful juxtaposition between ‘smile’ and ‘deadest’ – showing how the relationship is dying.

There is a contrast between life and death, highlighting the inevitability of the conclusion of this relationship.

There is an oxymoron – ‘grin of bitterness’ to show the discomfort.

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,

And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me

Your face, and the God curst sun, and a tree,

And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

Time has passed since the moment and the speaker understands how deceptive love can be.

The colour grey returns to suggest a cycle of suffering in relationships.

The speaker feels deceived and let down – emphasised through the use of alliteration in ‘wrings with wrong’.

The word ‘curst’ replaces the word ‘chidden’ from stanza one – this is a harsher term and suggests the speaker is even angrier after the passage of time.

The poem ends in a depressing way.

Writer’s Methods

This section aims to support your revision by providing you with concrete and clear examples of methods that Thomas Hardy’s uses.

Remember: methods support meaning, not the other way round. You will gain more marks focusing your essays on the big ideas of the poems and then supporting these ideas with the methods that the writer uses.

Form

The poem consists of 16 lines arranged in quatrains. The first three stanzas depict a past encounter between two lovers, while the final quatrain serves as a reflection on that moment. Neutral Tones follows the conventional structure of an elegy, a poetic form traditionally used to mourn the loss of a companion or loved one. This connection reinforces one of the poem’s central themes—loss and sorrow.

Structure

The structured form of the poem suggests that the speaker finds solace in its controlled style, allowing him to express deep emotions in a restrained and subdued manner. Consisting of four regular quatrains with an ABBA rhyme scheme, the poem’s rigid structure provides a sense of order, reflecting the speaker’s attempt to contain his sorrow and bitterness.

This deliberate and measured form mirrors Hardy’s reflective approach to revisiting the memory of a past relationship. The repetitive quatrains may also signify how the speaker continuously replays the memory in his mind, unable to escape its impact.

Hardy introduces an inconsistent rhythm throughout the poem, which could symbolize the instability and turbulence of the relationship being recalled. Additionally, the poem’s circular structure reinforces the speaker’s inability to move forward—by ending with the image of the pond, Hardy brings the speaker back to his melancholic state, emphasizing his reluctance to let go of the painful memory.

Language

The poem’s defeated tone highlights the risk of love leading to loss, with Hardy using bleak imagery to reinforce this idea. Written in the first person and past tense, the poem is confined to the speaker’s perspective, emphasizing that it is a recollection of a painful memory. The overall tone is one of profound sadness, with no trace of hope or positivity.

Hardy employs vivid imagery to establish a bleak and desolate atmosphere. The opening lines immediately set the scene with an intense depiction of cold, barren surroundings. Pathetic fallacy is introduced through the mention of "winter," evoking a sense of emotional coldness and sorrow from the outset. This technique reflects the speaker’s despair, as the dull and colourless environment mirrors the absence of warmth or connection between the couple.

The phrase "starving sod" serves as a metaphor for the soil, personifying it as miserable and lifeless. The use of sibilance further enhances the sense of despair, reinforcing the poem’s overarching themes of loss and emotional emptiness.

Context

At MyEdSpace, we use this analogy to discuss context – ketchup, salt and chips.

If you ordered a portion of chips, and asked for salt, you wouldn’t then dump the salt into the corner of your chips and start dipping each individual chip into the salt.

When you put salt on your chips, you sprinkle it over, sparingly, so as to give a good coverage of salt across the chips as a whole. Context is just like salt on chips.

Context is not ketchup – because it would be appropriate to squeeze ketchup into the corner of your plate and dip each chip in (and in fact, that is advised).

So when you’re including contextual information in your essays, sprinkle it across the essay, just like you sprinkle salt on your chips.

Let’s link the context to the key ideas and themes of the poem.

Pain

The 19th century was a period of immense exploration and discovery, particularly in the fields of science, medicine, and psychology, which were rapidly evolving. Traditionally, Victorians found solace in the belief that religion provided the only viable explanation for the natural world. However, the rise of new scientific ideologies challenged these long-established religious views.

This era saw a significant shift in religious perspectives, leading to a wide spectrum of beliefs. As a result, tensions often arose between those who adhered strictly to religious doctrines and those who sought to live more freely, independent of traditional religious conventions.

Although Hardy was raised in a Christian household and lived in a predominantly Christian society, he developed a critical stance toward religious institutions and their teachings. Much of his writing reflects a world where traditional religious beliefs and moral codes are questioned or found lacking.

In Neutral Tones, a sense of purposelessness emerges, potentially linked to this crisis of faith. The mention of God in the poem may suggest an underlying sense of universal malevolence or the futility of love itself. While Hardy rejected rigid religious doctrines, he retained a deep appreciation for nature and its transcendent power.

It is widely recognized that Hardy’s personal experiences, including his two unhappy marriages, influenced his outlook, contributing to perceptions of him as insecure and sensitive. These emotional struggles are effectively conveyed through the poem’s melancholic and sombre tone.

Memory

In Victorian England, memory played a significant role in cultural and societal ideals, often influenced by the themes of Romanticism. During the Romantic period, memory was celebrated as a powerful force capable of transporting individuals to a more idealized and sublime past. It was frequently romanticized as a means of preserving and reliving cherished moments, offering solace in the face of change.

Romantic poets like William Wordsworth emphasized the transformative power of memory, particularly in fostering a connection with nature, childhood innocence, and spiritual transcendence. Nostalgia and longing for the past became central themes, especially as society underwent rapid industrial and social transformations in the 19th century.

However, the rise of Realism as a literary movement sought to depict the world and human experiences with greater truthfulness, often challenging the idealized portrayals of Romantic literature. While Hardy was influenced by Romanticism, he is more commonly regarded as a realist writer, and Neutral Tones exemplifies his realist tendencies.

In the poem, Hardy subverts the traditional Romantic view of memory as a source of comfort, instead presenting it as a reminder of emotional emptiness and disillusionment. His depiction of memory is realistic and nuanced, aligning with his broader pessimistic and skeptical outlook on life and relationships. Neutral Tones conveys a sense of disappointment and emotional detachment, characteristics often associated with the realist perspective.

Comparison

You are required to write an essay in your exam that is a comparison of the ideas and themes explored in two poems from the Love and Relationships anthology. Therefore, it is very important to revise the poems in pairs and to enter the exam with an idea of what poem you will choose to compare once you know what the named poem is.

‘Neutral Tones’ and ‘When We Two Parted’

Both of these poems explores relationships coming to an end, showcasing the pain and suffering that can occur as a result of this.

Similarities:

Both poems explore lost love and the aftermath of a relationship ending.

Neutral Tones explores themes of emotional detachment, disillusionment, and the gradual decay of a relationship. In contrast, When We Two Parted delves into the pain, longing, and bitterness that accompany the end of a love affair.

The tone of Neutral Tones remains consistently melancholic and resigned, mirroring the speaker’s sense of loss and emotional emptiness. Similarly, When We Two Parted maintains a solemn and reflective tone, emphasizing themes of betrayal, secrecy, and the lingering impact of a broken bond.

Hardy employs visual and sensory imagery to create a bleak and desolate atmosphere, with colourless and lifeless descriptions reflecting the deterioration of love. Byron, on the other hand, uses vivid and dramatic imagery to convey the intensity of the speaker’s emotions. His poem features recurring images of darkness, coldness, and secrecy, reinforcing feelings of betrayal and sorrow.

Differences:

Both Byron and Hardy achieve the same sense of loss, but with very different approaches to both structure and form.

The poem is structured into four regular quatrains with an ABBA rhyme scheme. However, while the stanzas maintain a consistent form, the rhythm is not uniform throughout.

The use of the ABBA rhyme pattern suggests that the speaker finds solace in the poem’s constrained structure, allowing him to express intense emotions in a subdued and controlled manner. In contrast, another poem follows an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme, which, although more regular than the metre, places strong emphasis on the end of each line.

This structured rhyme pattern creates a sense of order and control that contrasts with the depth of the speaker’s emotional turmoil. Unlike Neutral Tones, which adheres to a rigid and predictable form, the varying rhyme scheme and metre in the other poem contribute to its heightened emotional intensity and dramatic effect.