The Convergence of the Twain
Thomas Hardy wrote this poem with a very evident chronological disruption midway through the poem. Unlike most poets who keep their poems in sequential order to maintain suspense throughout the poem, Hardy seemed to believe that the subject of the Titanic was so well known that there was not any reason to keep the readers in sus-pense of what impending doom awaited the Titanic. Instead, he commenced his poem with a description of the Titanic at present: "grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent"(line 9). Then he proceeds to the "fashioning"(line 16) of the famous ship and continues to that famous April evening when the "consummation"(line 33) of the two "titanic" masses oc-curred--the grand ship made from human hands and the silent iceberg made by the "Im-manent Will"(line 18). Hardy does not confine himself inside the walls of set syllables per verse; every stanza has a different number of syllables in each verse. In the first part of his poem, the rhythm is very fascinating. With proper uses of caesuras, stresses and slacks, Hardy seems to capture the solitude of the sea that he is de-scribing with his steady, gentle sway of words, a "rhythmic tidal lyre"(line 6). While reading this poem, the words
seemed to move persistently slowly up and down like the tide: (I) "In a solitude of the sea/ Deep from human vanity, / And the Pride of life that planned her, stilly couches she"(lines 1-3). Hardy also numbers all of the eleven stanzas of his poem. The numbering indicates the division of each one of the stanzas as if to im-ply that we have to look at this poem as eleven different poems in one. This method gives us a chance to understand the poem more efficiently by studying one stanza at a time. Through his poem, Hardy explains to us that it is a vengeful God that planned the collision. In the section of the poem that contrasts the development of the ship to of the iceberg, Hardy points out some human vanity. The era when the 'Titanic' was built was a time that the production of goods was rapidly evolving. Everything had to be made to be faster, larger, stronger and more efficient, thus resulting in the building of the Titanic. This grand and "opulent"(line 8) machine represented a spectacular symbol of power that was not a match for God. Humans thought themselves to be so evolved that they were above Him. God, on the other hand, heard these vain remarks and decided to play a game with the people. God challenged the human's creation of the greatest mass on the water with His own. There-for
Some common words found in the essay are:
Im-manent Willline, God Humans, Titanic Instead, Thomas Hardy, Spinner Yearsline, Accordingly God, Titanic God, human vanity, vengeful god, story titanic, poem hardy, people ship, bottom sea, syllables verse, reading poem,
Approximate Word count = 877
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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