Shades of Gray: A Diachronic Reading of Thomas Hardy's "Neutral Tones"

Abstract

History has given names to many ages in life of world; ours age of words. --E. J. Phelps, 1889 Richard Chenevix Trench, drawing on Coleridge and Emerson in On Study of Words, suggested to his Victorian audience we are not to look for which people may possess only in its poems, or in its poetical customs, traditions, and beliefs. Many single word also itself concentrated poem, having stores of poetical thought and imagery laid up in it. (1) The lack of this sort of diachronic awareness in existing dictionaries was impetus behind creation of New English Dictionary (later Oxford English Dictionary), which appeared between 1884 and 1928 with aim of satisfying Trench's view of dictionary as historical monument. (2) Contemporary critic Dennis Taylor describes 1860s, period which saw an extensive amount of groundwork being done on New English Dictionary as the signal decade of new philology in England. (3) As result, Taylor argues, it not surprising that two poets regarded as Victorian period's greatest 'later' poets began writing serious in 1860s. and Hopkins were singularly placed to profit by excitement and bewilderment of new language consciousness. One way of explaining their achievement they made out of implications of current philological research (p. 103). The focus of this study first man named by Taylor, Thomas Hardy. Hardy's profound fascination with philology well documented in Taylor's Hardy's Literary Language and Victorian Philology, particularly in his chapter entitled Hardy and New Philology (pp. 96-172). was an avid follower of developments in this field, frequently in contact with OED editor James Murray from latter's editorial appointment in 1876 onward (Taylor, p. 115). (4) Hardy's first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems, (5) first appeared in 1898, and one poem in particular reflects Hardy's understanding of and interest in philology of day. (6) That poem, often-anthologized Neutral Tones, was composed in 1867 (7) and described by critic F. B. Pinion as the most remarkable imaginative poem ... ; it in class apart. (8) More importantly, however, it is grandma's pantry of linguistic or better, philological, delights. (9) Synchronically read, Neutral Tones decidedly straightforward. (10) It describes what Richard Carpenter calls a personal [moment] ... indefinite in its time and place (p. 172), as speaker recalls standing with his former love at side of pond in middle of winter, surrounded by dead landscape serves as metaphor for their withered relationship. Though they exchange both looks and words, in end, they must both accept they no longer care for each other. The speaker claims it only now time has passed and other keen lessons (l. 13) (11) have been learned he can look back upon this scene with some sense of perspective. In short, this poem very much in model, bemoaning loss of love-but there more to it than that. Taylor's suggestion this is, in fact a poem about 'keen lessons' and riddles (p. 275) central to any diachronic reading of poem, and certainly goes long way toward pointing to very self-conscious manipulation of language on Hardy's part. I would argue, however, not simply amusing himself by playing with words. There also an interrogation of very act of communication, and reinforcement, never far from surface in Hardy's work, of notion of human passivity in face of divine manipulation. Any diachronic examination of Hardy's must begin with title itself. Neutral Tones are identified by Joanna Cullen Brown as important, recurrent symbols in Hardy's poetry (12) and, understood in their most basic sense, are simply part of series of dull colors, neither strong nor positive, like gray leaves (13) narrator describes so dispassionately. …