An Analysis Of The Dead Speak By Thomas Hardy

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The Dead Speak Introduction: Poems in general are meant to stimulate the senses of the mind, creating images and symbols that conjugate to help understand the meaning of the poem. Many of those poems can range from generic to unique, each with an atmosphere that varies from comical to very serious. “Channel Firing”, written by Thomas Hardy in 1914, several months before WWI occurred, is a unique type of poem. The overall ambience within the poem is quite serious, although it has a hint of humour, as it uses dialogue amongst the dead to describe war and how it disturbs their sleep. Hardy demonstrates his use of multiple poetic devices to illustrate and reiterate the overall plot in the poem. Rhyme and Meter: “Channel Firing” has a total …show more content…

Alliteration conveys imagery within the poem, it helps make a memorable line , while at the same time, helps give the effect the poet intended. Throughout the entire poem, alliteration is almost present in each stanza. The first example can be seen in the first line of the first stanza, “...great guns...”, where the repetition of “g” helps emphasize how powerful and dangerous a gun truly is. Now, in order to survive in the world of the living, there is a single rule that one must be aware of, that is the survival of the fittest; that the strong will survive and the weak will not. The living endure and survive on this rule, and in Hardy’s poem, he utilizes the repetition of “s” in order to emphasize this rule, “All nations striving strong...”. Each alliteration helps contribute meaning towards the poem, which is how the dangerous and gruesome wars are, and how they are disturbing the once peaceful slumber of the …show more content…

Unlike alliteration, assonance is used rarely, only appearing in one stanza. In the second line of the fourth stanza, the repetition of the vowel sound “e”, “Red war yet redder...”, is indicating how more blood is being spilled over pointless wars and how incredibly mad one must be in order to continue such a bloodshed, as indicated when the vowel sound “a” is repeated in the same line of the same stanza, “Mad as hatters...”.

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