Dover, Thrush, And Diggin On My Grave

Three Messages from Dover, Thrush, and Diggin
(an analysis of how the three are connected)

Have you ever read the same thing three times, but it was actually three different poems? That is kind of what happens when you read the poems, “Dover Beach”, by Matthew Arnold, “The Darkling Thrush” and “Ah, Are You Diggin on My Grave?”, by Thomas Hardy. In “How to Read a Poem”, by Edward Hirsch, helps me understand how to read and interpret the deeper meaning of these three poems. It is often hard to connect poems together when they have different artists or when they are simply not too related. In this case, they all have one thing in common. The three poems are centrally connected by the fact that they all have negative messages. In “Dover”, by Arnold, the central message is the failure of religion in the modern world. In “Thrush” and “Digging” by Hardy, their central messages happens to be death.

This message was as relevant today as it was in the 19th century when the poem was written. In “The Failure of Religion”, by Kevin Tully, it describes how one of the main reasons as to why failure with religion happens is due to the fact that people simply stop believing. The individuals in society are so apart from each other that they are so apart from society. This poem represents the grim part of the world and highlights that there is sadness when man and nature and society cannot all connect to each other. On page 1043, lines 29-31, Arnold states, “Ah, love, let us be true to one another! For the world which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams.” This is a good example of the fact that he is making an example that he knows how disconnected the world and its people have become. He knows that if you do not connect as one humanity again, than the dreams for the future will not come true and it will tear society