The Ruined Maid Analysis

Ana-who-stic what-meter? We admit—these aren't terms you see every day. Let's start with anapestic trimeter, certainly one of the less common meters, no doubt about it. Okay, so what is it? Don't...

Well it's our lucky day today. "The Ruined Maid" has not one, but two speakers. Two, gang. That's like getting two for the price of one, or… something like that.One speaker is a "raw country girl...

Two speakers, two dialects, and pairs of lines that rhyme—this is a poem about doubleness and pairing, and the setting is no exception. As with all the stuff we just mentioned, there are also two...

We've got lots and lots and… well, lots to talk about here. "The Ruined Maid" is a dialogue between two women who used to work together on a farm (or a "barton"). One of them, 'Melia, has moved a...

Since it's called "The Ruined Maid," this poem must be about… a ruined maid, right? Yep, it sure is about a ruined maid. But what is a ruined maid, and what should a title with "ruined" in tell u...

That Thomas Hardy, there's always something sexually questionable in his works—well, questionable by Victorian standards that is. In "The Ruined Maid," for example, 'Melia has clearly moved up th...

Even though Hardy was a Victorian, and even though a lot of his fellow writers wrote long books with really long and complicated sentences, "The Ruined Maid" is kind of refreshing. It's a dialogue,...

Hardy's body was dismembered after he died. Okay, not exactly—his body was buried in Westminster Abbey, but his heart was buried next to his wife's body in Dorset. (source)Hardy definitely knew s...

Okay, so there's nothing too hot or steamy in this poem. Normally we'd say this is a very un-sexual poem. However, that pesky little word "ruined" reminds us that something sexual is lurking in the...