Symbols, Imagery, Wordplay
Form and Meter
"The Voice" is one crazy-sounding poem, and that's what makes it awesome. There are a few interesting things about the poem's form, and we'll take them one at a time. First up, we've got ABAB rhyme...
Speaker
Our speaker is a sad and confused dude, who may or may not be Thomas Hardy himself. Sure, Hardy's experience of his wife's (Emma's) death was painful, confusing, and full of mixed emotions (check o...
Setting
The speaker of "The Voice" projects his feelings onto the landscape. He's feeling sad inside, and what he sees outside of himself reflects that sadness. When poets reflect a person's inner life int...
Sound Check
If you want all the nitty-gritty technical goodies about the sound of "The Voice," check out what we've got to say in the "Form and Meter" section. But if you want the more immediate, and a little...
What's Up With the Title?
"The Voice" is all about a mysterious voice. (No big surprises there). Does the voice belong to a dead woman? Is the voice actually the wind? Is the speaker hearing voices in his head that don't ex...
Calling Card
Hardy wasn't one of those poets who picked a form and stayed with it. Shakespeare loved those sonnets. Milton was pretty committed to blank verse. But Hardy was all over the place with his forms. H...
Tough-o-Meter
"The Voice" can be an incredibly tricky poem if you don't know anything about Hardy's life (luckily, we've done your homework for you in our "In a Nutshell" section). It can also be tricky cause of...
Trivia
Hardy's awesome novels Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure received bad reviews when they first came out (they were too salacious!) which is why he turned to writing poetry in his old ag...
Steaminess Rating
"The Voice" is much more likely to inspire you to want to curl up in the fetal position and cry than it is to inspire you to make out with a cutie. Nope! Sorry, gang. Nothing sexy about this poemâ€...