Words and Song: The Thrushes of Keats and Hardy

The article compares Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush" with Keats's "What the Thrush Said". Usually Hardy's poem is read as pessimistic answer to the optimism of Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale", whereas it is more pertinent to examine the influence of Keats's sonnet, and not his ode, on the fundamental themes of the Victorian poem. From the comparison of the two works there emerges the reversal of the idealism of the poem of Keats, as also the different attitudes with regard to Nature, the use of the myth of Apollo, and the poetic vision of the two writers.