Literary Analysis Of Silence By Thomas Hood
“Silence”, written by Thomas Hood, was first published in 1827. Hood was a man most known for his comedic parodies; he is also known for his slow building of the mood. One poem that shows this is “Silence.” A poem known for creating the images and emotions that shows the scariest type of silence to people. It is the absence of man, which can be better described as loneliness. This can be proven through the quatrains of the sonnet as the narrator, a person who is invested in explaining the silences of our world. He or she directly introduce the type of silences in the beginning lyrics, then in each quatrain describes how one silence is better than the other.
The poem is a sonnet, very similar to a Shakespearean Sonnet, but instead uses the rhyme scheme of abba acca cdcd ee in Iambic Pentameter and has 14 lines. It was written in American Standard English but has man capitalized to show it is a proper noun, and has Silence capitalized. There is one case of enjambment in the middle of the poem used to continue the narrator's thought.
The first lines of “Silence” starts with “There is a silence where hath been no sound, / There is a Silence where no sound may be, …”. The narrator introduces the subject of the poem stating there is two types of silence. The first where no sound has ever been, and the second a silence where no sound is possible to hear. No problem has been introduced to this point, but the two subjects are introduced right away to understand his description of the first type of silence stated in the next six lines. In the cold grave — under the deep deep sea, Or in the wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound; No voice is hush’d no life treads silently, But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free, That never spoke over the idle ground: The narrator uses nature in lines to describe the type of silence where no sound has been. He or she uses these places of the world because they have little to no life to make sound. Then in line five he or she states again that these places are mute and must stay dormant. There is no direct answer why he or she says this, but the audience can infer that the places should sleep because of the beauty these places bring; or they are almost uninhabitable for most organisms to live in, especially for people during the time it was written.
Line six informs the reader that anything with a voice or that can travel makes noise. This phrase of the poem creates a sense of openness on a larger scale showing the listener how small the sound is compared to the amount of silence. Lines seven and eight brings the listener to the sky and how the clouds drift over the ground. This imagery digs deeper into how silent it is here. Giving the illustration of clouds and earth facing each other everyday with nothing to exchange. The types of silence changes to the silence where no sound is which continues throughout the poem the rest of the poem: But in green ruins, in the desolate walls Of antique palaces, where men hath been, Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls, And owls that flit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and low winds moan, The narrator changes the location once again but to a different place, describing the second type of silence. This time a silence where man once were but is now inhabited by a lifely nature in full force. This is the climax of the poem as it brings an intense form of loneliness and anxiety. The feeling is more relatable to listeners because they can or may have experienced a similar place that is solus.
The final line: “There the true silence is, self-conscious and alone.” This line introduces the problem while at the same time comes to a conclusion. The problem is which silence is true. The narrator says it is the silence “... where no silence may be”. The audience learns this silence is truly the absence of man and man is the true noise. This can be more understood by the phrase “Does a tree really make noise when it falls if no one is there?”. The narrator describes the silence as self conscious making it an archetype that has thought but can never share it. That type of silence never has man near, which is the only other thing with consciousness, and therefore is always alone. The first example of Literary Elements in “Silence” starts on line three as the narrator. By describing the various locations using imagery that is written throughout the poem. In the middle of the line it states: “... — under the deep deep sea”. This is an example of assonance because of the words “deep deep sea”, with double ees as the first two vowel sounds with ea being an exception due to the same sound it creates. In line five the narrator states “Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound”. “mute” is used metaphorically to compare to compare silent to mute as if the desert is noiseless. The last metaphor is seen in the last line when silence is compared to people by saying that it is self conscious
Personification is seen too throughout the poem. The first example is in lines seven to eight describing how the clouds wander and never speak to the ground. Then the last occurrence is on line thirteen as the owls shriek to the winds moan because the speaker gives wind the human characteristic of moaning. Imagery was most prolific in this poem because it is Mr. Hood’s most potent weapon. He slowly builds the amount of descriptive words giving the people listening or reading the intense emotion in this poem. Using it to magnify the significance of the plot. Metaphors throughout the poem seemed easy to understand for a listener who has a common sense of literary elements, but the last metaphor is almost a riddle for people who haven’t observed the text more than once. The poem truly draws images in the reader’s head and it brings such an appealing vicarious experience, that it truly makes them and myself addicted to poems. Even though poems usually are short reading lengths, they are an overwhelming amount of entertainment.
This poem was great for me because I have felt alone in my own little world all my life. This has made me shy but after reading “Silence” I pondered on the thought it gave me. The thought for why we should not take our friends and great people we meet for granted, and avoid shying away from new experiences but enjoy any bit you can.
Works Cited
- Hood, Thomas, “Silence” Poetry Outloud Website http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems-and-performance/poems/detail/52339
