Drummer Hodge

what type of poem is it

elegy - poem lamenting on the loss of something or someone

AO3 - the Boer War 1899-1902

• broadly welcomed by the British public at the outset

• 3rd year of the war the public were heartily sick of the campaign that had seen the methods of their top general exposed, and the nations reputation ripped apart

• many felt that war was an outmoded concept, and nothing justified the human suffering that took place

• hardy was appalled by the large number of fatalities caused by increasingly modernised methods of warfare

what is the type of rhythm in the poem

iambic

AO3 - title

originally published under the title The Dead Drummer - the poem is based on the story of a local boy killed in the early part of the war

AO5

‘the poem offers, ultimately, a hopeful conclusion that the ‘young hodge’ will ‘reign… eternally’’

‘the poem is a cry of rage from an angry poet who witnesses the suffering of men in a hostile universe’

‘the poem is anti-war, drawing our attention to the uncommemorated victims of a senseless conflict’

themes

• futility of war

• natural world outliving human conflict

• landscape

• ability of the natural world to renew itself

• insignificance of human life

• value/significance of drummer hodge in death, if not in life/war