Different Presentations of Time: Hardy and Eliot Claudia Mason 12th Grade

In both the poetry of Hardy and Eliot, time is used as a key feature to portray feeling about the external world and speakers’ own positions within the universe. Whilst Hardy often uses time to signify the idea that time has the ability to heal wounds and bring promise for new optimism, Eliot, more bleakly, uses the force of time to demonstrate often the insignificance of humans within the universe, and the fact that time is running out for all lives. In Hardy’s ‘To Lizbie Brown’, the reflective power that time brings the speaker allows him to ruefully acknowledge his youthful naivety, whereas contrastingly in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, time is avoided, evoking a sense of panic about time already lost. In Eliot’s Preludes, time signifies a hostile force within a ceaseless, industrial routine; unlike in the setting of ‘Afterwards’, in which the speaker finds solace in the longevity of the natural world, and the eternal nature of time.

In ‘To Lizbie Brown’, the speaker uses what is seemingly a pained letter of regret for a lost love in his youth, to playfully expose his own realization of his past insignificance and immaturity, the light tone brought about by years having past in stark contrast to the tone of anxiety...