Neutral Tones

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1898

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Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Literary Context: Hardy’s Use of Realism

Hardy’s literary reputation varied throughout his lifetime. His early novels, influenced by Charles Dickens, were popular—but his later novels were bleaker in tone and questioned Victorian sexual morality, the sanctity of marriage, and the benevolence of God. They showed the influence of Charles Darwin and his theories of evolution. Hardy made rural laborers and oppressed women in rural England his main characters, and the pessimism of novels like Jude the Obscure (1895) scandalized Victorian sensibilities. Scholars widely believe that he turned to poetry in the 1890s because of the growing negative reception of his fiction. Many admired his poems for their ability to capture themes of regret and pain, the irrevocable passage of time, and the fragility of humanity.

Hardy’s realism as well as his creative generosity drew many younger writers of the Modernist era to him. Hardy’s understanding of the more difficult aspects of humanity, his embrace of past and present, as well as his hope for a more sympathetic existence appealed to the World War I generation. His ability to use poetic conventions while employing unusual syntax and creating atmospheric tone was lauded. In the early 20th century, significant writers like William Butler Yeats, Virginia Woolf, Siegfried Sassoon, Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence, and Rupert Brooke spoke highly of Hardy and sought him out as a mentor. Hardy’s blending of nature and personal narrative in his poems influenced Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, and Philip Larkin, who employed the precise style that Hardy uses in lyrics like “Neutral Tones.”

Biographical Context: Hardy and Eliza Bright Nicholls

For years, the family of Eliza Bright Nicholls claimed that she had been engaged to Thomas Hardy, a liaison that broke off between 1866 and 1867, shortly before the composition of “Neutral Tones.” Their romantic link wasn’t fully corroborated until 2010, with the discovery of notes in Hardy’s copy of The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays Throughout the Year (See: Further Reading & Resources). Eliza met Hardy sometime near 1861, when she was employed as a personal maid in a household that was near Hardy’s lodgings in London. Eliza was considered religiously devout, intellectual, and well read. In a copy of The Christian Year, Hardy exchanged notes with his sisters about meeting places that connect with Eliza’s whereabouts, especially her hometown of Findon “where Hardy sketched the church” (Millgate, Michael, and Stephen Mottram. “Eliza Bright Nicholls: New Sources and Old Problems.” The Thomas Hardy Journal, 2010, vol. 26, pp. 24-34).

Biographer Michael Millgate also notes that “documents found among her effects […] included a very early photograph of Hardy himself” (Millgate). This body of circumstantial evidence may solidify that Eliza is the subject of many of Hardy’s early poems, including “Neutral Tones” and the “She to Him” series of sonnets that appeared in Wessex Poems. Millgate also speculates that Eliza may be the basis for the heroine of Desperate Remedies (1871), who is also a lady’s maid. By 1866, Hardy had cast aside Eliza for a flirtation with her younger sister, Jane, but this relationship was not seriously pursued. Forty-six years later, after Emma’s death in 1912, Eliza visited Hardy. While this information may be significant to understanding “Neutral Tones,” the poem does not have to be read from a purely biological standpoint, especially since little is known regarding Eliza and her relationship with Hardy.