Hymn to Adversity & The Metamorphosis Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7BvuCMyjac          

  Today, October 16, 2013, we looked at Hymn to Adversity by Thomas Gray. Wow, another interesting poem selection by Mr. Delacruz. When I first read it, I can confidently say I got nothing out of it, heck, I didn’t even understand it! Once I calmed myself and used SOAPSTone, I was able to get a better picture of what Thomas Gray was attempting to get across in Hymn to Adversity.

·      Speaker= 3^rd person point of view, someone who is talking about human emotions as a whole

·      Occasion= the speaker is analyzing human emotions to help interpret human faults, he explains emotions help us learn who we are as human beings

·      Audience= personifies adversity and talks to directly to adversity and is, in affect, talking to himself and trying to cleanse himself emotionally

·      Purpose= to help explain human emotions and the role they play in our lives, the poem is almost the journey of his life and the emotions throughout the different stages of his time on Earth

·      Subject= the adversity humans face in their lives

·      Tone= generally positive, but the author switches attitudes from stanza to stanza as he switches describing human emotions

After using SOAPSTone and talking with others in the class, the meaning of Hymm to Adversity came to light. Gray talks about all of the human emotions and furthers his description of them by personifying emotions as women, which is a very interesting technique. The lines “With Justice to herself severe, And Pity, dropping soft the sadly pleasing tear,” and “ And Melancholy, silent maid With leaden eye that loves the ground,” shows us Gray’s imaginative way of describing the vast array of human emotions. It took awhile for me to realize Gray’s personifying strategy, but once I realized this wonderful writing style, I was mesmerized. This subtle, magnificent method of personification of emotion in Hymn to Adversity depicts human emotions in an unmatched way because the reader can clearly picture a melancholic, joyful, noisy, or a despairing woman. Brilliant.

Another thing I picked up on in Hymn to Adversity is the prevalent religious undertone. The first line, “Daughter of Jove” is clear evidence of the religious aspect of Gray’s work, and sets the tone for more religious references. Gray continues to implement additional religious ties with the line “When first thy Dire to send in earth Virtue, his darling child, designed, To thee he gave the heavenly birth, And bade to form her infant mind,” which clearly shows Gray’s reference to God’s creation of man. These religious links in Hymn to Adversity may serve as Gray’s way of explaining why emotions exist: that God made emotions to set humans apart and to help us learn more about ourselves as we live our lives. This is the one thing I didn’t like about Hymn to Adversity simply because of my dislike for religion as a whole.

As I discussed Hymn to Adversity with the people around me, we decided it was crucial for us to look up the life of Thomas Gray, because we felt it necessary to know if there was anything traumatic in his life that influenced his poetry. We discovered all eleven of siblings did not survive infancy, and his close friend died when Gray was 26. If that is not pretty traumatic, I do not know what is. My group came to the conclusion these numerous deaths in Gray’s life must have affected his poetry in same way, especially the death of his best friend. We then made the leap and figured Hymn to Adversity reflects Gray’s emotions as he dealt with the adversity of the passing of his friend. We concurred that writing this poem might have been a way for Gray to emotionally cleanse himself after the death of his friend.