Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave

Ah, Are You shot on My Grave? was first print in the Saturday Review on September 27, 1913, then in Thomas Hardys 1914 collection, satires of feature Lyrics and Reveries with Miscellaneous Pieces. The poem reflects Hardys interest in death and veritable(a)ts beyond everyday reality, that these subjects are presented comically, with a strong dose of irony and satire. This treatment is somewhat unusual for Hardy, who also produced a number of more serious poems concerning death. In Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave? a departed adult female carries on a dialogue with an individual who is disturbing her grave site.The identity of this figure, the digger of the womans grave is unknown through the first half of the poem (Ruby 1). As the woman attempts to sham who the digger is, she reveals her desire to be remembered by various figures she was acquainted with when she was alive. In a series of humourous turns, the responses of the digger show that the womans acquaintances a loved one, family relatives, and a despised enemy flip all forsaken her memory. Finally it is revealed that the digger is the womans cad, but the canine too, is unconcerned with his former working girl and is digging only so it can bury a bone.Though the poem contains a humorous tone, the picture Hardy paints is bleak. The brain on the spur of the moment are almost completely eliminated from the memory of the living and do non enjoy any form of contentment This somber outlook is typical of Hardys verse, which oft presented a skeptical and negative view of the human condition (Ruby 1). Hardy was born in 1840 and increase in the region of Dorestshire, England, the basis for the Wessex countryside that would later appear in his fiction and poetry. He attended a local school until he was sixteen, when his mother paid a lot of money for him to be bound(p) to an architect in Dorchester.In 1862 he moved to London, where he worked as an architect, remaining there for a period of five ye ars. Between 1865 and 1867 Hardy wrote many poems, none of which were print. In 1867 he returned to Dorchester and, while continue to work in architecture, began to write novels in his spare time. Hardy became convinced that if he was to make a living writing, he would have to do so as a novelist (Ruby 2). Drawing on the instruction of life he absorbed in Dorsetshire as a youth and the wide range of English writers with which he as familiar, Hardy spent nearly thirty years as a novelist forrader devoting himself to poetry.In 1874 Hardy married Emma Lavinia Gifford, who would become subject of many of his poems. They spent several years in happiness until the 1880s, when marital troubles began to shake the closeness of their union. Hardys first book of verse was published in 1898, when he was fifty-eight years old and had achieved a large degree of success as a novelist. Although his verse was not nearly as successful as his novels, Hardy continued to heighten on his poetry and published seven more books of verse before his death, developing his confidence (Ruby2).With the formation of the Dynasts A Drama of the Napoleonic Wars (1904-08) an epic historical drama written in verse, Hardy was hailed as a major poet. He was praised as a master of his craft, and his writing was admired for its great randy force and technical skill. Hardy continued to write until just before his death in 1928. scorn his wish to be buried with his family, influential sentiment for his burial in Poets Corner of Westminster Abbey instigated a severe compromise the removal of his heart, which was buried in Dorchester, and the cremation of his body, which was interred in the Abbey (Ruby 2).The structure of Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave? is a familiar one, although not one commonly associated with poetry the joke. A web site is established and briefly developed, then the trailer line turns everything on its head. In Hardys thorniness joke a dead woman has high- flown expecta tions of the living her loved one will remain endlessly faithful to her her family will continue to look after her exactly as they did in life and even her enemys hatred will not wane. The poems punch line deflates her hopes and reveals them as vain and ridiculous.Hardy sets up his joke carefully, with a poets attention to the language he uses (Ruby 4). The melodic phrase is set in the first two lines. A sigh from the grave seems to signal profound speculation on morality and love. The phrasing of the two lines is almost self-consciously poetic. Such language is maintained throughout the first three stanzas. Expressions like planting rue, Deaths gin. The Gate that shuts on all mush portray feeling that is heightened, more sensitive and authentic than every day, emotion (Ruby 4).They awaken a smack of tragedy and compassion in the reader, But Hardy is merely setting us up for the punch line. They tone of the poems language begins begins to change in the fourth stanza. One hard ly notices it, so great is the readers surprise that it was a little dog that was poeticizing all along. The first seeds of uncertainty have been planted this poem may not be exactly what it at first seemed. The dead woman recognizes the dogs voice and utters the article of faith she feels most deeply a dogs love outshines anything human (Ruby 4). But when the dog replies, the reader realizes that Hardy is up to something else.The poetry and unkemptness have vanished. The dogs voice is as ordinary and plainspoken as that of the Wessex country folk. He deflates her last hope so offhandedly and without pretense that its effect is brutal. At the same time the dead womans expectations about her lover, her family and enemy are portrayed as products of the same ridiculous schmaltzy outlook (Hardy 4). After coming to the end of Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave? the reader realizes that the gloss would have been more accurate even if less interesting if called, Oh No One Is Digging on M y Grave. (Ruby 10).