Despite being a Thomas Hardy fan, I was unaware that he had written a poem about the Titanic soon after its sinking. The content of the poem, and the time of its publication caused controversy as some deemed Hardy’s work to be distasteful and disrespectful towards those who lost their lives. Let’s take a closer look, starting with the title.
‘Convergence’ references the moving of two independent objects, specifically the point at which they come together. ‘Twain’ refers to two, so the title quite simply means, the meeting of two things. Stylistically, the phrase ‘the Twain’ makes it sound as if the ‘twain’ is a definite article, which implies that the object, or in this case objects, are common knowledge and have been mentioned before. Perhaps this references the fact that the Titanic and iceberg were very much ingrained in the public consciousness at the time of publication.
The first stanza appears to address the iceberg. In ‘solitude,’ the iceberg floats in the ‘sea,’ away, and untouched, by human hands. This emphasises its status as a naturally occurring phenomenon, the direct antithesis to man-made material objects. This is referenced in line two, as the iceberg is hidden away from ‘human vanity.’ As well as touching on human materialism, the phrase directly refers to the Titanic herself, as the physical embodiment of this materialism.
At first glance, I was not fully sure who ‘Pride of Life’ had ‘planned.’ ‘Pride of Life’ is personified, and is credited with creating something, which could either be the iceberg or Titanic. The iceberg is comfortably couched in the North Atlantic, and the Titanic was originally couched in Southampton before she set sail. Before the collision, Titanic was obviously in her pride, or prime, of life as she had not yet obtained a single scratch on her paintwork, and the same could be said, metaphorically, of the iceberg. On closer analysis, the use of the word ‘she’ references the ship itself, and her status sitting at the bottom of the ocean floor.
Stanza two discusses the physical mechanics of Titanic, referencing the engines and the tides that propel the ship forward. ‘Pyres’ are mentioned, perhaps to reference the Titanic’s large engines. Typically, the word is associated with a funeral pyre, foreshadowing the ship’s metaphorical death along with those onboard. ‘Salamandrine,’ is interesting, and could simply refer to something that is like a salamander. Salamanders can survive fire, meaning that they can master one of the elements. The use of the word here could reference the feigned belief that the Titanic was unsinkable, triumphing over the element of water. Hardy equates the natural movement of the tides with music, referring to them as ‘rhythmic tidal lyres.’ A lyre is a u-sharped harp. By drawing this comparison Hardy emphasises the natural beauty in nature, and essentially compares it to art. ‘Pyre’ rhymes with ‘lyre,’ implying that the tides of the sea have extinguished the funeral pyres of those that perished.
The next two stanzas take sharp swipes at Titanic’s ‘opulent’ nature, and renders it as a waste, for now only a ‘sea-worm’ frequents its wreckage. The worm is ‘indifferent’ to the splendour before them, as was the iceberg to the Titanic. It is now useless, and of no consequence.
Hardy recognises that the ‘jewels’ of the ship were originally crafted to ‘ravish the jewels of the sensuous mind.’ While these days ‘ravish’ refers to something enchanting, historically it can refer to sexual assault or rape. The human mind is described as ‘sensuous,’ implying that we enjoy things that are pleasurable, and therefore would be receptive to the luxurious nature of the ocean liner. Hardy equals the materialism of the ship to some sort of sexual gratification within the human mind, essentially painting the ship and its creation negatively. Throughout the poem Hardy seems to equate the ship with some of the Seven Deadly Sins, here being gluttony, lust and, previously referenced in ‘Pride of Life,’… pride.
Hardy employs some good juxtaposition to emphasise the tragic decline in the Titanic’s circumstances. The former ‘sparkles’ of the jewels now lie on the seabed, alliteratively ‘black and blind.’ Titanic’s glow has died, after the collision that wrecked her opulence.
The fifth tercet follows the same themes, focusing on some ‘moon-eyed’ fish. In innocent awe and wonder, the personified fish look to the ‘gilded gear’ to ask, ‘what does this vaingloriousness down here?’ While the ship itself is not especially vain or proud of itself, those that created it, are. It was their greed that created Titanic, and ultimately sank it. Chairman of White Star Line J. Bruce Ismay received a lot of criticism at the time for this, as he reportedly encouraged Captain Edward J Smith to increase Titanic’s speed and decrease the number of lifeboats on the vessel. This stanza again reiterates Hardy’s belief that the Titanic ended up being a waste. Also, the fish put it all into perspective. What is beautiful to humanity, is rubbish to the sea life, and means nothing at the bottom of the ocean.
Stanza number six opines that whilst humanity was busy ‘fashioning’ Titanic, ‘fashioning’ both referencing creation and materialism, ‘The Immanent Will’ was stirring. This philosophical concept is used by Hardy to emphasise his idea that, this collision itself was unavoidable and out of human control, in fact, it is closer to divine intervention. The event was predestined.
An enjambement leads us to stanza seven, which compares the ‘Shape of Ice’ to Titanic’s ‘sinister mate.’ The poem takes a strange, turn here, as the iceberg is compared to the Titanic’s mate, or sexual partner, an idea picked up at the close of the poem. The foreboding sense of stanza eight is quite chilling, as encapsulated in the last line ‘in shadow silent distance grew the Iceberg too.’ The stanza talks about both independent forces of the disaster slowly growing, setting the scene for their fatal collision. ‘Shadowy’ and ‘silent’ personifies the iceberg, making it sound particularly cunning and nefarious.
The ninth stanza picks up on the sexual union of the Titanic and the iceberg, by mentioning that, although the two forces seemed ‘alien,’ they would soon have an ‘intimate welding.’ ‘Alien’ implies that the forces of the iceberg and Titanic cannot be understood by humanity, imbuing them, and the tragedy, with an unfamiliarity that is almost disturbing. The physical closeness implied by the word ‘intimate’ and clinical implications of ‘welding’ make for an explicit example of juxtaposition. When the real-life crash happened, the ship scraped alongside the iceberg, they touched but did not become physically bond together. ‘Welding’ implies that both ship and ice were permanently fused together, which as described, did not happen. Perhaps this is more metaphorical, as both the iceberg and Titanic are bonded together in History. One is not mentioned without the other.
Stanza ten follows this idea, describing ship and berg as ‘twin halves of one august event.’ ‘August’ does not refer to the month here, but instead a distinguished and revered event, which befits the fame and scale of the sinking.
Final stanza time. The first line talks about the ‘Spinner of the Years,’ referring again to the powerful, unseen force that has dictated the fate of Titanic and iceberg. This could reference the Fates in Greek mythology, who spins the web of life, extending it and cutting it as they see fit. When this mythical force shouted ‘Now! And each one hears,’ Titanic and iceberg collide. Hardy describes this collision as ‘consummation.’ This again alludes to the idea that the collision is in fact a sexual union. However, the union is an unpleasant one and undercuts the supposed bliss at consummation by framing it around a violent tragedy. The ship is referred to as ‘she’ throughout the poem, making the iceberg the male in this scenario. The violent penetration of the berg into the ship alludes to sexual violence, and the ship’s passivity in receiving the iceberg, alludes to Titanic’s real-life lack of control over her fate. This union ‘jars two hemispheres.’ The Earth has four hemispheres, but the crash is so colossal that it reverberated and shook half of the globe. The use of several verbs in this stanza, more than the previous ones, create a crescendo towards the collision and the climax of the poem, emphasising the shock and violence of the event.
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