The Petrarchan sonnet “Hap,” by Thomas Hardy, is an exploration of how life is controlled and can be explained. In the poem’s octave, the speaker envisions a life under the power of a vengeful god who……, but concludes in the sestet that in reality, life is not controlled by higher powers, malicious or not. The speaker searches for an explanation that would give purpose to his pain, but failing to find one, laments the reality of his situation, where suffering can only be explained by chance.
In the first quatrain, the speaker imagines life controlled by a “vengeful god” (1) and emphasizes the god’s malicious delight in others’ suffering. In the first line, the speaker introduces this hypothetical situation with the word “If,” describing a “vengeful god” who calls out to him (1). The conditional mode of “would call” (1) signals that the speaker’s situation is an imagined thought experiment, rather than real life. The word “vengeful” (1) suggests that the god is taking revenge on the speaker for a wrongdoing, but no such wrongdoing is specified in the sonnet, making the god’s revenge sound unjustified. In the second line, the vengeful god laughs from the …show more content…
The idea of religion and the justice of God also appears in John Donne’s “[At the round earth’s imagined corners, blow…]”. While Hardy rejects the idea that God is kind and just, instead arguing that chance controls the events of life, Donne believes that God will dispense justice on Judgement Day. Though Hardy’s sestet subscribes to a belief in life’s randomness, the poet would ideally like to believe in the kind and just God whom Donne worships. His suffering, however, is so great that it prevents him from imagining a god who is not cruel and sadistic, and it is so meaningless that ultimately he cannot believe in any higher power at all, beyond “Crass Casualty” and
In the first quatrain, the speaker imagines life controlled by a “vengeful god” (1) and emphasizes the god’s malicious delight in others’ suffering. In the first line, the speaker introduces this hypothetical situation with the word “If,” describing a “vengeful god” who calls out to him (1). The conditional mode of “would call” (1) signals that the speaker’s situation is an imagined thought experiment, rather than real life. The word “vengeful” (1) suggests that the god is taking revenge on the speaker for a wrongdoing, but no such wrongdoing is specified in the sonnet, making the god’s revenge sound unjustified. In the second line, the vengeful god laughs from the …show more content…
The idea of religion and the justice of God also appears in John Donne’s “[At the round earth’s imagined corners, blow…]”. While Hardy rejects the idea that God is kind and just, instead arguing that chance controls the events of life, Donne believes that God will dispense justice on Judgement Day. Though Hardy’s sestet subscribes to a belief in life’s randomness, the poet would ideally like to believe in the kind and just God whom Donne worships. His suffering, however, is so great that it prevents him from imagining a god who is not cruel and sadistic, and it is so meaningless that ultimately he cannot believe in any higher power at all, beyond “Crass Casualty” and