Like the movie created in the late 1990s, Thomas Hardy created a poem entitled "The Convergence of the Twain" to describe the sinking of the grandest ship ever created, the Titanic. In his poem, Thomas Hardy addresses that in April 1912 the unsinkable Titanic was destined to meet the cold iceberg instead of it being a coincidence. Within the lines of his poem, he uses literary devices and irony to emphasize the meaning of each detail. .
This poem deals with three different time periods. The first five stanzas deal with the way the Titanic looked before it sank, and the way it looked after it sank (present). Stanzas VI-VIII talk about the Titanic and the iceberg being created (past). The last three stanzas address the meeting between these two large objects (future).
The first five stanzas of the poem give a physical description of the Titanic. "Steel chambers" (line 4) and "over the mirrors meant (line 7) to glass the opulent" (line 8) are saying that the ship has doors and glass windows. These stanzas are also describing the way the ship looked before it sank and then the way it looked after it sank. For example, lines 10 and 11 state: "Jewels in joy designed to ravish the sensuous mind." Line 12 then goes on to say the jewels "lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.".
There are many literary devices used within this poem to further emphasize the meaning behind the poem. In stanza I, "In a solitude of the sea" (line 1) is an example of alliteration. The Titanic is given a human characteristic in line 2 with the phrase, "Deep from human vanity.".
In stanzas III and IV, Hardy describes the ship the way it looked once it was at the bottom of the sea. For example, the "Dim moon-eyed fishes near (line 13) gaze at the gilded gear" (line 14). All the fish at the bottom of the ocean are looking at this foreign object and wondering why it is there. In line 15, the fish ask, "what does this vaingloriousness down here?" He also states that sea-worms crawl through the sunken ship, which gives a vivid picture of the lifeless ship sitting at the bottom of the ocean.
