Drummer Hodge (WJEC Eduqas GCSE English Literature): Revision Note

Drummer Hodge

Here, you’ll find a guide to Thomas Hardy’s poem ‘Drummer Hodge’ to help prepare you for the Eduqas GCSE English Literature exam. It includes:

• Overview: a breakdown of the poem, including its possible meanings and interpretations

• Writer’s methods: an exploration of Hardy’s techniques and methods

• Historical and literary context: an exploration of connections between contextual aspects and the themes and ideas within Hardy’s poem

• Linking the poems: an understanding of how ‘Drummer Hodge’ connects to other poems in the Eduqas GCSE English Literature Poetry Anthology 

Overview

In order to answer questions on any poem it is vital that you understand what it is about. This section includes:

• An overview of the poem

• A ‘translation’ of the poem, section-by-section

• A commentary of each of these sections, outlining Thomas Hardy’s intention and message

‘Drummer Hodge’ overview

Published in 1899, Thomas Hardy’s poem ‘Drummer Hodge’ is set in Africa at the time of the Second Boer War. It is considered an elegy as it pays tribute to the life of a drummer-boy called Hodge. Hardy’s poem can be interpreted as a critique of wars fought on foreign soil in its description of the unceremonious burial of a displaced and possibly homesick young English boy far from home in an unfamiliar land. The drummer boy’s first name is not mentioned, highlighting his lack of identity and emphasising the impersonal nature of his burial. 

‘Drummer Hodge’ translation

Lines 1-6

Translation

• The poem begins as Drummer Hodge’s dead body is thrown into the ground without a coffin

• The burial place is marked by a “kopje-crest” (a hilltop) that appears in the middle of the “veldt” (grassland)

• The stars above his burial place are “foreign”, meaning Drummer Hodge is not from Africa (he is British)

Hardy’s intention

• Hardy’s verb “thrown” alludes to the brutality of war: the drummer’s body is simply cast into the ground without ceremony

• That the grave is marked only by a landmass connotes to a humble, impersonal burial 

• Hardy describes the unfamiliar landscape using Dutch/Afrikaans words, highlighting the soldier’s geographical displacement:

  • The use of foreign-language words within an English poem enacts the very displacement the poem describes

  • This is further emphasised by the “foreign constellations”

Lines 7-12

Translation

• The omniscient narrator highlights the drummer’s lack of connection with the place where he is buried: he does not know the “Karoo” (the desert) or “Bush”

• Hardy explains that the young soldier is far from his “Wessex home”

• The drummer, Hardy suggests, must have looked up to the foreign stars in the twilight (“gloam”) and wondered why he was there

Hardy’s intention

• Hardy may imply Hodge is a victim of war: he suggests the drummer may have felt isolated, alienated and might have questioned his reasons for being there

• Hardy raises the idea that the young boy has little connection to the war in the “Strange” land

Lines 13-18

Translation

• The narrator says the boy will become a part of the “unknown” grassland:

  • Although he is from the Northern hemisphere (England), his body (his “breast and brain”) will now help the “Southern” African tree grow

• The narrator suggests the boy will forever look up to foreign stars

Hardy’s intention

• Hardy’s sentimental ending pays tribute to the boy’s death:

  • Hardy contrasts the boy’s “Northern” roots with his burial under a “Southern tree” to highlight the boy’s displacement as a result of war

• The recurring motif of foreign stars symbolises the boy’s eternal resting place far from home and a sense that his spirit becomes part of Africa:

  • This may be interpreted as the boy becoming part of the natural world, regardless of his nationality 

Writer’s methods

This section is divided into three sections: form, structure and language. When you write about a poem, aim to expand your interpretation of what the poet is writing about by exploring how they present their ideas and why they have made the technical choices they have.

Focusing on the poet’s ideas and how they express them will gain you far more marks than examining individual poetic techniques. Look at the analysis in the sections below, which is organised by the main themes of ‘Drummer Hodge’ and demonstrates the methods and reasons for Thomas Hardy’s choices of:

• Form

• Structure

• Language

Form

The poem is an elegy which pays tribute to a young drummer boy’s death. The narrative ballad form contributes to the solemn story of a young drummer boy’s burial.

Structure

Hardy’s poem has a regular structure of three, rhyming, hymn-like stanzas that connect the drummer boy to the land and to the universe. The narrator begins with the story of the boy’s burial, shifts to a reflection on the boy’s thoughts under foreign stars, and ends describing his spiritual eternity reclaimed by the universe.

Language

Hardy’s language focuses on the physical and cultural displacement of a young drummer boy, Hodge, in a war far from home. The poem shifts between foreign words that highlight the strangeness of the land with celestial imagery that describes the boy’s alienation, as well as his spiritual return to the universe.

Historical and literary context

Context offers you a different perspective on a poem and can enrich your engagement with it. However, examiners don’t want contextual information added on at the end of your essay, or even in your introduction. Instead, your knowledge of Thomas Hardy’s life, the times he lived in, and the kind of poetry he wrote should be used to explore themes and support an analysis of the poem.

The ideas explored in 'Drummer Hodge' centre around the dehumanising and disorienting effects of war, the loss of innocent life, and the spiritual power of nature. The poem reflects on the impersonal death of a young drummer boy in a foreign war zone. Therefore, this section has been bullet-pointed under the following themes:

• Destruction of innocence

• The power of nature and place 

Destruction of innocence

• Hardy’s poem ‘Drummer Hodge’, written in 1899 during the Second Boer War, is said to be inspired by a local boy who was killed as war broke out

• It appears in Thomas Hardy's collection ‘Poems of the Past and the Present’, published in 1901

• Hardy’s poem focuses on a young boy known only for his role as a drummer:

  • Drummer boys were often very young, around thirteen years old

  • They used drums to communicate and build morale amongst the troops

• In ‘Drummer Hodge’, Hardy pays tribute to the many anonymous soldiers who were either buried without celebration or who were never accounted for:

  • The poem’s narrator never mentions the drummer boy’s first name 

  • Furthermore, the name “Hodge” may not even have been the boy’s surname: “Hodge” was a nickname given to rural, uneducated English labourers

• Hardy’s poem can be considered a challenge to contemporary literature that glorified war and elevated patriotism:

  • He creates sympathy for the young drummer boy in a solemn ballad

  • Hardy highlights the young boy’s uncelebrated death (he is “thrown” into an “Uncoffined” grave) 

The power of nature and place

• In the poem ‘Drummer Hodge’, Hardy focuses on a young drummer boy’s disorientation in the foreign land in which he finds himself fighting and dying

• Criticism of Britain’s policies and aims in the Boer wars concern the use of concentration camps and foreign claims to the land’s natural resources

• Hardy’s wife is said to have described the Second Boer War as imperialistic, suggesting the British fought for diamonds and gold

• The poem describes the foreign war zone with Dutch/Afrikaans words:

  • This highlights a disconnection between Britain and Africa, perhaps implying dubious reasons for the British government’s involvement

• Hardy’s poem appears to argue against the idea that land can be claimed by foreign powers:

  • The English-born boy, after death, becomes part of Africa

  • The boy’s “Northern” heart and “brain” forms part of the African earth

• One interpretation of Hardy’s natural imagery is that he shows the natural world without borders and unconcerned with nationality:

  • The “stars” claim the boy after death: they “reign” over him “eternally”

  • The idea of nature remaining unmoved by human events is a recurring theme in Hardy’s work

• The drummer boy, unrecognised or celebrated during his lifetime, becomes a vital part of the natural world:

  • His body helps a “Southern tree” grow

Linking the poems

The Eduqas GCSE English Literature exam asks you to compare two poems from the anthology. You will be given the text of one poem in the question paper, but you will need to compare this with another poem of your choice, one that comments on the particular theme in the question. It stands to reason, then, that it will be a good idea to understand your anthology poems according to their themes.

Here, you will find a guided list of poems that work well together, and how they are linked by a common theme. Do remember, though, the list below is not exhaustive and themes and ideas often overlap.

The poems you could link with Thomas Hardy’s poem ‘Drummer Hodge’ are:

• ‘The Schoolboy’ by William Blake

• ‘Blackberry Picking’ by Seamus Heaney

• ‘Remains’ by Simon Armitage

• ‘Cousin Kate’ by Christina Rossetti

• ‘Disabled’ by Wilfred Owen

• ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ by William Wordsworth

• ‘I Shall Return’ by Claude McKay

• ‘Kamikaze’ by Beatrice Garland

Sources:

Poetry Anthology (C720) (opens in a new tab)

https://hardyboerwar.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/a-practical-look-at-drummer-hodge/ (opens in a new tab)