A Brief and Critical Look at “THE CONVERGENCE OF THE TWAIN: HARDY’S ALTERATION OF PLATO’S PARABLE” by Ian Ousby
In his essay “The Convergence of the Twain: Hardy’s Alteration of Plato’s Parable,” Ian Ousby establishes a paradigm in Hardy’s poem “The Convergence of the Twain” through which he additionally analyzes some of the author’s other works. He highlights the poem’s “richly sexual connotations,” comparing the iceberg and the ship to lovers (1). From the interpretation that the two are lovers, Ousby establishes his paradigm: Hardy, in the poem and much of his novels, creates “a relationship that is apparently destined and inevitable, is based on deep affinity, and yet leads to destruction” which reoccurs throughout his work (2).
From Plato’s Symposium comes Aristophanes’ understanding of human sexual origins and an important component of Ousby’s argument:
“According to Aristophanes, humans were originally divided into three sexes: men, women, and a third sex which combined male and female characteristics in a globular unit. Their double attributes made the hermaphrodites strong enough to rival the gods, and so in retaliation Zeus disunited [them]. The original men became homosexual and the women lesbian, while the fragmented hermaphrodites became heterosexual lovers trying to recover their primordial wholeness” (2).
Ousby claims that the Plato’s lovers in Hardy’s poem are reflected in the meeting of the iceberg and the Titanic and that they represent the hermaphrodite’s return to “primordial wholeness.” It is what he refers to as a “concept of affinity based on original identity” (3). The ship and the iceberg are the two halves of a globe that are reuniting. While this romantic notion, according to Ousby, is found in Plato and reiterated by the earlier (earlier than Hardy, I mean) Romantic poet Percy Shelley, in Hardy the ideal union is twisted into a mistimed and tragic collision.
Ousby extrapolates the incident in “The Convergence of the Twain” and finds that it exists in several of Hardy’s novels published earlier than the poem. He cites characters from Tess of the d’Urbervilles, The Well-Beloved, and Jude the Obscure and fits them well into the paradigm he has constructed for Hardy.
“THE CONVERGENCE OF THE TWAIN: HARDY’S ALTERATION OF PLATO’S PARABLE” by Ian Ousby
Hardy’sAlterationofPlato’sParable (the article!)
Great critical post here, though I should add to the instructions that a bit of a “response” is warranted as well. Is Ousby saying that Hardy is critiquing this illusion of primordial wholeness by describing the process as one of tragic fate rather than a more positive dramatic union? Where two come together, disaster is immanent? Curious what you make of that.
As for formatting, just incorporate the link itself, and any bibliographic material, into the body of the post itself (rather than at the end). We get to break MLA rules slightly in blog posts, though I would like you to continue using page numbers for quotes.