The Ruined Maid (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Thomas Hardy
- First Published: 1901
- Type of Work: Narrative
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
The Poem
Thomas Hardy’s “The Ruined Maid” is a dialogue between two farm girls in late Victorian England, one of whom has left the farm for city life, and the other of whom has remained in the country. The poem consists of six quatrains, each of which is organized in the same fashion. The first girl—unidentified by name and yet living on a farm—addresses the other girl, named Melia, who answers. In all but one stanza, the last one, the first girl has three lines of the quatrain, and Melia is given a one-line response in which she uses the word “ruin” or some...
[The entire page is 1446 words long]
