25 pages • 50 minutes read
Thomas HoodThe Song of the Shirt
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1843A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
“The Song of the Shirt” has a complex structure. It is comprised of 11, eight-line stanzas—with the exception of the final, nine-lined stanza—and many of those stanzas do not follow a consistent rhyme scheme. Further, none of the lines or stanzas maintain a regular meter. Lines vary from three (Line 5) to ten (Line 3) syllables, with no discernable pattern or consistency. As such, Hood’s poem is not constrained by any a rhyme scheme or meter, but the flow of its structure creates a song-like, shifting rhythm.
Even though the rhyme scheme is inconsistent and changes throughout the poem, Hood never entirely abandons rhyming, either. The fourth, sixth, ninth, and tenth stanzas possess an abcbdefe rhyme scheme, while the third, seventh, and eighth stanzas have an ababcded rhyme scheme. The first, second, and eleventh stanzas each have their own unique rhyme schemes. Additionally, Hood employs sporadic internal rhyme. When complaining about her home, the seamstress describes “a wall so blank, my shadow I thank / For sometimes falling there” (Lines 47-48), rhyming “blank” with “thank” in the same line. Later, when tempted to grieve her situation, the seamstress asserts, “My tears must stop, for every drop / Hinders needle and thread!” (Line 80), internally rhyming “stop” and “drop.” Although inconsistent, the frequent presence of rhyming in the poem generates both rhythm and musicality. Thus, with the liberty afforded by inconsistent rhyming, Hood fashioned his poem into something resembling the titular “song.”
Repetition
The use of repetition is another important aspect of the rhythm and structure in “The Song of the Shirt.” Hood uses repetition of a sort in most of the poem’s stanzas. In the first stanza, Hood describes the seamstress’s labor with the emphatic phrase “Stitch! stitch! stitch!” (Line 5) The repetition of the word “stitch,” separated only by exclamation points, reflects both the repetitive and desperate nature of the seamstress’s work. She must stitch and repeat the same motions in order to survive. The same phrase appears again (Lines 29 and 85), as does the recurring phrase “Work! work! work!” (Line 9) or “Work—work—work” (Lines 11, 17, 19, 41, 49, 51, 57, 59). These phrases serve as a constant refrain throughout the poem, capturing the feeling of tediousness and never-ending toil burdening the seamstress.
Hood also repeats specific lines. In describing the parts of clothing she works on, the seamstress recites, “Seam, and gusset, and band, / Band, and gusset, and seam” (Lines 21-22). Repeating the same elements but in reverse, the seamstress indicates both the repetition and cyclical nature of her work. Similar wording is repeated later in the poem only the word order is reversed: Now, the seamstress notes the “band, and gusset, and seam, / Seam, and gusset, and band” (Lines 53-54). Like Hood’s poetic repetition, the seamstress’s work is monotonous and continual, and the order of operations—as well as the specifics of the clothes she repairs—have begun to blur in her “benumbed” (Line 55) mind. The repetition mirrors the state of the seamstress’s situation.
While “The Song of the Shirt” may have an inconsistent rhyme scheme and meter, the recurrence of certain phrases and the repetition of lines and even entire stanzas lends a sense of structure and continuity. With its repetitive phrasing and meandering rhythm, the poem’s form ultimately mimics the actual motions of stitching and sewing with “needle and thread” (Line 80). Furthermore, the poem’s unique blend of variance and repetition is itself “exhausting, wearing down our minds,” just as sewing exhausts the seamstress (“Rehearsing Social Justice: Temporal Ghettos and the Poetic Way Out in ‘Goblin Market’ and ‘The Song of the Shirt,’” Jennifer Maclure, Victorian Poetry, Vol. 53, No. 2 (2015), p. 153).
Anaphora
Anaphora—the repeated use of a word or phrase to begin subsequent lines—is also used throughout Hood’s poem. In the midst of her despair, the seamstress directly appeals to and attempts to sway a particular intended audience, begging:
O, men, with sisters dear!
O, men, with mothers and wives!
It is not linen you’re wearing out,
But human creatures’ lives (Lines 25-28)!
The seamstress begins the first two lines with the phrase “O, men, with.” These pleas encompass all men, since most men have sisters and wives, and all have mothers. She begs them to pity her labors and exhaustion by imagining their female relatives in her position. In this instance, anaphora is used to emphasize the importance of the seamstress’s appeal.
