Article in stark surroundings foundered (4)
I believe the answer is:
sank
'foundered' is the definition.
(sinking is a kind of foundering)
'article in stark surroundings' is the wordplay.
'article' becomes 'an' (English indefinite article).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'stark surroundings' becomes 'sk' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'an' inserted within 'sk' is 'SANK'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for sank that I've seen before include "Fell to the bottom" , "Subsided" , "(Of ship) went down" , "Foundered" , "Scuttled" .)