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Gerard Manley Hopkins: Nature & The Ineffable

"Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain" (l.14)
Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Thou art indeed just, Lord" (1889; 1918)

 

Points for Reflection

"God's Grandeur" (1877; 1918)

  1. why might Hopkins spend more time elaborating a conceit that compares God's majesty to something underfoot (ll.2-8) than he does likening it to a visual effect created with human hands?
  2. Hopkins often employs ellipsis, removing words whose presence remains strongly implied. What absent-present words are missing from this poem?
  3. does Hopkins's use of alliteration and repetition speed up or slow down his lines?
  4. about how many stresses can you identify in each of this poem's lines?


"As Kingfishers Catch Fire" (1877; 1918)

  1. Hopkins is known for not only coining new words, but taking familiar words and employing them in odd ways. He turns nouns into adjectives or verbs, for instance. Find examples of such linguistic play in this poem.
  2. Hopkins also experiments with syntax (word order); does his dramatic reordering of the parts of speech obscure or clarify his poems' central messages (here and elsewhere)?


"Carrion Comfort" (1885; 1918)

  1. how does Hopkins create a sense of spiritual struggle through non-standard language? What about the poem "Carrion Comfort" appears extremely odd?
  2. the narrator of Hopkins's poem rejects Despair in the first line: is this a successful rejection?
  3. to what might "rod" in line 10 refer?
  4. how has Hopkins elaborated on and altered Genesis 32:22-23?


"No Worst, there is none" (1885; 1918)

  1. compare what this poem says about the scope of the human mind (ll.9-10) with Dickinson's claims in poem "598."
  2. what is the sole comfort identified by the distraught narrator in this poem?


"Thou art indeed just, Lord" (1889; 1918)

  1. what is the dominant tone of this poem? Angry? Depressed? Apathetic? Hopeful? Aspiring?
  2. does "justice" appear to be one of God's greatest concerns in this poem?
  3. unpack lines 12-13. What might the narrator mean when he suggests that he is "time's eunuch," one who has failed to "breed one work that wakes" (l.13)?


Hopkins's Poetics

  1. familiarize yourself with "inscape," "instress," and "sprung rhythm." The Norton's intro to Gerard Manley Hopkins's poetry should aid you in this.
  2. attempt to scan (locate stressed syllables and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry) one of Hopkins's poems.
  3. how does form reiterate content in Hopkins's work? Consider this question carefully.

a painting of a rocky seashore with crashing waves at daybreak or dusk. The waters are dark with the sun lighting up the rocky shoreline. A black bird it perched onthe rocks watching the rough waves, and a white dove is flying by.
The Assuaging of the Waters (1834-40)
John Martin


Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu