Summary of Gods Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkinson

The octave of the poem describes a natural world through which gods presence runs like an electrical current, becoming momentarily visible in flashes like the refracted glinting of light produced by metal foil when quickly moved. Gods presence is a rich oil, a kind of sap that Wells up to a greatness when tapped with a certain kind of patient pressure. These clear strong proofs of gods presence in the world, the poet asks how it is that humans fail to heed (reck) his divine authority (his rod). The second quatrain within the octave describes the state of contemporary human life-the blind repetitiveness of human labor, and the sordidness and stain of toil and trade. The landscape in its natural state reflects god as its creator; but the industry and the prioritization of the economic over the spiritual have transformed its landscape, and robbed humans of their sensitivity to those few beauties of nature still left. The shoes people wear sever the physical connection between our feet and the earth they walk on, symbolizing an ever increasing spiritual alienation from nature. The sestet asserts that, in spite of the fallness of Hopkins contemporary Victorian World, nature does not cease offering up its spiritual indices. Permeating the world is a deep freshness that testifies to the continual renewing power of gods creation. This power of renewal is seen in the way morning always waits on the other side of dark night. The source of this constant regeneration is the grace of a god who broods over a seemingly lifeless world with the patient nurture of a mother hen. This final image is one of god guarding the potential of the world and containing within him the power and promise of rebirth. With the final exclamation (ah! bright wings) Hopkins suggests both an awed intuition of the beauty of gods grace, and the joyful of suddenness of a hatching bird emerging out of gods loving incubation.

Analysis of Gods Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears mans smudge and shares mans smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! Bright wings.

The poet Mr. Gerard Manley Hopkins seems to be a man of Hope. Hope is found in the passage of time, (i.e., the sun continuing to rise in the east every morning), and in the belief of a divine force with which we can interact positively. The title tells us what the poem plans to do: illustrate the speakers vision of a quality of God, namely "grandeur." Grandeur is the quality of being "grand," which means "big," "fancy," "wonderful," or "splendid." Gods Grandeur follows the basic form of an Italian sonnet. An Italian sonnet has fourteen lines, eight in the first section (called the "octave"), and six lines in the second section (called the "sestet"). Traditionally the octave and the sestet are not separated into separate stanzas like here. Hopkins division emphasizes the contrast between the first and second stanza. According to the speaker the world should be viewed as something lovely, and as a connection to God. aker, In the second stanza the speaker becomes a seducer, tempting any reader or listener with a stunning vision of the natural world, and then a reassurance that all is not lost. Because of the anonymous nature of the speaker, we can use our imaginations. We can play around with gender all we want, and the poem is only slightly impacted. The physical setting of "Gods Grandeur" is our planet, Earth. The poem moves underground in the second stanza, and shows us nature in hiding, full of potential, waiting to show its face again on the earths surface. The speaker begins this sonnet with the first line that is a pun. He asserts that the glory-The Grandeur- of God shines out everywhere we look. It is a natural world which Gods presence runs through like lightning or an electric current, becoming momentarily visible in flashes like the refracted glinting of light produced by metal foil when rumpled or quickly moved.

Line three refers directly to oil, as today oil has become almost a character in our lives. It can be arch villain or hero or both, depending on your perspective. It is certainly both for the speaker in the poem. Here oil is a simile. Its "ooze" is said to be similar to the way the world "gathers to greatness." So oil has some positive connotations here. It is a natural resource, and so the speaker would see beauty in it, even as he or she doesnt like what its being used for. Alternatively, Gods presence is a rich oil, a kind of sap that wells up to a greatness when tapped with a certain kind of patient pressure. Given these clear, strong proofs of Gods presence in the world, the poet asks how it is that humans fail to heed (reck) His divine authority (his rod). In line four, a rhetorical question the speaker asks in the second part of the line is another way of asking, why cant suffering people see the hope thats right in front of them? In this line reck his rod is used as an alliteration. Line five, uses the repetition of the word trod, to show ,when repeated, sounds like, people walking heavily, with broken spirits and bodies, on a broken earth. This is an example of onomatopoeia. Line six, is somewhat related to line five, as the repetition also evokes the feeling of exhaustion, that comes form the walking. The words "trade" and "trod are connected, as trade means money, but it also means work, or as the poem calls it, "toil." Toil is joyless work, work with nothing in it for the person who does it. It is also repetitive, which explains the repetition of "trod" even more thoroughly. "Toil" also rhymes with "oil" and so alludes to the toil that goes into the industry of oil, specifically. This rhyme also creates imagery. Even though the poem says that "all is" "smeared with toil" we imagine everything being smeared with oil. In lines seven and eight, it states that the earth is personified, quite cleverly, with the word "wears," suggesting that humans have succeeded in making over the earth in their own image. Also, they are two synecdoche the lonely "soil" comes to stand for all that has been taken away from the surface of the planet. Likewise, the lonely "foot" that has forgotten how to "feel" due to the interference of the shoe. This image stands in for the whole of the human race, and its isolation from nature. Lines nine and ten implies that there is a pun on the word spent as it connects it with the industrial angst of the first stanza. Only what is owned can be "spent" and the earth isnt owned. The damage can never seep past the surface and might lose our connection with nature as we try to sell it off. The sound of these abstract ideas, "dearest" and "freshness" combine with more concrete phrases, such as deep and down, to create some beautiful imagery. We can smell the freshness; feel the cool of underground springs. We see little seeds bursting underground before our eyes. In lines eleven and twelve, it states that since the sun sets in the west, the west is closely associated with sunset. It is noticed that the word west, and in the right context, people will know we mean sunset. That is a metonymy."Morning" is personified in this line. It jumps and

runs through the sky. Morning is also a metaphor for hope and clarity of mind. Morning sheds light. Also, deep down, last lights and brown brinks are alliterations. The final two lines of this incredible sonnet simply mean that the Holy Ghost which is the Holy Spirit, a messenger of God forgives man and their care for nature and renews it. In line thirteen, the speaker assures us that morning follows night, and light follows darkness, because the Holy Ghost is always hovering over the messed up world, pondering deeply, and worried. The upside, though, is that the Holy Ghost watches over the world and treats it in much the same way a bird would treat her unhatched eggs, providing comfort, security, warmth, beauty, and motion.It is believed that the poet believes in natures power of regeneration, which comes from God. In line fourteen, Hope springs eternal in the human breast is the statement that is being emphasized on. After that the setting is all sky sunrise, sunset, the cloudlike image of the Holy Ghost as a dove, hovering over the planet. Themes in the poem that can be defined are transformation, everything is shifting, changing and moving weather for better or worse. Religion, this is noticed from the title that "Gods Grandeur" is probably a religious poem. The speaker sees God as intimately connected to the earth. The exotic language of the poem moves us through this fascinating religious journey. Man and the natural world this looks deeply at the natural world, and doesnt hold back on any contempt for the ways in which people and their industries have treated nature. Another important theme is this poem is life, consciousness and existence, this them plays a very important role and the main aspect is the meaning of life and the purpose of human existence can be discovered through nature