LEAVING CERT ENGLISH - HONOURS
HOPKINS
“The world gives off flashes of God.”
Hopkins was one of the most original and innovative of all English poets. As a convert to Roman Catholicism and a Jesuit priest, he had a passionate belief in the divine energy at work in nature. As a nature poet he is moved to ecstasy, wonder and awe at the beauty of God’s creation. Working as a priest in the grim, industrial towns of Northern England he became depressed by their squalor, poverty and ugliness. He was a conservationist and mourned the destruction of the wild beauty of nature by the Industrial Revolution, During his years teaching in University College Dublin he felt isolated and exiled, burdened by the drudgery of his work. It was during this time that he wrote the “Terrible Sonnets”. These are profoundly pessimistic poems, full of mental and spiritual torment, and a sense of the soul abandoned by God. In some of his poems, “The Windhover” for example, there is a perfect fusion between the natural and the divine.
Hopkins in his poetry praises and glorifies God, and celebrates the uniqueness and individuality of all living things. He sees the spirit of God at work in the universe, “All things are charged with God”. He uses a new critical language to express this:
INSCAPE: The uniqueness, individuality, self-hood of all living things. The order, pattern, unique beauty at the heart of things. The very essence of things. For Hopkins everything had its own inscape—its essence, its marked individuality. For example, he inscapes the flight of the falcon for us by catching its very essence, in new, unusual words. INSTRESS: The force of energy which keeps all things in existence. The divine energy which animates all things “The world is charged with the grandeur of God / It will flame out like shining from shook foil” SPRUNG RHYTHM: A new metre which Hopkins created to free up his poetry and to bring it closer to the sound of natural speech. In this new metre, the stresses, not the syllables are counted.
Hopkins was an innovator and an experimenter with words and word combinations. He exploited the language in new, exciting ways: piling up adjectives “dapple-dawn-drawn”. Inventing new words (neologism), like “twindles” or “windhover”. Using unusual word-patterns which still catch the exact meaning “rolling level underneath him steady air”. Using multiple alliteration “long and lovely and lush”, multiple assonance “bleared, smeared with oil”. The music and rhythm created by this assonance and multiple alliteration give a speed, urgency and energy to his poetry: “Degged with dew, dappled with dew / Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through” This beautifully describes the rushing, sparkling stream tumbling down the mountainside. Or here, in the description of Spring: “That blue is all in a rush / With richness; the racing lambs….” By using language in this new exciting way, Hopkins shows us the world from a fresh, original viewpoint. The world is not dull and predictable. It is on fire with the spirit of God. It is being renewed from moment to moment.
Hopkins favoured the sonnet form, as this imposed a discipline on his ecstatic rush of words, and gave him a framework for his breathless, emotional outpouring. For example, God’s Grandeur is a perfect Petrarchan sonnet, divided into octet and sestet, with the description in the octet, and the reflection or commentary in the sestet. The rhyme scheme too is traditional abba, abba, cd, cd, cd.
In SPRING, for example, there is a mirroring of nature in the movement of the poem “when weeds in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush” “What is all this juice and all this joy?” “The racing lambs too have fair their fling” We can sense the young, fresh energy and the abundant growth of Spring in the alliteration, and in the unusual word pattern of “fair their fling”. All the joy, sound, colour and movement of Spring are captured here---the thrush’s eggs, blue like “low heavens”, the thrush’s song which with double meaning “wrings” the ear, the shooting weeds, the racing lambs. Even weeds are celebrated as they represent nature at its most free. There is a sense of breathless excitement, typical of Hopkins, in the leaving out of the word “like” in “Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens”. Alliteration speeds up the poem and adds to its energy “ all in a rush with richness”. Everything is growing, blooming, young. There is new life everywhere. Hopkins really looks at nature and describes it in detail “the glassy pear tree” with the blue sky behind “they brush the descending blue”. The sestet is more reflective and opens with a question “What is all this juice and all this joy?” He asks God to preserve the world in its perfect, young, innocent state “In Eden garden” He wants God to protect the innocent sinlessness of the young before their purity and innocence “cloud” or turn “sour” with sinning. The unspoiled beauty of Spring, and the innocence of youth are worth preserving “thy choice and worth the winning”
THE WINDHOVER is a hymn of praise to the glory and power of God as revealed in the falcon’s soaring morning flight. The sonnet is full of admiration, wonder and awe at the beauty and power of the falcon, which stands as a symbol for Christ. The falcon hovers above the earth “riding” the wind, fighting it, hanging motionless in the air. The falcon is the “morning’s minion”, (minion= darling), the darling of the morning, the young prince of the dawn , ruling the great kingdom of the skyway “kingdom of daylight’s dauphin” (dauphin= a young prince). Note the unusual word pattern in “the rolling level underneath him steady air” This perfectly captures the falcon’s leaning into the wind, holding himself in tension, “riding” the wind as if he were on horseback. The falcon swoops down on his prey with a magnificent movement like the swish of a skater’s heel describing a graceful arc on ice, “As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow bend ” The falcon fights against the wind –“rebuffed”—like Christ riding out on horseback to conquer evil, a knight (“chevalier”) in shining armour. He is full of ecstatic admiration for the beautiful bird “My heart….stirred for a bird”
Fire and morning sunlight seem to break from the falcon’s wings. The poet breaks into a prayer of praise, uniting Christ and the falcon in his joyful celebration “O my Chevalier!”. BUCKLE has two meanings, it represents a coming together, a uniting. The whole scene comes together before the poet’s eyes in perfect unity---the sky, the plumage of the bird, the pride and beauty of his flight “air, pride plume….”. But BUCKLE also means COLLAPSE. The bird seems to fall apart, to collapse, as it suddenly plummets down, swooping to earth, the morning sunlight glinting like fire on its wings, which seem to send out showers of light.
The final lines contain two images :“embers” which are the dead coals in a quenched fire, which suddenly flash into new flame “gold vermillion” . The coals fall, break up, and then spring into new life “fall, gall themselves”.. The second image is the ploughed furrow, the “plough down sillion” from which new life springs. Earthly glory is crushed to reveal Heavenly glory. From Christ’s agonising death on the cross (the red blood of his wounds “gash gold vermillion”) comes the power and beauty of the Resurrection morning, which is the central Christian event. From suffering, or even ordinary hard work and drudgery “plod” “plough down sillion” great things come. The fire and beauty of the falcon, the discipline of his flight and his fiery plunge to earth, remind the poet of the gold and scarlet (vermillion) colours of Christ the Saviour, his death on the Cross and the triumph of the Resurrection
INVERSNAID: A poem written in the Scottish Highlands which celebrates the wild, untouched beauty of that country, with its rushing streams, its dark lakes, its untamed wilderness, its rocky outcrops and its heather-covered hills. Hopkins appeals for the preservation of this beautiful, untouched landscape “O let them be left”. He asks that humans respect this wilderness and leave it alone, for other generations to enjoy. He uses Scottish words: Burn = Stream. Brae = Hill. Heathpacks= Clumps of Highland heather. Degged= Sprinkled. The “beadbonny ash” seems to be one of Hopkin’s neologisms. The ash tree has red berries, like pretty (“bonny”) beads on a necklace.
In the opening stanza Hopkins compares the brown, rushing stream to a brown horse’s back “horseback brown”. The “rollrock highroad roaring down” is an example of Hopkins breaking down the normal sentence structure to capture the exact meaning: The dark stream tumbles down over rocks as it wends its way down to the lake, just as a horse gallops down a rocky high road. In mountain hollows (“coop”), the water foams like fleece as it pours into the lake below. Note the speed and energy of the water conveyed in alliteration “the fleece of his foam flutes and low to the lake falls home”
A piece of fragile white foam twists and turns as it is blown across the surface of the brown water . This is beautifully expressed “A windpuff bonnet of fawn froth” The foam is like a lady’s white bonnet blown by the wind. Hopkins uses a new word, a neologism, to express this twisting, turning movement of the froth--- “twindles”.
A dark, menacing tone is introduced in the dangerous, dark water “…a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning / It rounds and rounds despair to drowning” This gives the impression of the danger and power of nature---a black, swirling whirlpool, caught by the menacing “ou” and “d” sounds---“round and round”…..
The sense of the sparkling, tumbling stream is perfectly captured in the music of the lines “Degged with dew, dappled with dew / Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through” The assonance and alliteration here catch the idea of a horse fancy-stepping down a rocky hillside, or of a brook tumbling down the hollows (groins) of the hills. The clumps of heather and fern flash by, as does the brooding ash tree which “sits” over the whole scene.
In the final quatrain Hopkins appeals for conservation. His plea is: leave nature alone. Leave the weeds, the unspoiled wetness and wildness of this lovely, remote place alone “Let them be left”
In GOD’S GRANDEUR, a Petrarchan sonnet, we see Hopkins the conservationist lamenting the destruction of God’s created world, by human activity “generations have trod have trod” The repetition of “have trod” points to the drudgery and futility of man’s actions, especially after the Industrial Revolution. The “trade” and “toil”(work) of industry have exacted a terribly high price. The world is “charged with the grandeur of God”, that is, it is electrified, it is on fire with the divine spirit which is in danger of being ignored. The fire and power given off by divine energy is beautifully captured in the simile “It will flame out; like shining from shook foil” he word “light” is left out here as Hopkins rushes to express the speed and fire of “shook foil”. There is a disgust at human work and activity “ooze of oil” smudge” Smeared” “..bleared, smeared with toil//And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell” We have stained the perfection of nature. We have lost contact with the natural world, and with God “How can foot feel, being shod”
The sestet is more hopeful. Nature, imbued with divine spirit will continue to renew itself “Nature is never spent”. Night falls bringing darkness, yet each new dawn, God creates His miracle afresh, bringing new hope, a new day. Nature, under divine guidance, has this wonderful power of renewal. Hopkins is consoled that the world is in God’s protection. The Holy Spirit---the Dove---shields and shelters like a bird protecting her young “The Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast”
I WAKE AND FEEL THE FELL OF DARK is one of the “Terrible Sonnets” which Hopkins wrote during his exile in Dublin, where the drudgery of his work in UCD, and his personal isolation triggered what we would now recognize as severe depression. There is a sense of spiritual desolation and psychological torment in these “dark sonnets”. There is also the sense of the soul abandoned by God. He is in great mental pain, the darkest depths of despair. “I wake and feel the fell of dark”. “Fell” in one of its meanings, refers to the fur or the pelt of an animal. The sense of darkness suffocating him, like a silent, terrifying presence in the room, is very vivid. Early waking we now also recognize as a sign of depression. Darkness is all about him. The only mention of daylight is the “light’s delay”.
He longs for light, the light of day, the light of hope, but there is nothing to comfort him.
He cries out to God, but his prayers are unanswered. There is only silence. God is not near. ”Dearest him that lives, alas away.” His cries are like “dead letters”, that is, unanswered letters. His sufferings have extended over years, over life.
The sestet is full of bitterness and self-disgust. “I am gall…” (Crucifixion reference) He has to face up to his own hated self “My taste was me”. The “selfyeast of spirit” refers to his inability to rise to his circumstances, to prosper and thrive, like a loaf rising with yeast. He sees himself instead in terms of a dull, sour, indigestible dough or bread, which can never rise. This hopelessness is what he imagines the “lost”---the damned in Hell---must feel, only worse.
Hopkin’s profoundly personal, innovative and passionate exploitation of language, his celebrating of the energy and beauty of the created world, as well as his profound religious Faith, make his poetry compelling, original and timeless.
HOPKIN’S THEMES:
The variety, diversity, energy of nature overseen by a unifying Divine presence,
Highly distinctive use of language---unusual word patterns and sentence structure, multiple assonance, alliteration, multiple word-meanings, neologism.
Energy, movement in his poetry to mirror the ever-changing, ever-renewing pattern of nature
His environmental concerns, that trade and industry would destroy the beautiful, uninhabited wilderness “O let them be left” “Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet”
His great powers of observation. He really “sees” the natural world, he looks closely at things, and describes their very essence---their inscape--- in perfect detail
His glorifying of God---“O my Chevalier!”-- in the beauty and power of His created world
His delight in the natural world. His joy, his breathless outpouring of words to express this joy and admiration
His sense of the unique individuality, the selfhood, the “inscape” of all things.
His “dark night of the soul”---the spiritual torment and mental pain expressed in his “Terrible Sonnets”
Hopkins was one of the most original and innovative of all English poets. As a convert to Roman Catholicism and a Jesuit priest, he had a passionate belief in the divine energy at work in nature. As a nature poet he is moved to ecstasy, wonder and awe at the beauty of God’s creation. Working as a priest in the grim, industrial towns of Northern England he became depressed by their squalor, poverty and ugliness. He was a conservationist and mourned the destruction of the wild beauty of nature by the Industrial Revolution, During his years teaching in University College Dublin he felt isolated and exiled, burdened by the drudgery of his work. It was during this time that he wrote the “Terrible Sonnets”. These are profoundly pessimistic poems, full of mental and spiritual torment, and a sense of the soul abandoned by God. In some of his poems, “The Windhover” for example, there is a perfect fusion between the natural and the divine.
Hopkins in his poetry praises and glorifies God, and celebrates the uniqueness and individuality of all living things. He sees the spirit of God at work in the universe, “All things are charged with God”. He uses a new critical language to express this:
INSCAPE: The uniqueness, individuality, self-hood of all living things. The order, pattern, unique beauty at the heart of things. The very essence of things. For Hopkins everything had its own inscape—its essence, its marked individuality. For example, he inscapes the flight of the falcon for us by catching its very essence, in new, unusual words. INSTRESS: The force of energy which keeps all things in existence. The divine energy which animates all things “The world is charged with the grandeur of God / It will flame out like shining from shook foil” SPRUNG RHYTHM: A new metre which Hopkins created to free up his poetry and to bring it closer to the sound of natural speech. In this new metre, the stresses, not the syllables are counted.
Hopkins was an innovator and an experimenter with words and word combinations. He exploited the language in new, exciting ways: piling up adjectives “dapple-dawn-drawn”. Inventing new words (neologism), like “twindles” or “windhover”. Using unusual word-patterns which still catch the exact meaning “rolling level underneath him steady air”. Using multiple alliteration “long and lovely and lush”, multiple assonance “bleared, smeared with oil”. The music and rhythm created by this assonance and multiple alliteration give a speed, urgency and energy to his poetry: “Degged with dew, dappled with dew / Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through” This beautifully describes the rushing, sparkling stream tumbling down the mountainside. Or here, in the description of Spring: “That blue is all in a rush / With richness; the racing lambs….” By using language in this new exciting way, Hopkins shows us the world from a fresh, original viewpoint. The world is not dull and predictable. It is on fire with the spirit of God. It is being renewed from moment to moment.
Hopkins favoured the sonnet form, as this imposed a discipline on his ecstatic rush of words, and gave him a framework for his breathless, emotional outpouring. For example, God’s Grandeur is a perfect Petrarchan sonnet, divided into octet and sestet, with the description in the octet, and the reflection or commentary in the sestet. The rhyme scheme too is traditional abba, abba, cd, cd, cd.
In SPRING, for example, there is a mirroring of nature in the movement of the poem “when weeds in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush” “What is all this juice and all this joy?” “The racing lambs too have fair their fling” We can sense the young, fresh energy and the abundant growth of Spring in the alliteration, and in the unusual word pattern of “fair their fling”. All the joy, sound, colour and movement of Spring are captured here---the thrush’s eggs, blue like “low heavens”, the thrush’s song which with double meaning “wrings” the ear, the shooting weeds, the racing lambs. Even weeds are celebrated as they represent nature at its most free. There is a sense of breathless excitement, typical of Hopkins, in the leaving out of the word “like” in “Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens”. Alliteration speeds up the poem and adds to its energy “ all in a rush with richness”. Everything is growing, blooming, young. There is new life everywhere. Hopkins really looks at nature and describes it in detail “the glassy pear tree” with the blue sky behind “they brush the descending blue”. The sestet is more reflective and opens with a question “What is all this juice and all this joy?” He asks God to preserve the world in its perfect, young, innocent state “In Eden garden” He wants God to protect the innocent sinlessness of the young before their purity and innocence “cloud” or turn “sour” with sinning. The unspoiled beauty of Spring, and the innocence of youth are worth preserving “thy choice and worth the winning”
THE WINDHOVER is a hymn of praise to the glory and power of God as revealed in the falcon’s soaring morning flight. The sonnet is full of admiration, wonder and awe at the beauty and power of the falcon, which stands as a symbol for Christ. The falcon hovers above the earth “riding” the wind, fighting it, hanging motionless in the air. The falcon is the “morning’s minion”, (minion= darling), the darling of the morning, the young prince of the dawn , ruling the great kingdom of the skyway “kingdom of daylight’s dauphin” (dauphin= a young prince). Note the unusual word pattern in “the rolling level underneath him steady air” This perfectly captures the falcon’s leaning into the wind, holding himself in tension, “riding” the wind as if he were on horseback. The falcon swoops down on his prey with a magnificent movement like the swish of a skater’s heel describing a graceful arc on ice, “As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow bend ” The falcon fights against the wind –“rebuffed”—like Christ riding out on horseback to conquer evil, a knight (“chevalier”) in shining armour. He is full of ecstatic admiration for the beautiful bird “My heart….stirred for a bird”
Fire and morning sunlight seem to break from the falcon’s wings. The poet breaks into a prayer of praise, uniting Christ and the falcon in his joyful celebration “O my Chevalier!”. BUCKLE has two meanings, it represents a coming together, a uniting. The whole scene comes together before the poet’s eyes in perfect unity---the sky, the plumage of the bird, the pride and beauty of his flight “air, pride plume….”. But BUCKLE also means COLLAPSE. The bird seems to fall apart, to collapse, as it suddenly plummets down, swooping to earth, the morning sunlight glinting like fire on its wings, which seem to send out showers of light.
The final lines contain two images :“embers” which are the dead coals in a quenched fire, which suddenly flash into new flame “gold vermillion” . The coals fall, break up, and then spring into new life “fall, gall themselves”.. The second image is the ploughed furrow, the “plough down sillion” from which new life springs. Earthly glory is crushed to reveal Heavenly glory. From Christ’s agonising death on the cross (the red blood of his wounds “gash gold vermillion”) comes the power and beauty of the Resurrection morning, which is the central Christian event. From suffering, or even ordinary hard work and drudgery “plod” “plough down sillion” great things come. The fire and beauty of the falcon, the discipline of his flight and his fiery plunge to earth, remind the poet of the gold and scarlet (vermillion) colours of Christ the Saviour, his death on the Cross and the triumph of the Resurrection
INVERSNAID: A poem written in the Scottish Highlands which celebrates the wild, untouched beauty of that country, with its rushing streams, its dark lakes, its untamed wilderness, its rocky outcrops and its heather-covered hills. Hopkins appeals for the preservation of this beautiful, untouched landscape “O let them be left”. He asks that humans respect this wilderness and leave it alone, for other generations to enjoy. He uses Scottish words: Burn = Stream. Brae = Hill. Heathpacks= Clumps of Highland heather. Degged= Sprinkled. The “beadbonny ash” seems to be one of Hopkin’s neologisms. The ash tree has red berries, like pretty (“bonny”) beads on a necklace.
In the opening stanza Hopkins compares the brown, rushing stream to a brown horse’s back “horseback brown”. The “rollrock highroad roaring down” is an example of Hopkins breaking down the normal sentence structure to capture the exact meaning: The dark stream tumbles down over rocks as it wends its way down to the lake, just as a horse gallops down a rocky high road. In mountain hollows (“coop”), the water foams like fleece as it pours into the lake below. Note the speed and energy of the water conveyed in alliteration “the fleece of his foam flutes and low to the lake falls home”
A piece of fragile white foam twists and turns as it is blown across the surface of the brown water . This is beautifully expressed “A windpuff bonnet of fawn froth” The foam is like a lady’s white bonnet blown by the wind. Hopkins uses a new word, a neologism, to express this twisting, turning movement of the froth--- “twindles”.
A dark, menacing tone is introduced in the dangerous, dark water “…a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning / It rounds and rounds despair to drowning” This gives the impression of the danger and power of nature---a black, swirling whirlpool, caught by the menacing “ou” and “d” sounds---“round and round”…..
The sense of the sparkling, tumbling stream is perfectly captured in the music of the lines “Degged with dew, dappled with dew / Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through” The assonance and alliteration here catch the idea of a horse fancy-stepping down a rocky hillside, or of a brook tumbling down the hollows (groins) of the hills. The clumps of heather and fern flash by, as does the brooding ash tree which “sits” over the whole scene.
In the final quatrain Hopkins appeals for conservation. His plea is: leave nature alone. Leave the weeds, the unspoiled wetness and wildness of this lovely, remote place alone “Let them be left”
In GOD’S GRANDEUR, a Petrarchan sonnet, we see Hopkins the conservationist lamenting the destruction of God’s created world, by human activity “generations have trod have trod” The repetition of “have trod” points to the drudgery and futility of man’s actions, especially after the Industrial Revolution. The “trade” and “toil”(work) of industry have exacted a terribly high price. The world is “charged with the grandeur of God”, that is, it is electrified, it is on fire with the divine spirit which is in danger of being ignored. The fire and power given off by divine energy is beautifully captured in the simile “It will flame out; like shining from shook foil” he word “light” is left out here as Hopkins rushes to express the speed and fire of “shook foil”. There is a disgust at human work and activity “ooze of oil” smudge” Smeared” “..bleared, smeared with toil//And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell” We have stained the perfection of nature. We have lost contact with the natural world, and with God “How can foot feel, being shod”
The sestet is more hopeful. Nature, imbued with divine spirit will continue to renew itself “Nature is never spent”. Night falls bringing darkness, yet each new dawn, God creates His miracle afresh, bringing new hope, a new day. Nature, under divine guidance, has this wonderful power of renewal. Hopkins is consoled that the world is in God’s protection. The Holy Spirit---the Dove---shields and shelters like a bird protecting her young “The Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast”
I WAKE AND FEEL THE FELL OF DARK is one of the “Terrible Sonnets” which Hopkins wrote during his exile in Dublin, where the drudgery of his work in UCD, and his personal isolation triggered what we would now recognize as severe depression. There is a sense of spiritual desolation and psychological torment in these “dark sonnets”. There is also the sense of the soul abandoned by God. He is in great mental pain, the darkest depths of despair. “I wake and feel the fell of dark”. “Fell” in one of its meanings, refers to the fur or the pelt of an animal. The sense of darkness suffocating him, like a silent, terrifying presence in the room, is very vivid. Early waking we now also recognize as a sign of depression. Darkness is all about him. The only mention of daylight is the “light’s delay”.
He longs for light, the light of day, the light of hope, but there is nothing to comfort him.
He cries out to God, but his prayers are unanswered. There is only silence. God is not near. ”Dearest him that lives, alas away.” His cries are like “dead letters”, that is, unanswered letters. His sufferings have extended over years, over life.
The sestet is full of bitterness and self-disgust. “I am gall…” (Crucifixion reference) He has to face up to his own hated self “My taste was me”. The “selfyeast of spirit” refers to his inability to rise to his circumstances, to prosper and thrive, like a loaf rising with yeast. He sees himself instead in terms of a dull, sour, indigestible dough or bread, which can never rise. This hopelessness is what he imagines the “lost”---the damned in Hell---must feel, only worse.
Hopkin’s profoundly personal, innovative and passionate exploitation of language, his celebrating of the energy and beauty of the created world, as well as his profound religious Faith, make his poetry compelling, original and timeless.
HOPKIN’S THEMES:
The variety, diversity, energy of nature overseen by a unifying Divine presence,
Highly distinctive use of language---unusual word patterns and sentence structure, multiple assonance, alliteration, multiple word-meanings, neologism.
Energy, movement in his poetry to mirror the ever-changing, ever-renewing pattern of nature
His environmental concerns, that trade and industry would destroy the beautiful, uninhabited wilderness “O let them be left” “Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet”
His great powers of observation. He really “sees” the natural world, he looks closely at things, and describes their very essence---their inscape--- in perfect detail
His glorifying of God---“O my Chevalier!”-- in the beauty and power of His created world
His delight in the natural world. His joy, his breathless outpouring of words to express this joy and admiration
His sense of the unique individuality, the selfhood, the “inscape” of all things.
His “dark night of the soul”---the spiritual torment and mental pain expressed in his “Terrible Sonnets”