The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Reverence to God and Distance from Self

In his works, Hopkins presents a dichotomy between a religious piety found uniquely in nature and a state of separation from God, one that results in the loss of religious self. In his early works, Hopkins portrays this religious reverence and penetrating insight into the divine and pure. Through a spate of visual imagery reminiscent of the lush and varied nature, Hopkins attracts attention to the physical beauty. Moreover, it is through verticality metaphors and plays on sound patterns that Hopkins translates natural beauty to a spiritual oneness, a deep regard for God. Yet, in his later stages of life, Hopkins shifts to a more aimless state, one in which the repetition and verticality change from connection to separation and only enhance the hapless mood and feeling of desolation.

In his earlier works, Hopkins presents a state of renewal that bridges the outer beauty and the inner inscape, a dominant characteristic only to be enhanced by the unity of imagery. In “Spring,” Hopkins employs much seemingly varied and “lush” visual imagery from the bottom “little low heavens” to the ascending, aural imagery of “echoing timber,” until the final “bloom” in the leaves, ending in the more profound “descending blue.” What initially develops into an imagery laden description only serves to present a full inscape, or as a unique form resembling God’s work (Chevingy 142), of the senses (as the auditory and visual senses combine to form an emergent bridge from physical to symbolic). Such sublime experience in the reverence to God is only furthered by the third person omniscient point of view, as the speaker is detached and able to revere the physical and spiritual beauty. Moreover, while remaining detached, Hopkins employs the verticality...

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...physical structure of the poem and the symbolic patterns that it portends. In this case it refers to the resurfacing of the Sun, or symbol of god’s radiant presence, after the speaker’s horrid description of man’s misery and “toil” (a direct result of the loss of devoutness), what is supposed to represent the temporary lack of god’s radiance and thus a symbolic night.

Word Count: 2,000

Works Cited

Chevigny, Bell. "Instress and Devotion in the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins." Victorian Poetry 9.2 (1965): 141-153. Print.

Salmon, Richard. "Prayers of Praise and Prayers of Petition: Simultaneity in the Sonnet World of Gerard Manley Hopkins." Victorian Poetry 22.4 (1984): 383-406. Print.

Wolfe, Patricia. "The Paradox of Self: A Study of Hopkins' Spiritual Conflict in the

"Terrible" Sonnets." Victorian Poetry 6.2 (1968): 85-103. Print.