Reverend Father Gerard Manley Hopkins was English poet from the Victorian Age. He became critically acclaimed after his death, and his fame was grounded mainly from his use of imagery in his poems, given that he was from a period of highly traditional writing. Hopkins’ religious poems featured ones that were “light” and ones that were “dark”, which he used to exemplify his conflict between faith and doubt. “God’s Grandeur” is one of his light poems, and “I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day” is one of his dark poems, and a comparison between the two will show just how strong his conflict really was. “God’s Grandeur” is a poem that embraces the grace and glory of God in everything, and is certainly an example of his strong faith in God. Imagery is found from the very beginning of the poem. “The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” and “charged” here is very significant because it is a metaphor symbolizing the world being engulfed with God’s electricity (ll. 1). Electricity is a primary source for us as humans, which makes this an image of light associated with faith found in a single word in the first line alone. The second says that the electricity “will flame out, like shining from shook foil” (ll. 2). Line 2’s simile now connects with line 1’s metaphor as it further describes the metaphor. Moreover, if one has ever seen how light hits shook foil, then it becomes easy to understand the imagery because it glimmers so much. This enhances the relationship Hopkins establishes between images of light and his strong Christian faith. The imagery found in this poem is not only related to light or dark – however, the images do still allude to how great a god God is and how he is worthy of praise. The aforementioned grandeur... ... middle of paper ... ... when he says the aforementioned “‘taste’ was me” (himself) (ll. 10). He then gives a very depressing description of a being cursed with no holiness, and he attributes this to all non-believers as they are called “the lost” in the Bible (ll. 13). Hopkins finally says with his last two lines that he is just like “the lost” with their troubles to deal with, except he is worse (ll. 13). Gerard Manley Hopkins was certainly very descriptive and passionate with his conflict between faith and doubt. His imagery, while at times a little hard to understand, does explain exactly how he is feeling at a given point in time from line to line. His imagery is quite varied and while they can easily be read just as fluff to add to the poem, they are really representations of the difficulties he faced with confronting religion as a true entity or just a belief we all like to have.
During the time both the poem and sermon were written people believed different things and lived differently. Jonathan Edwards and Phyllis Wheatley wrote with reference to the way people thought in their society, they wrote about what people believed, for example, Phyllis Wheatley rarely mentioned god but Jonathan Edwards only talked about God and the reason for that was because during Rationalism people believed god did not interfere with people through miracles, he created everything and everything in nature has the ability to be explained by natural laws; with Edwards people did everything for god, to basically please him due to the fact that during that time period God was involved in their daily lives. To them if you were a sinner you
Yet the Reverend also uses the word 'beautiful' and appreciates the wonders of the natural world. Certainly, a sense of something beyond the pragmatic permeates Maclean?s story. This ?something? is incarnated in Paul, who obviously does not conform to a narrowly-defined description of a ?good Christian.? He is a rabblerouser adrift in the world, a sophisticated ladies? man and gambler who squanders what is seemingly ample journalistic talent. Paul, however, is also effortlessly artistic, able to break free of his father?s strict fishing instructions to create his own poetry with a rod. Surely, something holy must reside in the sheer, effortless beaut...
Imagery of light is used in Fisher’s collection of poems to symbolize positive facets of a life lived in poverty. People living in poverty are not given all the basic necessities required to live comfortably. Many impoverished persons are malnourished due to lack of resources such as sufficient food or appropriate clothing. The lack of living essentials and the inability to afford everything that they desire provides people living in poverty with a greater appreciation for small acts of kindness. Many of the poems in Fishers collection show aspects of the poor being grateful for the little things in life. One of the poems shows a little girl being extremely appreciative of something every...
“All experiences shone differently because a God glowed from them; all decisions and prospects concerning the different as well, for one had oracles and secret signs and believed in prophecy. ‘Truth’ was formerly experienced differently because the lunatic could be considered its mouthpiece”
Callahan, John F.“The Rhetoric of Intamacy and Immensity” in Bloom, Harold ed. Modern Critical Interpretations, Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. New York: Chelsea House, 1987
This poem helps us to recognize and appreciate beauty through its dream sequence and symbolism. The poem opens with the Dreamer describing this
The imagery of nature and humanity intermingling presents Blake's opinion on the inborn, innate harmony between nature and man. The persona of the poem goes on to express the `gentle streams beneath our feet' where `innocence and virtue meet'. This is where innocence dwells: synchronization with nature, not synchronization with industry where `babes are reduced to misery, fed with a cold usurous hand' as in the experienced version of `Holy Thursday'. The concept of the need for the individual's faithfulness to the laws of nature and what is natural is further reiterated in `the marriage of heaven and hell' in plate 10 where Blake states `where man is not, nature is barren'. The most elevated form of nature is human nature and when man resists and consciously negates nature, `nature' becomes `barren'. Blake goes on to say `sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires'. This harks back to `the Songs of Innocence' `A Cradle Song' where the `infants smiles are his own smiles'. The infant is free to act out its desires as it pleases. It is unbound, untainted. Blake's concern is for the pallid and repressed, subjugated future that awaits the children who must `nurse unacted desires' and emotions in this new world of industrialisation. Despairingly, this is restated again in `the mind-forg'd manacles' of `London'. The imagery of the lambs of the `Songs of Innocence' `Introduction' is developed in `the Chimney Sweeper' into the image of `Little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, that curl'd like a lamb's back, was shav'd'.
Stevens used his skill of language to hone in on his disbelief of a life after this one and to total denouncement the presents of god in each and every one of us in his work of art “Sunday morning” .Or did he? Art was Stevens’ religion. Stevens used three things to express his premise feeling about the fairy tale about god and anything that had surrounded the notation of his existence. Those three things were Symbolism, Imagery and Wordplay. The combination of these literary devices allowed Stevens to intimately connect with each of his readers allowing them a glimpse into his mind without giving too much. .Using lots a word play allowed Stevens to get away with murder in his poem “Sunday morning” there was nothing that Christ himself could do about the rather touchy debt of the father god. Webs of religious questioning were weaved within the poem so graceful and effortlessly. Stevens used beautiful imagery too rival the questioning attitude he’s invoked inside his readers. Steven’s rather attractive symbolism allowed the reader to become invested in what they believe they had read meant.
A Divine Image gives human characteristics to the feelings of cruelty, jealousy, terror, and secrecy. The poem begins, "Cruelty has a human heart...
The theme of authority is possibly the most important theme and the most popular theme concerning William Blake’s poetry. Blake explores authority in a variety of different ways particularly through religion, education and God. Blake was profoundly concerned with the concept of social justice. He was also profoundly a religious man. His dissenting background led him to view the power structures and legalism that surrounded religious establishments with distrust. He saw these as unwarranted controls over the freedom of the individual and contrary to the nature of a God of liberty. Figures such as the school master in the ‘schoolboy’, the parents in the ‘chimney sweeper’ poems, the guardians of the poor in the ‘Holy Thursday’, Ona’s father in ‘A Little girl lost’ and the priestly representatives of organised religion in many of the poems, are for Blake the embodiment of evil restriction.
In doing this, the usher of the church on “Fifth Avenue,” abandoned someone less fortunate in order to maintain a good appearance. This “house of God,” which should be opening its doors to give a he lping hand, turns away a man in need of help. Hughes shows betrayal in the same poem, when the less fortunate man asks St. Peter if he can stay. St. Peter replies, “You ca...
...near the earthly warmth and materialistic passions and to coagulate and fall if near the heavenly chill and spiritual abstinence. By repeatedly manipulating this image pattern of the clouds as the medium between heaven and earth, Joyce tirelessly illustrate the nature of artistry as the compromise between the abstemious religion and the materialistic agnosticism.
“God is a perfect poet” (Robert Browning). Everything which He does is closely linked. He creates the world, makes human, gives them a chance to live, helps them when they need, and challenges their belief in Him. His challenges can lead them to be a hero or a villain. Heroes and villains are two antagonistic poles. They parallel coexist in the life and create the balanced world. While heroes symbolize hopes and goodness, villains represent evil and hell on Earth. Although the meaning of them is quite opposite, a boundary between heroes and villains is so fragile. The reason why the partition object is not firm is because always having a hero and a villain exist inside everyone. Consequently, people have to choose a role which they want to be in their life. Obviously, most of people will want to be a hero; but if heroes’ actions are illegal, are they called heroes? Yes, they are still the heroes because their goal is creating a better life and law is not always right.
The poem begins by painting a hopeless and cold portrait of the environment experienced by the speaker. It is winter time and the frost is “specter gray” (2), implying filthy snow, probably from the pollution due to the new factories created in industrialization and urbanization. Not the beautiful white snow they were used to. Nothing had a glimpse of hope or beauty anymore, not even the bine of the plants; the speaker describes them as “strings of broken lyres” (6). Lyres are often associated with Greek gods or angels. However in the poem he illustrates the destruction of the land using this metaphor of the broken strings, something use to be beautiful. The streets are bare and “all mankind” (7) has retreat back home and “sought their household fire” (8).
The final stanza of the poem concludes that God’s compassion for the human being, his creation, has the power to rid us of our suffering. God will not desert us, and will in fact “sit by us and moan” when we suffer.