God's Grandeur
-G.M. Hopkins
About Poet:
God’s Grandeur is a fine religious poem written by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Though Hopkins lived and wrote in the 19th century, he is one of the leaders the modernist movement in poetry. His poem too, were published in the 20th century, first by Bridges in 1918 and then by Charles William in 1930.Hopkins was influenced at oxford by john Henry Newman and he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1866 and became a Jesuit two years later.
Introduction to the poem:
This is an Italian (petrarchan) sonnet. A sonnet is a fourteen- line poem divided into two parts.
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About the Poem: (summary)
This is an Italian sonnet (a poem of 14 lines). In this poem Hopkins praises the magnificence and glory of God in the world. The poem is about the presence of god in the world, existence of the nature, and behaviors of human beings. In the beginning of the poem the poet says that this world is filled with energy and power of god. God’s magnificence is spread all over the world. He also questions that many generations have passed in this world and everything on the earth has been made useless. Because of lack of divine will, human beings can’t feel the greatness of God. The world has been degraded and made ugly by commercial activity and materialistic aimed at worldly gains. He also says that human beings lose their sensitivity because of industrial activities. The earth has also been bare now but they can’t feel as that.
But in the last six lines he expresses his belief that nature is never spent .Though the surface is spoilt, the freshness is deep down the things. He also says that the brown edge in the east is springing though the blackness is in the west. In the end of the poem he says that God is spiritually active in the world with his warm affection of love, so the Holy Ghost covers protectively over the world which is bent in sleep and forgetfulness.
Use of Rhetoric:
People in the present time don’t obey God’s commands and think that the world is spoilt .The world is full of the glory of God and God is still present in this world spiritually. This poem is full of literary devices like alliteration and assonance .The words like 'seared', 'bleared', are some examples. They have added beauty in the poem .The words,” have trod” have been repeated for three times. This repetition has emphasized that many generations have passed ignoring the significance and glory of god.
Interpretation:
“God’s Grandeur” starts off with a claim: the earth is full God’s special power, God’s vitality. But the earth is ultimately temporary. The fire will go from it one day. It will reach a peak, then slowly spread, and then collapse. (This is confusing – don’t try to take Hopkins too literally. Let your imagination feel and see the images he presents).
The speaker states that the natural world is inseparable from God, but at the same time temporary. The speaker wants to know why people don’t take better care of the natural world. Why don’t they recognize and respect the power of God that is running through our environment? He says that people have been endlessly tromping and trudging through the world for so long, and now the surface of the earth is calloused and burnt over by industry. It looks blurry and out of focus with all this industry, and endless hard work covering it.
According to the speaker, we humans stunk up (causing bad smell) the earth – everything looks and smells like people, and all the bad things people do. (The speaker doesn’t sound too keen on people here.) The ground we walk on doesn’t have any flowers or trees or grass on it. And we have to wear shoes, so we can no longer feel the ground itself. We have lost our connection with the natural world.
But don’t worry – the speaker assures us – nature never stops. It’s hiding underground, like a hidden spring. And even though the sun always sets in the west bringing darkness and night, it always rises again in the east, bringing light and morning. 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.
Understanding the poem:
The first four lines of the octave (the first eight-line stanza of an Italian sonnet) describe a natural world through which God’s presence runs like an electrical current, becoming momentarily visible in flashes like the refracted(changing) glinting(flash) of light produced by metal foil (metal in thin sheet) when rumpled or quickly moved. Alternatively, God’s presence is a rich oil, a kind of sap (fluid) that wells up “to a greatness” when tapped with a certain kind of patient pressure. Given these clear, strong proofs of God’s presence in the world, the poet asks how it is that humans fail to heed (“reck”) His divine authority (“his rod”).
The second quatrain (four-line verse) within the octave describes the state of contemporary human life—the blind repetitiveness of human labor, and the sordidness (worst human nature) and stain of “toil” and “trade.” The landscape in its natural state reflects God as its creator; but industry and the prioritization of the economic over the spiritual, have transformed the landscape, and robbed humans of their sensitivity to the those few beauties of nature still left. The shoes people wear sever (put apart) the physical connection between our feet and the earth they walk on, symbolizing an ever-increasing spiritual alienation (isolation) from nature.
The sestet (the final six lines of the sonnet, enacting a turn or shift in argument) asserts that, in spite of the fallenness of Hopkins’s contemporary Victorian world, nature does not cease offering up its spiritual indices. Permeating (spreading through) the world is a deep “freshness” that testifies to the continual renewing power of God’s 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 Himself the power and promise of rebirth. With the final exclamation (“ah! bright wings”) Hopkins suggests both an awed intuition of the beauty of God’s grace, and the joyful suddenness of a hatchling bird emerging out of God’s loving incubation.
Questions-Answers
1. What is the central idea of the poem?
Ans: G.M. Hopkins’ sonnet “god’s Grandeur” forwards the idea that god is responsible for all the splendid (magnificent) things that happen in earth. Human beings do not use the earth properly. Their activities are always destructive. Because of them, the earth has seared. Bleared and smeared. The earth has lost its natural smell: there is the smell of human beings everywhere. Despite the fact, god is never angry with his creatures. He keeps on providing them with necessary things. Similarly, he provides protection to all the beings just like a bird does to its eggs or young ones.
2. What do the words seared, bleared and smeared suggest?
Ans: These words have come in the second stanza of the poem, which begins, ‘Generations have trod, have trod, have trod, and all is seared with trade; smeared, bleared with toil and wears man's smudge and shares man's smell ...’
Searing is when something is slightly burned, spoiling its surface. Searing of the skin or other body parts can create a rough scar which interferes with the body's ability to sense - i.e. with the sense of sight, taste, or touch. It damages the design of the body and disrupts the natural way it was meant to interact with the outside world.
Smearing and blearing both carry the sense of an oily or dirty stain drawn across a previously clear surface. In the case of "bleared," we usually hear the word describing ‘bleary’ vision ... the human eye or some other lens has an impurity on the surface that deforms the image we are getting through the lens.
"Seared" suggests injury. "Smeared" and "bleared" suggest dirt or pollution. All three words imply that something naturally beautiful has been damaged.
These words are the explanation for why people cannot see the grandeur of God. The first stanza has described how God's grandeur is immanent in the world and even obvious, and then asks: "Why do men then now not reck His rod?" In other words, why don't people obey Him?
Seared, smeared, and bleared give the answer. There is something about the process of surviving as a human being in this world (engaging in "trade" and "toil") that injures and makes people dirty, interfering with their ability to perceive God's glory.
3. What is the effect of the repetition of the words ‘have trod…..’
Ans: The literal meaning of the words ‘have trod’ is ‘have walked’ (ahead). The words,” have trod” have been repeated for three times. This repetition has emphasized that many generations have passed ignoring the significance and glory of god. This repetition has put emphasis on the fact that generations after generations have followed the same monotonous path of materialism ignoring the magnificence of the glory of god and life giving nature. The material attitudes and activities of human beings have replaced the divinity and spirituality in them.
4. What does the poet say in the first quatrain and in the second?
Ans: The poem is an Italian sonnet. It has two parts: octave and sestet. In the octave part, there are eight lines. The first four lines of the octave is the first quatrain and the last four line of it is the second quatrain.
The first quatrain of the octave says that the world is filled with the greatness of God. The glory and magnificence of god flames out with brightness just like the shining of the metal foil. Moreover, God’s grandeur gathers to form greatness just like the oil oozing from the pressed seeds to fill a pot. Although God is almighty and he is present everywhere, human beings have no fear of the God. They are unaware of the punishment of God. The poet asks: why don’t people follow the command of God?
The second quatrain of the octave says that generations after generations have followed the same monotonous path of materialism ignoring the magnificence of the glory of god and life giving nature. The material attitudes and activities of human beings have replaced the divinity and spirituality in them. Because of their worldly activities, the earth has become bare and smeared now. People can’t feel with their shoes on whether the earth is soft or hard. They don’t have the taste of natural beauty and bounty.
5. summarize the last six lines in a sentence.
Ans: Despite the destructive material human activities, the indestructible freshness and beauty still lie in the depth of nature because the Holy Ghost protects the world just like a bird protects its babies with its warm breast and wings.
The End
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