Glorious

My thesis is that Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem God’s Grandeur is about the positive and negative aspects of the relationship between humans and God, and that Hopkins uses the motif of nature to illustrate this relationship.

In the first paragraph of my Blog Post 2, I attempt to reveal the positive, uplifting sentiment given off by Hopkins’ description of God in the first tercet of his poem.  The author compares God’s greatness to the “shining of shook foil” (2). In the footnotes he goes on to explain that he “mean[s] foil in a sense of a leaf” and this leads me to automatically connect with nature. In fact, as I go on to explain, a whole scene emerges in my head thanks to that simple four-word phrase.

Later in the first paragraph I analyze another natural depiction that Hopkins uses to demonstrate the magnificence of God – “the ooze of oil Crushed” (3-4). In the footnotes once again an explanation is given for this particular word choice: “as when olives are crushed for their oil”. I do not think that the use of olives as a visual in a short poem about God is a coincidence. I go on to suggest the parallel of the olive branch in the Bible, implying the positive connotation of the plant can be representative of the positive illustration of God in these first four lines.

I find it fitting that the author compares God’s glory to nature, because God created nature, and in my opinion it is his most glorious creation. Then, when Hopkins transitions into the next four lines, and unmistakably becomes more negative, he is talking about generations of humans. God created humans as well, though I would not say we are remotely close to glorious.

In the second paragraph of my Blog Post 2 I analyze the critical portrayal Hopkins writes of humans and their impact on the earth. Instead of words like “foil” and “oil”, he uses “toil” and “soil”. Despite the rhyme one can clearly hear the unfavorable undertone of the second two. Soil, or dirt, is the ugliest of all things natural, and that is why Hopkins uses it to describe the impact of humans.

Natural Connections with God

Throughout his poem, God’s Grandeur, Gerard Manley Hopkins develops the motif of nature. In the second line, Hopkins compares the power of God to the “shining of shook foil” which he notes is to be understood as a gleaming leaf. This paints a strong image in my mind of bright fall leaves hanging loosely on tree limbs, perhaps moist with morning dew so that when a buck sharpens his antlers against the trunk and the whole plant shakes, the leaves drift to the ground, glittering in the early sunlight. In other words, this phrase creates the feeling of an awe-inspiring, picturesque connection to God through its portrayal of a beautiful, natural image. He goes on to compare God’s greatness to the “ooze of oil Crushed” (olive oil), another natural depiction. One may even go so far as to consider the particular decision to use the image of olives because of the importance of the olive branch in the Bible.  

While Gerard Manley Hopkins first uses it to describe the holy, uplifting spirit of God, later in the poem he uses the motif of nature once again, this time to describe the negative effects of man on earth. Lines 5-8 express grudgingly how people across generations have done damage and how “the soil is bare now” (7-8), dirtied with “man’s smudge” (7) and “man’s smell” (7). Soil, often associated with dirt, is not a very pretty image firstly, and then when the ground is “trod” (5) upon and “bleared, smeared with [the] toil” (6) of humans, the negative connotation is evident. The author uses these vivid words and ties to the unattractive side of nature to represent how humans are abusing the world and do not have enough respect for God anymore. Hopkins uses the motif of nature in his poem God’s Grandeur to describe both positive and negative aspects of the relationship between humans and God.

Sonnets, Tweets, and Rhyming

There are both similarities and differences between Petrarch’s Sonnet XXXV and a tweet or a novel. Both the sonnet and a tweet attempt to convey information to a large number of people and are looking to evoke some sort of emotional response – a small chuckle, a sympathizing nod, or a extra moment of thought on the subject. In both cases the writer has limited space in which to get his point across: either the limited number of lines in a sonnet or the limited number of characters in a tweet. However, a major difference between the two is that Petrarch spent much more time and took a lot more care in writing his sonnets than any celebrity or individual does with their tweets today. In this way a sonnet is more similar to a novel – something that goes through many drafts before publication and is tampered with until it is perfect.

In Petrarch’s Sonnet XXXV the “problem” is that he is alone, however he doesn’t seem to think of it as much of a problem at all.  From what I understand, the subject wants to get away from people to hide what he is feeling inside, but in doing so realizes he cannot hide from himself. Rhyming is not the most significant element in this sonnet. Many of the words do rhyme, but it is not evident when the poem is read out loud because of the punctuation (for example, strand/sand, dark/mark, and me/gaiety). ‘Learn’ and ‘burn’ are the only two that really stand out to me as a clear rhyme, but they still don’t have an apparent relationship.  The first eight lines of this sonnet are made up of two quatrains and then the mood of the poem changes with the last six lines, comprised of two tercets. The last tercet is my favorite stanza out of all three sonnets we discussed in class this week – it definitely concludes the poem in a beautiful manner and leaves the reader (me) happily satisfied.