God’s grandeur
An Analysis
The first four line of
the octave (first eight line stanza in Italian sonnet) describe natural world
through which God’s presence runs like an electronic current, becoming
momentarily visible in the flashes like the refracted glinting of lights
produced by metal foil when rumpled or quickly moved. Alternatively, god’s
presence is rich oil, a kind of sap that wells up “to a greatness” which tapped
with a certain kind of patient pressure. Given there, clear, strong proof of
God’s presence in the world, the poet asks how that human fail to heed (pay
attention to; listen to or reck) His divine authority (his rod).
The second quatrain
within the octave describes the state of contemporary human life - the blind
repetitiveness of human labor, and the sordidness and train of “toil” and
“trade”. The landscape in its natural state reflects God and its creator. But
industry and the prioritization of the economic over the spiritual have
transformed the landscape and robbed humans of their sensitivity to those few
beauties of nature still left. The shoes people wear saver physical connection
between our feet and the earth they walk on, symbolizing an ever-increasing
spiritual alienation from nature.
The septet (the final six lines of the sonnet,
enacting a turn or shift in argument) asserts that, in spite of the fallen of
Hopkins’s contemporary Victorian world, nature does not cease offering up its
spiritual indices (index). Permeating (fill) 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 one of the Gods’s guarding the potential of the world and
contains with Himself the power and promise of rebirth. With the final
exclamation “ah! Bright wings”, Hopkins suggests both an awed intuition (instinct;
insight) of the beauty of God’s grace, and the joyful suddenness of a hatching
bird emerging out of God loves incubation (hatching).
Simple Synopsis
The world is full of
God’s magnificence. The electrical images (charged, shining) convey danger as
well as power of God. The poet constantly emphasizes that God’s glory is hidden
except to the inquiring eye or on special occasions. In comparing the
lightening to’ shaken gold foil, he may possibly have been influenced by the
gold-leaf electroscope. The opening lines convey Hopkin’s sense of the power
·and glory of god latent in the world. The question describes what man has done
to the world that should shine with God’s grandeur. Next comes the suggestion
of ruin and dirtiness with the vowel run seared, bleared, smeared. The process is continued
by smudge and smell, which pick up the initial consonant sound ’smear’ and,
with new intensification, makes man’s smell indeed foul. One can also notice,
in Line 7, the intensifying effect in the rhyme of wears and shares and the
repetition of man’s with each: the earth is doubly infected (wears, shares)
with man’s filth (dirtiness) as it were. The first four lines thus carry the
imagery of the thunderstorm at first, the sense of brooding expectancy and then
the burst of lighting. Here, Hopkins is concerned with why other people do not
respond as he did, and the answer is suggested in the next four lines,
beginning with “Generations have trod, have trod, have trod.” Generations of
men, ignoring the miraculous quality of life, have lost touch with the grandeur
of god and become callous (heartless) to it. Their efforts have all been away
from what is most essential to them. Man has betrayed his inborn nature instead
of developing it, and has given himself up to trade, industrialization and materialism.
He has isolated himself from the sources of knowledge to be found in nature,
allowing his greed to destroy his, natural sensitivity to beauty. The poets
sweeping condemnation of 19th century industrialization comes very close to his
condemnation of man himself.”Shares man’s smell” although it could possibly
refer to smells in manufacturing, it suggests physical loathing (hateful). But
even at this stage there is hope and faith.
“And for all this, nature is never spent their lives the dearest freshness
deep down things”. Natural beauty is still a loving force to him, and a
constant reassurance of God’s concern for the world. Explicitly, Hopkins
contrasts here the beauty of nature with the ugliness of mankind’s deeds.
Thus, the poem is a
protest against the materialism of the Victorian age. Although man is greedy
and wasteful, he may still hope to be saved as long as God is there. This is an
explicitly religious poem.
1. Refer
to the summary
2. The
freshness of the nature is renewed by the rise of god early in the morning
after the night.
3. The
poem focuses on greatness of the god. The god emerges in everything small of
the world but human always negates it. Although the people of the world are
continuously destroying every natural matter, there is constant renewal of
natural beauty from the depth of the universe because god keeps on rounding the
world. The universe is the creation of God and we are the creation of universe.
4. ‘Seared’
means dried up, ‘bleared’ means dimmed and ‘smeared’ means rubbed over with
dirt. The words suggest that man has no accurate perception and vision by the
world. The world is made degraded, contaminated and made ugly by commercial
account of everything and by ill treatment of man following materialistic view
and worldy vanity.
5. The
repetition of the words ‘have trod’ highlights the commercial accounts of human
generations following worldly pleasure. Our human generations are marching on
from centuries to centuries continually and rearing, blearing and smearing the
world. So, the repetition of the word certainly expresses the human weakness in
the world.
6. What
is the theme of the poem God’s grandeur?
Glorifying
and praising god’s grandeur describes magnificence of
Omni
present god. The poet also shows contrast between beauty of the
nature
with ugliness of industrialization and commercial activity.
According
to the poet the world is filled with greatness of the
god’s
grandeur is reflected like shining from a hammered gold foil. It
also
accumulates greatness like oozing of oil from oil seeds on pressing
them.
Despite being about the glory and power of the god, human beings
are
indifferent towards god which makes the poet feel surprise. Human
beings
are following the same worthy path being un-mind full towards
god’s
power to punish them. Everything in this world has been made
ugly by
materialism and commercial activities because of human beings
involvement
in monetary gain. The freshness and beauty of nature have
been
blocked by industrial activities and fragrance of nature has been
drowning
in the foul order (bad smell) that comes from man and
machinery.
Despite
human activities tending to destroy the beauty of nature, it
remains
fresh and undestroyed through the soil is bare now because of
human
beings as destruction of natural green growth, human beings are
insensitive
to toes bareness because of their involvement in commercial
activities
like the feet which cannot feel the softness of soil because of
shoe. The
poet says that in the depth of the earth there is never ending
source of
freshness with which the nature renews itself when the spring
comes.
The poet symbolize the sun rise as the renewal of the nature like
the bird
that broods and protect us despite our unwise activities and
indifference
towards god because god’s beauty is changeless and eternal.
