Rachael Bradley
English 320A Essay
Christian Themes in Modern/Contemporary British and Irish Poetry
One of the main, reoccurring characteristics that I have noticed this semester
while studying modern and contemporary British and Irish poetry is the theme of
religion and spirituality. This theme is present in a large amount of the poems we
studied, and though, of course, it does not appear in all of them, it is still apparent
that religion, specifically Christianity, plays a large part in this collection of British
and Irish Poetry.
The one of the very first poems covered in this class already quite obviously
contains the theme of religion and spirituality. God’s Grandeur, by Gerald Manley
Hopkins, describes the grace of God. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word
“grandeur” as “splendor and impressiveness, especially of appearance or style, high
rank or social importance.” This definition is appropriate when looking at the
content of the poem. It begins with the line “The world is charged with the grandeur
of God” (page 15 line 1). This line appropriately sets the tone of the poem as one of
awe and reverence. After describing how the grandeur of God is flaming and shining,
Hopkins describes the hard working life of men, painting a picture that stands in
stark contrast to the shining grandeur of the previous sentence – repeats “have trod,
have trod, have trod” (page 15 line 5) to highlight the repetitiveness of labor, and
follows this line with one that contains words like “smeared,” “bleared,” “smudge”
and “soil” (page 15 line 6). These all provide the image of hard work and labor.
Hopkins brings the poem back around to God by concluding it with the image of “the
Holy Ghost” (page 15 line 13) shielding the mortal world from harm, and caring for
it. Many of the poems we covered in this course use the word God, and it is usually
safe to assume the author is referring to the Christian God, but in this that point is
made explicit. The Holy Ghost is a Christian idea, and it solidifies the assumption
that is poem carries themes of Christianity. He then uses the metaphor of a mother
bird, using the word “brooding” and giving the image of God a warm breast and
bright wings.
Other poems by Gerald Manley Hopkins are also religious in nature. The
Windhover begins with “To Christ Our Lord.” This is another example of explicit
Christianity – rather than just saying “Lord” or “God,” Hopkins uses the name
“Christ.” In Pied Beauty, he starts with “Glory be to God for dappled things…” (page
17 line 1) and ends with “Praise him.” (page 17 line 11)
William Butler Yeats authored a huge array of poems, and many of them
contain the theme of religion as well. The Second Coming is a poem that contains this
theme even just within the title, which refers to the second coming of Jesus Christ –
a Christian figure. Within the poem, he expresses his excitement for the event,
saying, “Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming!” (page 40 line 10)
He also uses the phrase “That twenty centuries of stony sleep.” (page 40 line 19)
This is in reference to the two millennia of Christianity. Through phrases like this,
Yeats specifies that his poetry is not only religious in nature, but also Christian in
nature.
Poet Thomas Hardy also incorporates religious themes into his poems. In
Hap, he speaks of a vengeful god looking down from above, and in Neutral Tones, he
describes the sun as white, “as though chidden of God,” (page 3 line 2) and then later
as a “God-curst sun” (page 3 line 15). His poem The Darkling Thrush can be
interpreted as loaded with religious themes. The line “so little cause for caroling of
such ecstatic sound was written on terrestrial things afar or nigh around” (page 5
line 25) is significant, because due to the use of the world “terrestrial” there is an
implied “extraterrestrial,” or something not of this world. This foreign thing could
be a god or gods, for gods are something not of the “mortal” world (in most
religions). Also, the word hope is capitalized (as “Hope”) mimicking the way that the
bible capitalizes Him, He, and God. Further, the word “evensong” (page 5 line 19) is
used, meaning a church service held just before sunset, adding on to the list of
religious language. A possible interpretation for this poem is that Hardy is making
observations on religion – that despite the (spiritual) bleakness of the world, those
who have religion, and thus hope, are able to remain optimistic and positive, rather
than let the emptiness of the world bring them down. (For them, the world is not
empty.)
Genesis by Geoffrey Hill is laden with very obvious religious themes. First off,
the title owes its namesake to the Book of Genesis, the first book in the Christian Old
Testament. The Book of Genesis begins with the tale of the world’s creation, as
dictated by God, over a period of six days, with the seventh being one of rest.
Geoffrey Hill seems to have drawn inspiration from the Book of Genesis, for after the
first line, in which the narrator strides “Against the burly air…crying the miracles of
God,” (page 567 line 1) the poem follows a timespan of six days, just like the six days
God spent creating the world. On the sixth day, the narrator of the poem rides “in
haste about the works of God” (page 568 line 36) Towards the conclusion of this
poem, Hill draws on the Christian belief that Jesus Christ died for the sins of
humanity, saying “And by Christ’s blood are men made free.” (page 568 line 42)
Geoffrey Hill also authored a poem titled History As Poetry, which draws on
religious, Christian elements. The poem begins with the line “Poetry as salutation:
taste Of Pentecost’s ashen feast” (page 569 line 1). The word Pentecost stands out as
religious in nature, for Pentecost is a Christian holiday commemorating “the coming
of the Holy Spirit on the early followers of Jesus.” Further, the name “Lazarus” is
mentioned in the next stanza – “Lazarus mystified, common man of death” (page
569 line 5). In Christian belief, Lazarus was a man restored to life by Jesus after four
days of being dead. Also, within this poem Hill uses the word “Selah!” (page 570 line
10). This word is an exclamation found often at the end of verses in the Bible. By
incorporating this word – a word with no other possible connotation besides a
biblical one – Hill makes sure his audience is aware that his poem is religious
(specifically Christian) in nature.
W.H. Auden has a reputation as a poet who often wrote poetry shaped by his
Christian beliefs. He was a member of the Anglican Church, having grown up in an
Anglo-Catholic family (Mendelson, Auden and God). Thus, Christian ideas and
themes seep into his poetry, whether they were intentional or not. For example,
Musee des Beaux Arts at first glance seems like a fairly secular poem, describing his
thoughts as he looks upon the famous painting. In reality however, the poem has
string Christian undertones. The mention of “the miraculous birth” (page 313 line 6)
is the first mention of religion, referring to the Immaculate Conception and birth of
Jesus Christ to the Virgin Mary. He also refers to “the dreadful martyrdom” (page
313 line 10), which is reminiscent of Jesus Christ’s connotation as a martyr. The
overall message of the poem has to do with human indifference to suffering – Auden
uses the example of Icarus, falling to his death, as “everything turns away quite
leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may have heard the splash, the forsaken
cry, but for him it was not an important failure.” (Page 313, line 14) Auden seems to
be condemning this idea of indifference to suffering, which echoes the very Christian
belief of “love thy neighbor” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto
you.” (Luke 6:31)
Some poetry is not so straightforward in its religious theme. For example, D.
H. Lawrence’s poem Snake can be interpreted in many ways It never specifically
mentions anything about God or religion, but through analysis and interpretation,
one can unearth the religious elements hidden within this poem. The poem tells the
story of a man watching a snake. This snake is reminiscent of the snake in the
biblical story of Adam and Eve. The snake in this poem is referred to at one point as
“like a god”(page 103, line 45), and later as “like a king, like a king in exile,
uncrowned in the underworld, now due to be crowned again” (page 103 line 78). In
the last stanza, Lawrence calls the snake “one of the lords of life” (page 103 line 71).
With these descriptions, as well as the fact that snakes are often associated with evil,
it is not a far leap to think of this snake as representing the devil. The snake also
retreats into “blackness…the burning bowels of the earth…that horrid black
hole…the black hole, the earth lipped fissure in the wall” (page 102-103 line 20, line
52, line 60) This image can easily be imagined to be this devilish snake returning to
hell. The man in Snake endures a moral struggle on how to react and deal with this
snake. He is drawn to it, attracted to its majesty, but he knows that the acceptable
thing to do would be to kill it, for he knows that it is poisonous. He hears voices in
his head telling him “If you were a man, you would take a stick and break him now,
and finish him off” (page 102 line 25). But the man confesses that he likes the snake,
and thus is unsure what to do. This moral quandary can be interpreted as religious,
for it mimics the struggle that humanity endures between Heaven and Hell, good
and evil.
A Letter to John Donne by C.H. Sisson was written in response to a sermon
preached by Donne, a poet himself, in 1617, so even just taking the context of the
poem into consideration, it is already clear that the poem will be religious in nature
to at least some extent. Sisson begins the poem addressing Donne, referring to him
as a “man of ability, eaten by lust and the love of God” (page 390 line 3). In the
fourth stanza he draws on the biblical story of Adam and Eve, speaking again of lust.
What is so striking about this poem is the juxtaposition of pure, religious imagery,
and sexual, physical imagery (in his own words, he contrasts “body and soul.”)
Sisson contrasts speaking about the “love of God,” and the “Church of god,” to
speaking of “genitals,” a “rutting stag,” and “a morbid sex.” He then inserts what
seems to be insight directed at John Donne when he says “The love of God comes
readily to those who have most need” (page 390 line 23). John Donne himself was a
Catholic, and the mention of Christ in the last stanza of the poem reaffirms the
poems Christian nature.
When thinking about the connections between this collection of British and
Irish modern/contemporary poetry written by a wide array of poets, it is clear that
the theme of religion is present. More specifically that simply religion, Christian
ideas and motifs play a part in these poems and provide a lens through which to
analyze the poetry. Through mentions of God, Lord, or Jesus Christ and references
to biblical stories such as Adam and Eve and the Book of Genesis, Christian religion
is prominent and a large part of what characterizes modern and contemporary
British and Irish poetry.
Works Cited
Tuma, Keith. Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry. New York:
Oxford UP, 2001. Print.
Mendelson, Edward. "Auden and God." The New York Review of Books. N.p., n.d. Web.
07 Dec. 2015.