Gerard Manley Hopkins.
English – Poetry Revision Notes
Covering:
-
God’s Grandeur
Spring
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame
The Windhover
Pied Beauty
Felix Randal
Inversnaid
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day
No worst there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
© irevise.com 2016
1 Gerard Manley Hopkins – Poetry English Revision notes.
© irevise.com 2016.
All revision notes have been produced by mockness ltd for irevise.com.
Email: [email protected]
Copyrighted material.
All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
reprinting, or otherwise without either the prior written permission of irevise.com or a license
permitting copying in the United Kingdom issued by the copyright licensing Agency.
2 Gerard Manley Hopkins – Poetry English Revision notes.
Table of Contents
God’s Grandeur ....................................................................................................................... 5
Summary ......................................................................................................................................... 5
Annotation ...................................................................................................................................... 6
Spring ..................................................................................................................................... 9
Summary ......................................................................................................................................... 9
Annotation .................................................................................................................................... 10
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame.................................................................... 13
Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 13
Annotation .................................................................................................................................... 14
The Windhover ..................................................................................................................... 16
Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 16
Annotation .................................................................................................................................... 17
Pied Beauty........................................................................................................................... 20
Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 20
Annotation .................................................................................................................................... 21
Felix Randal .......................................................................................................................... 24
Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 24
Annotation .................................................................................................................................... 25
Inversnaid ............................................................................................................................. 27
Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 27
Annotation .................................................................................................................................... 28
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day ................................................................................. 30
Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 30
Annotation .................................................................................................................................... 31
No worst there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief ................................................................. 34
Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 34
Annotation .................................................................................................................................... 35
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend................................................................................... 37
Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 38
Annotation .................................................................................................................................... 38
Sample Answers .................................................................................................................... 40
3 Gerard Manley Hopkins – Poetry English Revision notes.
4 Gerard Manley Hopkins – Poetry English Revision notes.
HOPKINS, Gerard Manley (2015-2018)
Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet, convert
to Catholicism, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame established him among the
leading Victorian poets. His manipulation of prosody (particularly his invention of sprung
rhythm) and his use of imagery established him after his death as an innovative writer of
religious verse.
God’s Grandeur
Text
God’s Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Summary
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 glintings of light produced by metal foil
when rumpled or quickly moved.
Alternatively, God’s presence is a rich oil, a kind of sap 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 within the octave describes the state of contemporary human life—the
blind repetitiveness of human labor, and the sordidness 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
5 Gerard Manley Hopkins – Poetry English Revision notes.
the physical connection between our feet and the earth they walk on, symbolizing an everincreasing spiritual alienation 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 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.
Annotation
God’s Grandeur (splendour and impressiveness, especially of appearance or style)
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Line 1


‘The world’, according to the poem’s speaker, ‘is charged’ – energized with God’s
energy and beauty.
Duty is another implication of the word charged’ and a strong one in this poem. It
implies a caretaker, or protector, or even guardian role. The world is responsible for
taking care of this force of nature.
Line 2



‘Flame out’ suggests that the world’s beauty will spread like fire to consume
everything in the world. ‘Flame’ also has more negative, destructive connotations.
Line two features a complicated simile. The speaker says that the charged world is
temporary. One day the lights will go out, similar to the way the light appears and
then goes out of ‘foil’ when it’s shaken.
Hopkins says that the image of ‘shook foil’ was inspired by tinsel, metal leaf, and
sheet lightening, and fork lightening.
6 Gerard Manley Hopkins – Poetry English Revision notes.