Gerard Manley Hopkins
Hopkins word choice for his poems were a little hard to understand at times, but the messages were good. Out of all the pieces that I read in our textbook, there were two that I liked over the others. The first one was “I wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day” and “Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord” was the second. These pieces both express the inner thoughts of Hopkins which could easily be the thoughts of anyone. But, unlike the average Joe, Hopkins articulated his thoughts with literary brilliance.
In the first piece, Hopkins opens the first stanza with the title “I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day” which a pretty powerful opening. Usually people associate waking up with mornings—and brightness—but here you have the opposite. On the surface it seems likes he’s may be talking about night time, but the darkness he’s referring to is actually the cruelty of his surroundings. He finishes that stanza speaking of the ‘hours of darkness’ which are actually years of unhappiness. He then finishes the poem, still in darkness, speaking of the ‘lost’ (souls in Hell) while speaking of his ways being worse than theirs in God’s eyes….which bring me to the second piece I liked.
Hopkins speaks of the short-comings of man in God’s just eyes. God is just and fair and all He expects us to do is work towards getting to Him. God gives blessing to those who praise Him and provide ways for those who don’t know Him to get close, but by a societal view it’s as if “sinner’s ways prosper” and “disappointment” is continuous. Hopkins also proposes the question of how thing would be if God were our enemy…something many of us wouldn’t dream of actually giving thought to. Hopkins makes it very clear that he feels as though he only a person who is weak and needs God to grow…”O thou lord of life, send my roots rain” and I respect and appreciate the acknowledgements of the two: 1. God being the provider and 2. Us needing Him to prosper, not the other way around. My only real complaint about Hopkins is the language he uses with his pieces. Aside from that, I give him two thumbs up.
3 comments:
LaDonna,
Very good explication of and comments on Hopkins's darker poems. As a creative writing major, you seemed to get more out of these poems and as a result you write a more in-depth and engaged post.
I also interpreted his hours of darkness as being years of unhappiness. Sometimes things can be so bad in our lives that we never see the daylight, even when it comes.
good job you saw the poem of God as what it really was art. Your religion did not get in the way of your insights and you gave a good insight as to how we need God and not the other way around..... Oh yea simply put if God was our foe I am pretty sure we would lose that battle.
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