Hopkins
being a keenly sensuous poet and a Roman Catholic priest at the same time his
poetry bears the unmistakable stamp of his poetic sensibility and devotional
fervour. The poet and the priest in Hopkins are often in conflict and generate
a lot of tensions. There are only a few poems in which the contradiction seems to be resolved
and the poet and the priest are in harmony. Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty” is
one of such poems.
The poem, “Pied Beauty” (1877) opens with a
declaration — “Glory be to God for dappled things” — that suggests the
author’s reverence for God, the Creator. This phrase stems from the motto of
Hopkins’ Jesuit society of St. Ignatius Loyola, “Ad majorem Dei gloriam”, which, when translated, reads,
"to the greater glory of God." The concept of championing God and His
word resonates deeply with the Jesuit culture: they strive constantly toward
expanding the Roman Catholic Church through preaching the “greater glory of
God.” In “Pied Beauty” Hopkins follows Duns Scotus who was pre-occupied with
the distinctiveness of natural beauty as reflected through the creation of the
Almighty.
This
poem wears its meaning, at least the surface of its meaning, on its sleeve: it
is a hymn of praise to the creator, a hymn of thanks for the richness and
diversity of the world. Oftentimes
considered one of the greatest Victorian poets, Hopkins’ poems are full of
creative word combinations that seem to capture the imaginative essence of
things. Here, he uses those interesting hyphenated descriptions to
celebrate the variety of Creation and its great beauty. The sounds of these
images are crisp and ring nicely in the mouth. "fresh-firecoal," "finches' wings," these
sounds have a pleasant crunch to them. The second stanza turns from these
corporeal variations to the more spiritual, moral characteristics of the world.
In listing several paradoxical traits — “swift,
slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim” — Hopkins emphasizes the spectrum of
emotions and intangible qualities present in these physical entities.
“Pied Beauty” is a catalogue of God’s creation testifying to the
poet’s accurate observation of natural objects which changes from time to time,
things whose function appear both as separately and collectively. Hopkins
begins with praise of God creating poly-coloured, poly-shaped, poly-natured
things created by the Supreme Creator. God has created the “couple-colour” sky
like the double colour cow. He has created the fresh water fish, trout with
pink-dots on the back. The fallen chestnut is reddish brown like the hue of
glowing fire. The Divine Architect also crafted landscapes isolated into
separate plots: green pasture, brown uncultivated lands and grey ploughed
fields. The final creation is of the “trades” or different occupation of man,
with their rich diversity of appliances and equipments. The Creation of God
(from Genesis), has been mentioned in this devotional poem
with much sincerity.
Hopkins
is staunch believer of the theory of ‘inscape’
– the individual distinction of every created natural object. His ‘instress’ – his feeling of wonder at
the variegated and changeful beauties of the earth – comes out vividly in the
query:
“Whatever
is fickle, freckled (who knows how)?”
“Pied
Beauty” is a lyrical love poem. But the love treated in the poem is not the
love between man and woman, but between man and God. Here Hopkins refers to the
Christian concept of God as a Lover and a Protector. God, Himself is the
creator and source of pied beauty. He also refers to the concept of “God: the Trinity” : God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The poem concludes with the poet’s imperative to
praise God:
“Praise
Him”.
Hopkins
calls this poem a “curtal sonnet” in which he minimizes the
traditional sonnet forms by reducing its length form 14 lines to 10 ½ lines (6
+ 4 ½ ). He also follows the “spring
paeonic” metre with one stressed plus three unstressed syllable. The poem
is written in “sprung rhythm” which
was the rhythm of common speech, and of written prose.
Throughout
his life Hopkins remained religious and spiritual. He wrote to Bridges, one of
his best friends: “I am a eunuch, but it is for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.”
Religious preoccupation gripped him so terribly that he had neither time nor
energy to carry on his writing. Thus only a few poems he composed, he got the
opportunity of singing the glorious hymns of God.
~~~~~*~~~~~
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