Gerard Hopkins’s view of the timeless conflict between God and man is uniquely dramatized in his Italian sonnet “God’s Grandeur.” I initially thought the poem merely depicted God as great and man as scum. However, after I analyzed the poem’s overall theme, literary devices, and structure, I soon realized Hopkins instead intends to portray God as not only great but also forgiving and nurturing despite man’s failures. Hopkins immediately asserts his overall theme of God’s sovereignty in the title as well as in the first line through his repetition of the word “grandeur.” The theme is momentarily lost in the next seven lines where Hopkins mainly focuses on man’s deplorable destruction of one of God’s grandest creations, nature. Man has “seared…bleared,”
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Like a battery “charges” a flashlight so does God “charge” the world. Hopkins furthers this allusion in the next line. The simile, “like shining from shook foil,” creates the image of light going in and out (2). The light that is said to “flame out” is not God in this sense, but I is instead God’s once perfect world (2). He introduces man indirectly in line three. His mention of oil symbolizes man’s wealth. Man’s success “gathers to a greatness,” and then is bluntly and suddenly “Crushed.” The placement of the last word of this sentence is not only on a new line but also capitalized for emphasis. Next, he poses the rhetorical question, “Why do men then now not reck his rod” (4)? I deduce this as Hopkins merely meaning to ask, “Why do suffering people not see the hope that is right in front of them?” In line five the repetition and connotation of “trod” seem to act as an onomatopoeia. I can almost feel the weight of such a long and weary struggle man had endured. Hopkins then brilliantly creates the image of a blurry, off-centered world in the following line. Interestingly, he uses the rhyming words “seared, bleared, and smeared” (6). All of which seemingly possess the same meaning: covered but not internally ruined. This foul, outer appearance he creates for the world is heightened in lines seven and eight. He personifies the earth in saying it, “wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell” (7). Hopkins also inserts a couple of synecdoches in these lines. “Soil” stands for everything man has taken away from the outermost part of the planet (7). “Nor can foot feel, being shod” represents the whole human race and its isolation from nature. The “foot,” people, has forgotten how to “feel” due to the interference of the shoe, wordly possessions (8). After these well thought out lines, Hopkins introduces a turn in the poem. He goes on to say that even after man has tarnished the
Like a battery “charges” a flashlight so does God “charge” the world. Hopkins furthers this allusion in the next line. The simile, “like shining from shook foil,” creates the image of light going in and out (2). The light that is said to “flame out” is not God in this sense, but I is instead God’s once perfect world (2). He introduces man indirectly in line three. His mention of oil symbolizes man’s wealth. Man’s success “gathers to a greatness,” and then is bluntly and suddenly “Crushed.” The placement of the last word of this sentence is not only on a new line but also capitalized for emphasis. Next, he poses the rhetorical question, “Why do men then now not reck his rod” (4)? I deduce this as Hopkins merely meaning to ask, “Why do suffering people not see the hope that is right in front of them?” In line five the repetition and connotation of “trod” seem to act as an onomatopoeia. I can almost feel the weight of such a long and weary struggle man had endured. Hopkins then brilliantly creates the image of a blurry, off-centered world in the following line. Interestingly, he uses the rhyming words “seared, bleared, and smeared” (6). All of which seemingly possess the same meaning: covered but not internally ruined. This foul, outer appearance he creates for the world is heightened in lines seven and eight. He personifies the earth in saying it, “wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell” (7). Hopkins also inserts a couple of synecdoches in these lines. “Soil” stands for everything man has taken away from the outermost part of the planet (7). “Nor can foot feel, being shod” represents the whole human race and its isolation from nature. The “foot,” people, has forgotten how to “feel” due to the interference of the shoe, wordly possessions (8). After these well thought out lines, Hopkins introduces a turn in the poem. He goes on to say that even after man has tarnished the