Hopkins' "God's Grandeur"

What is it that makes a Victorian poet Victorian?  Like the variable definitions of Romantics, so is the diverseness of what defines Victorian.  After reading Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur,” we can see one of the many forms of Victorianism.  With alliterative style and sharp attention to detail, Hopkins portrays the greatness of God through the depiction of nature with powerful uses of imagery to show nature and its natural beauties.

Observing the author’s illustrative style, we can see that the reader is directed to focus on the finest detail of nature’s simple, yet marvelous traits:  “It will flame out, like shining from shook foil… like the ooze of oil” (744).  It’s as if Hopkins was observing nature under a microscope while time is slowed down to view its intricacies.

This illustration just one of many common and frequent occurrences of nature that is normally overlooked and ignored by a passing observer.  It makes me think that the author is telling his reader to “stop and smell the roses.”  Greatness is all around us as long as we are aware of it.  This idea is further reinforced as Hopkins states men’s ignorance of God’s “Grandeur”:  “Why do men then now not reck his rod?”  Here, Hopkins reference to “his rod” is God’s rod of greatness.

Hopkins abhorrence of men’s industrialism is evident when he notes that “all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil.”  His use of words gives us an unpleasant feeling of men’s actions.  Even after all of men’s work and contamination of the land (“And wears man’s smulge and shares men’s smell:  the soil” ), man still misses to see the greatness of it all:  “and for all this, nature is never spent.”  I interpreted this line to mean that although man spends so much on the tilling of the land and technological advancement, he has yet to spend nature’s true greatness, and that is time, beauty, and its natural magnificence. (775)

The last 5 verses are particularly interesting to note since there is a message of not only God’s greatness, but also of its timelessness.  “Although the last lights off the bleek 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.”  Here, Hopkins portrays the daily and never-ending presence of God as the “Holy Ghost” with a metaphor of the sunrise and sunsets of each day.  Although the light ends the night, the day will always come to once again light the world with of “warmth” and “bright wings.” (755)

Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur” was very interesting and different from previous authors that we have read in that he uses powerful imagery through his use of alliterative prose.  His style allows the creative mind to feel, see, touch, and experiences the imagery and glory of God’s presence.  For Hopkins, even in the most meticulous of things contain the greatness of God.  If we stand back and realize that this is just a speck of nature, how great is it when we consider the whole of things!  Indeed, “the world is charged with the grandeur of God” (774).