Analyse the ways in which 'Ulysses' and one other poem explore religious and philosophical ideas.

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Anthony Silkoff        Page         03/05/2007

Analyse the ways in which ‘Ulysses’ and one other poem explore religious and philosophical ideas.

  Both ‘Ulysses’ and ‘God’s Grandeur’ explore the themes of religion and philosophy in depth.  Hopkins’ ‘God’s Grandeur’ is perhaps the more religious, and Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’ the more philosophical.  Beginning with the former, the concept of ‘God’ is obviously a universally recognised figure of supreme leadership, albeit interpreted in different ways by the different faiths.  Hopkins himself was a devout Christian, and this is evident in the subtext of his poetry.

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”

Hopkins’ introductory quote immediately presents the belief that the power of nature stems from God.  In the next two lines there is a contrast in that Hopkins’ writes that this power will both ‘flame’ and ‘ooze’ out.  The imagery of flaming out seems much more in agreement with the mentioned ‘grandeur’ of God, whereas oozing seems more of a reference to olives and the oil they produce.  I think that here Hopkins is saying that sometimes God’s power bursts out into the open for all to see, for miracles, and other times it oozes out gradually, unnoticeably.

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“Generations have trod, trod, trod”

Here, the use of the heavy ‘d’ sounds could, again, reflect the mighty power of God.

“And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;”

A caesura is utilised in these next lines, with the use of the semi-colon dividing short, abrupt sounding phrases, slowing the pace of the lines.  Here, Hopkins is criticising the capitalist world of humans, and he states that nature’s beauty is marred by trade and toil.  I think he uses this caesura to emphasise the destructive nature of human civilisation on God’s Earth, and the way in ...

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