The following sestet uses as simple language but is arranged simplistically and basically to reflect the complete and utter perfection of God. It uses irony in its juxtaposition also as it had previously remarked that man strove to be more like God, but now states that indeed Christ is actually within each man and so they are all perceived by God to be his son:
‘Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is –
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,’
‘As kingfishers catch fire’ is a perfect example of what Hopkins aims at in his poetry. The separation between the sestet and octet reflects the mood of the poetry which is enhanced by the pattern of his words and the rhyme, assonance and alliteration they bear, and his inscape creates an irony and a philosophical and religious message which is greatly apparent in much of Hopkins’ poetry.
Gerard Manley Hopkins’ ‘Spring’ also has an underlying religious theme, and can be compared to ‘As kingfishers catch fire’ for a number of reasons.
It too has a tonal contrast between the sestet and the octet which opens as being a vision of paradise itself and a captured moment of idyllic nature at its most beautiful. But this is immediately challenged and overcome by the sestet which is an ugly picture of the sin of mankind. Hopkins’ pattern in the opening lines is very apparent, as he uses the sounds of the words he uses to reflect and also increase the intensity of their meanings.
‘Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and Thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring’
This language is selected very carefully as Hopkins has created an entire environment on the page as the words pour out and spill into a spring scene. The assonance of ‘weeds’ and ‘wheels’, the half-rhyme of ‘rinse’ and ‘wring’, the alliteration of ‘long and lovely and lush’ with ‘look little low’, the repetition of Thrush, and the use of the word ‘echoing’ all occur at once and give the opening of ‘Spring’ life as the action and being is so bountiful. Spring is described in this opening as being ever lasting and something that will never die and will always return.
However, these lines also suggest another religious underlying theme as the final one talks of echoing timber and ‘rinsing’ and ‘wringing’ which suggest purification and cleansing which therefore come to represent the crucifixion of Christ. Hopkins has hidden the death of Christ to relieve man’s sins underneath a poem of life and never ending cycles. This enforces his believe as shown in ‘As kingfishers catch fire’ that Christ is still living all around us, as by describing his wooden cross as being ‘echoing’ suggests he believes he will be living in the ‘glassy peartree’ and the ‘racing lambs’ forever.
The octet however erases this tone and becomes a plea to Christ (‘O maid’s child’) and talks of the Garden of Eden which man was banished from for sinning. The rhyming is basic and the language simple, but Hopkins can be seen to contradict himself in a hypocritical manner in this octet. On a number of occasions in a number of poems, Hopkins talks of individuality and the inscape of each person as they are unique, yet here he is placing them all into one category and labelling them as ‘mankind’ who are all sinners and who do not deserve this Garden of Eden for the destruction they are causing. This contrast may be because of his pleading prayer to Christ as Hopkins feels he is alone in being the only person to appreciate spring and the nature around mankind. The closing lines show the desperation of Hopkins with short sentences and in busts of thought as he begs God to show mercy and not to change the continual cycles that are all around mankind but hidden by their ignorance.
‘Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O Maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.’
Already shown is the fact that Hopkins writes about the inscape and hiecitas of people, but in his poetry he also uses personification to create inscape for inanimate objects and places. This skill is shown in the poem ‘Dun Scotus’s Oxford’ as Hopkins remembers the Oxford where he went to University. Much like the other Hopkins’ poems studied so far, ‘Dun Scotus’s Oxford’ displays a clear separation between the octet and the sestet with the latter being an intellectual and spiritual praising of Dun Scotus the philosopher. However, there is also a difference in this poem, as for the first time Hopkins creates a separation between the first four line and the last four lines of the octet. He begins by describing Oxford through memories and knowledge of the area and his complimenting language may be Hopkins thanking Oxford for its help whilst he was studying there, but the closing four lines carries an attack from Hopkins as he fears that, much like nature (as he expressed in ‘Spring’), man is slowly ruining the beautiful area. This beauty is expressed in the simple list; ‘folk, flocks, and flowers,’ which conveys very elegantly and minimally why he loves Oxford. Previous to this Hopkins expanded with the line;
‘Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmèd, lark-charmèd, rook-racked, river-rounded; ’
This pattern of language suggests that the list could continue for ever, also the carefully selected language from Hopkins with alliteration and assonance show the naturalness of the area and also express its inscape.
The octet accounts for the ‘flocks, and flowers’ of Oxford, and the sestet is dedicated completely to Duns Scotus. Hopkins appreciates Oxford and is proud to have attended and lived in such an area, he has already spoken of its natural beauty, and here he talks in a proud voice of how he shared the experience with Duns Scotus who he greatly respected.
‘Yet ah! This air I gather and I release
He lived on; these weeds and waters, these walls are what
He haunted who of all men most sways my spirits to peace;’
These three lines immediately create a contradiction, as Dun Scotus suddenly overshadows everything else about Oxford that Hopkins was talking about. The ‘dapple-eared lily’ is now a weed, the ‘river-rounded’ is simply waters, and Hopkins has turned the ‘towery city and branchy between towers’ into ‘walls’. In the second half of the octet, Hopkins shows anger that the area is being ruined, and we presumed that he was afraid that all the beauty would be lost, but it now becomes clear that it is merely the memories that he does not want to be destroyed. He is afraid that the air that he and Duns Scotus and other scholars shared will not be inhaled or exhaled again and that the weeds, waters and walls they all shared will not be appreciated anymore.
For this reason I perceive the poem ‘Duns Scotus’s Oxford’ to be mirrored from ‘Spring.’ Hopkins has here revealed that it is not the beauty of nature in the Spring which he fears man will kill, but the Christ that lives in it, and, by blasphemously comparing Christ to Duns Scotus, he has remarked that Duns Scotus is to Oxford what Christ is to nature.
‘Duns Scotus’s Oxford’ conveys the inscape of places and, in doing so, cradles a hidden religious theme which states that Christ is everywhere and living in all things. The poem ‘Spring’ also bears this message in much the same way that ‘As kingfishers catch fire’ does. All of these poems display the same sonnet structure and Hopkins’ design is basic and old-fashioned. The patterns he uses are helped to emphasize the themes he is suggesting and not only are they flat on the surface of the page to paint the picture, but they too are the foundations and structure below the poem to support his theories of inscape and hiecitas which Hopkins plants, nurtures, and allows to grow.
