The structure of God's Grandeur is an Italian sonnet. The octave, which is the first eight-lined stanza of the poem, describes the greatness of the natural world that God has charged and then comments on how in life we, generations of men, just go through the motions. We "smear" our life with "toil," and "sear" it with trade.
In the second six-lined stanza, the sestet, the speaker suggests that the greatness of nature is not yet over, that "there lives the dearest freshness." With God, all in nature is not lost-- he "broods...over the bent world." This poem overall comments on modern man (who I believe the speaker is addressing, the audience) and how God can save him.
A figure of speech in the poem is the metaphor in the beginning. Hopkins suggest the world "will flame out, like shining from a shook foil." Because of the "like," we would call this a similie. I personally enjoy this similie because the reader can actually imagine the glare coming from the foil, almost like lightning. It shows God in a very powerful and great light, which I think is what Hopkins was trying to do with this poem.
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I definitely agree with the shook foil metaphor. It does give a sense of a shining light that would be representative of the power of God. The whole poem is full of figurative language that expresses the basic idea that man is small and impotent compared to this divine power..
ReplyDeleteDo you think in this poem he gives god to much power over human life? do we not have a say in our own life or is he just commenting that if you do not turn to god bad stuff will happen (world flaming out)? It is an interesting poem for the fact that the author seems to say follow the way of god or go to hell. do we not have free will and is our free will wrong if we chose our own path that is not in step with god's even if we are good people and citizens.
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