God’s Grandeur

By
Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Objectives
• At the end of the lesson students will be able
to:
Biography of Gerald Manley Hopkins
 God’s Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
• It will flame out, like shining from shook of foil;
• It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
• And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
• And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod
 God’s Grandeur
And for all this, nature is never spent;
• There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights of the black 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
 Summary of the poem
• This a sonnet in which the first four lines celebrates
God’s greatness on earth and questions why people do
not take heed of his position in the scheme of things.
This is confirmed when the persona said, ‘Why do men
then now not reck his rod?’
• The word ‘charged’ indicates that the world sizzles with
God’s majesty, we see it in nature with lightning,
thunder etc. in fact god’s power is compared with the
‘shining from shook foil’
• Lines 5-8 is a commentary on man’s corruption and his
pollution of the natural world through trade
• (which highlights man’s greed) and toil( which
highlights the drudgery and the absence of love and
commitment towards his work.)even the earth has lost
its smell and now ‘share man’s smell.’ Hence because
people have neglected God the have also neglected
(disrespected) God’s creation, the environment.
• The last 6 lines of the sonnet shows a shift in the
persona’s previous assertions, suggesting that in spite
of man’s cruelty against nature, it is never consumed
because of God’s power and might (nature is never
spent’)
 Themes
• Faith in God
• Greed
 Techniques
• Simile
– ‘Like the ooze of oil/Crushed’ which compares God’s
power which flows fluently and when compressed
with excess force responds with a blast or unwearied
force. (This is so true of the weather patterns in our
present age.)
– ‘It will flame out, like shining from shook foil’
• Symbolism
– The ‘rod’ is a symbol of God’s position, power and
authority. It also reminds the reader of Moses of the
Old Testament who carried a staff. He to was a power
character in the bible.
 – The symbol, ‘oil’ reminds one of olive oil which is used
for food, medicine, lamplight and religious purposes.
Just as oil can be used in almost all facets of life hence
God is compared with it because God is omnipotent
and omnipresent.
• Repetition
– ‘Have trod’ is repeated three times giving the feeling
that man has repeatedly mashed down the earth by
e.g. poor agricultural practices, pollution from
factories etc.. It also highlights the blind monotony
 – of human work and the unpleasant of ‘toil’ and
‘trade’
• Internal rhyme
– ‘seared… bleared…smeared,’ serves to highlight man’s
contamination of the world.
• Alliteration
– ‘Grandeur.. God’ (line1) emphasises the greatness and
majesty of God
– ..nor foot feel (line8) emphasises the foot cannot feel
the bare soil nor the natural vegetation, because
people wear shoes since their feet are ‘shod’;
 – And ‘trade..toil’ highlights the baseness and
corruption of man’s work
• Allusion
– ‘generation’ is a biblical allusion which brings to mind
scriptures that trace the genealogy of various people
likewise it reminds us that the earth has retaliated due
generations of abuse by humans.
– ‘The Holy Ghost’ is the third person of the Holy Trinity
and was left here to actively involved in man’s doings.
He is the human race’s comforter and friend.