God's Grandeur - Gerard Hopkins

Question 1

What type of poet is he? What type of poem is it? What is the meter?

Answer 1

Victorian poet but style reminiscent of george herbert
Petrarchan sonnet
Sprung rhythm

Question 2

‘The world is charged with the grandeur of God.’

Answer 2

simple, delcarative sentence, makes it sound factual, verisimilitude
adverb ‘charged’, world is powered/given life by God obliged to do something, world is under God’s rule. ‘Grandeur of God’ - velor plosive sounds

Question 3

‘It will flame out like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil’

Answer 3

‘will flame out’ verb phrase, ‘will’ modal verb, ‘flame out’ phrasal verb
‘flame out’ - power will be dispersed everywhere, light radiating out associates with goodness, hope
two lines create syntactic parallelism, forms a rhythm
‘like the oozes of oil’ - simile, noun ‘oil’ is superficial, invisible but everywhere if you dig deeply enough

Question 4

‘Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;’

Answer 4

‘then now’ compound temporal expression, if God is everywhere and responsible for life, why do men not see it? adds weight to the interrogative
‘reck’ autonomy for power
Auxillary verb ‘have’, past participle ‘trod’ together is verb phrase, reflects actions taken by people or creatures, often with a sense of continuity or consequence, connotes disregard for earth, nature, also sounds heavier and suggests weight of mankind on earth

Question 5

‘And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.’

Answer 5

industrial advancements causing harm to mother nature, reinforced by ‘trade’, all humans care about is money and money advancements in society
‘bleared’ ‘smeared’ assonance
second sentence reiterates this
adj ‘bare’ damaged by industrial revolution, lifeless, lost it’s natural beauty and fertility
fricatives ‘foot feel’ reinforced by negative conjunction ‘nor’ suggests humans are now disconnected from nature

Question 6

‘And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;’

Answer 6

‘never spent’ - verb phrase, ‘never’ adverb, ‘spent’ past participle
‘and for all this,’ - volta
nature is always alive, beauty never ceases despite human’s staining it, reflects the grandeur of god’s power and his presence in all beauty
premodified noun phrase ‘dearest freshness deep down’ - fruit/growth of new life in the soil, nature will always rejuvenate as will God’s love for his subjects/people or hope always existing, even if below the surface

Question 7

‘And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast with ah! bright wings.’

Answer 7

‘black West’ - juxtaposition, sun setting vs ‘black’ suggests lack of hope, pollution, finality, also rises in east and sets in west, maybe reflects vastness of God’s power. reinforced by ‘eastward’ renewal, rebirth, rises in the east
dynamic verb ‘springs’ - bouncing back, rebirth last line = positive imagery exclamative interjection ‘ah!’
premodified noun phrase ‘bright wings.’