Gerard Hopkins – ‘Spring’
Many poems depend on your pre-existing knowledge of a topic.
Today’s is ‘Spring’.
What words come to mind when you hear the word spring
(as in Springtime, the season of the year)?
Context: You won’t be asked about the history
of the poet, only what is in the poem but….
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) was an English Jesuit
priest (chastity, poverty, obedience) and is considered the
father of the green movement (environmentalist).
He believed that everything in the universe had a unique
essence or energy from God and that it is our duty to
protect it.
Context before reading this poem
•It helps to know about the Garden of Eden (a
perfect innocent place) and man’s ‘fall’ from
that place into sin.
•Why was Eden innocent?
•No sin. No knowledge of good and evil.
•How did it (and therefore mankind) lose its
innocence?
•Adam and Eve disobeyed God and were
expelled.
Remember that in the Northern Hemisphere
where Hopkins wrote ,
spring is April , May and June
Spring – Gerard M. Hopkins
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
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness;
the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the
beginning
In Eden garden.
Have, get, before it cloy,
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.
WHAT KIND OF POEM IS THIS?
How many lines?
14 lines
so it is a ……..?
SONNET
What kind of sonnet is it?
Look at the structure.
• Split into an octave (eight lines) abbabba and
• Sestet (six lines) cdecde.
It therefore is….
an ITALIAN or PETRACHIAN SONNET
In an Italian sonnet the division of stanzas is also
a division in what the poet is addressing.
First stanza
– celebrates the beauty of spring.
Second stanza
– An urgent plea to Christ (God ) to preserve the
youthful spring-like innocence of childrendefinitely Christian/ religious.
The Octave
Nature is untroubled and enjoying itself.
The wild flowers are growing, the birds are singing, the sky
is blue and the animals are playing.
The bird singing is an innocent mystical experience.
Everything in nature is carefree.
Perhaps the poet envies this?
WHY?
There is a CHANGE of direction in the poem at this point.
This is called:
VOLTA
Which means TURN in Italian
The Sestet
Spring becomes a symbol for the innocence and joy of
youth.
It is like the Garden of Eden (pure) but it is taken away
from children because of ORIGINAL SIN.
The poet asks Christ to protect the children, in the
springtime of their youth.
Glossary
You will understand the meanings of most of the words in the poem,
although you will have to understand them in CONTEXT too.
lush (line 1): growing luxuriantly
wring (line 3): to twist or squeeze in order to extract
moisture
strain (line 8) : a trace of something or the sound of
a piece of music
Eden (line 9): paradise
Cloy (line 12): to become annoying or too
much, after seeming pleasant or enjoyable at
first.
Mayday (line 13): May 1st celebration day of
spring, day to celebrate Mary’s purity. In this
context it also means the innocence of
childhood
Maid’s child (line 14): child of a virgin ,
therefore Christ.
Remember Hopkins was Catholic and they
believe very strongly in the concept of
ORIGINAL SIN.
ORIGINAL SIN is:
(1)the sin that Adam committed (i.e.
disobedience);
(2)a consequence of this first sin, the
hereditary stain with which we are born
on account of our origin or descent
from Adam.
https://www.newadvent.org
In other words :
All of humankind is born into SIN, as
sinners, and we need God, through Jesus
Christ, to wash us clean.
Baptism is seen as the washing clean of
original sin, but of course people become
sinful again.
Children are innocent because they have
been cleansed by baptism.
Poetic Techniques
ALLITERATION - repeating the same consonant
sound , at the beginning, middle or end of
words.
e.g. When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and
lovely and lush;
ASSONANCE – repeating the same vowel sound.
e.g. When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and
lovely and lush;
SIMILE – a direct comparison.
e.g. it strikes like lightnings
HYPERBOLE – an exaggeration.
e.g. Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
SPRUNG RHYTHM
Hopkins invented this form of rhythm.
Most sonnets are in iambic pentameter
~
/ ~
/
~ / ~ / ~
/
Shall I /compare/ thee to/ a sum/mer’s day
1 unstressed syllable , 1 stressed syllable
iambic
x5
Penta = 5
Hopkins added more stressed syllables – to sound more like
ordinary speech.
~ / / /
/
~ / / /
What is all this juice and all this joy?’ (9 syllables)
YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS RHYTHM IS USED BUT YOU NEED NOT GO
INTO DETAIL
Now for the poem!
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
Hopkins makes a statement that leaves
no room for argument.
Hyperbole because he is exaggerating
the beauty of Spring (perhaps?)
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely
and lush;
ALLITERATION
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Repetition of:
w
s
sh
l sounds
ASSONANCE
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Repetition of :
ee
uh sounds
When weeds, in wheels,
Weeds?
Normally one would look at the beauty of flowers but
to Hopkins Nature in ALL its facets is marvellous
Hence : the beauty and abundance of weeds.
If you think of it, the Namaqualand flowers are also
‘weeds’.
Why ‘wheels’?
Huge circles, ‘plates’ of flowers.
Think Namaqualand again.
shoot long and lovely and lush;
shoot
2 meanings
1) Speedy growth (verb)
– like a bullet from a gun (Hyperbole?)
2) The plant’s growth itself(noun)
– plants have shoots that grow into
branches etc.
long and lovely and lush
Alliteration and assonance emphasises the
fertility and beauty
Each “and” just makes the description stronger,
adding adjectives.
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
Why does Hopkins chose the thrush as the
bird of Spring?
Thrushes migrate and are often one of the first
birds to get back to Europe in the spring – so are
a messenger of spring.
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens
Alliteration
of the l sounds - look little low
Simile
Where’s the direct comparison of “like” or “as”?
The “like” is implied:
look (like ) little low heavens
Thrushes’ eggs are very blue – sky blue.
Sky = heavens = God
The eggs are small pieces of the dome of the
sky brought to earth.
and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
VOCABULARY
Timber
This means the trees, the woodlands that are
the habitat of these birds.
Echoing
suggests the vastness, how big it is, and, of
course, the sound of the bird literally echoes
through the trees.
POETIC DEVICES
Alliteration
The R sound in “rinse and wring”
Simile
It strikes like lightnings
Sudden/ quick, but note lightnings = more than once.
Metaphor
Rinse and wring the ear
The ear is being compared to laundry that is being
washed –
The ear/ the mind is cleansed by the sound of the
bird song.
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms
Notice peartree NOT pear tree, one thing .
Not a tree and an adjective that describes it
– a PEARTREE.
Glassy – shiny/ reflects light – could also suggest fragile.
Look at use of the word “LEAVES”
‘Leaves’ USUALLY is a NOUN meaning foliage
How is it used here?
As a…..
VERB.
When the leaves come out, Hopkins says the tree LEAVES.
This describes both what is happening and
what it is.
It is BOTH Verb and Noun, both action AND object.
they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness;
ALLITERATION
Rush with richness ( also brush)
The R sound is rolling and rich, underlining the luxuriousness
of the colour.
METAPHOR / PERSONIFICATION
They, the trees, seem to touch/ brush the sky .
The sky is seen as something that comes down , in a hurry
(rush), to bring the rich colour that is the spring sky.
(The word “brush” could also refer to painting )
.
The blue of a sky dotted
with clouds is linked to the
colour of the bird’s eggs
and reminds us that the
beauty of nature is God’s
creation.
Blue was often seen as the
colour of the Virgin Mary,
so is a colour of purity
which links with the sestet
the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
This line is written using the commonly used
language of the area Hopkins lived (colloquial
dialect)
It simply means that the lambs have a wonderful
time gambolling (jumping, playing, running) in the
fields.
ALLITERATION
Fair their fling
SYMBOLISM?
Christ is often seen as the Lamb of God so this
could possibly be a reference to Him.
By the end of the octave, the reader has been swept along by
Hopkins in his description of nature.
TECHNIQUES USED.
RHYTHM
- stressed/ unstressed syllables
- the “tune” of the words which makes the reader/
speaker feel the joy and wonder.
ENJAMBMENT
- carries the sense of the line on to the next.
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush / The
descending blue; that blue is all in a rush / With richness;
Notice there are no full stops in the stanza!
All of this makes the reader aware of beauty and
vitality associated with spring.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
Change of TONE ( feeling/ attitude)
Moves from the joyous wonder in God’s creation to a much more
reflective tone.
RHETORICAL QUESTION.
He asks what all this beauty of nature actually means/signifies.
The reader is invited to slow down and think about the
answer to this question.
Hopkins gives his own answer in the rest of the sestet.
ALLITERATION
All this juice and all this joy
WHY JUICE?
Juice is sap, literally the liquid that begins to rise in plant life in
spring.
It also could signify the emotions rising in us at the beginning of
spring, our blood, our very being.
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.
ALLITERATION
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
METAPHOR
The word strain has a variety of meanings.
Two are relevant here.
1)
the sound of a piece of music
The earth’s essence is like a piece of music, a melody.
2)
a particular breed, stock, or variety of an animal or plant.
What the earth was in the beginning in the Garden of Eden.
Sweet being can also be seen as PERSONIFICATION.
The earth as a living feeling being
Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
ALLITERATION
before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning
Now Hopkins uses negative words
Cloy – something clings and overpowers
Cloud – dirties, hides the truth
Sour – unpleasant, old, rotten
The image is of fruit becoming overripe and decaying
which suggests humankind’s
LOSS OF INNOCENCE
Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
There is a direct appeal to Jesus Himself to save children,
especially, but humankind in general , from the corruption
of sin.
Remember :
Corruption means rottenness .
Sin clings to humans. It clouds their morals and their
judgement and ruins their lives both on earth and in the life
to come.
Mayday is seen as day of celebration of the new life of
spring.
It symbolises the innocence of the young, of spring.
It is the Virgin Mary’s special day and she is the epitome
(top point) of purity and innocence.
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the
winning.
Who are “Most”?
The children, young people, are the ‘Most’, which in this
context means the ‘best’ and they are ‘choice’ or the pick
of the crop.
They are worth the efforts it would take Christ to win
them and preserve their innocence forever.
This would be a victory for innocence over sin/
corruption.
Christ is addressed as ‘maid’s child’ as he was born of
the Virgin Mary, and the ‘Mayday’ in every girl and boy is
a reference to Mary, as May is the month associated with
her.
THEMES
•The beauty, colour and energy of nature
and the natural world.
•Nature is a glimpse of what human’s once
had – the Garden of Eden.
•Maturity spoils childhood innocence.
•Only God, through Christ, can save this
innocence.
TONE
In the octave:
* happy
* celebratory
In the sestet
* urgent and anxious
* regret
* pleading
Look at the CONTRAST in tone and mood, as
well as purpose between the octave and the
sestet.
Finally…
THE END