Kristin Bieri
British Literature
Dr. Kuhns
15 December 2021
The Mastery of the Thing
Hopkins' modern use of language and his embedded emphasis on inscape and instress
were not received well until 29 years after his death. Hopkins believed that everything in the
universe is characterized by inscape, the unique design that makes up who a person is
individually, and in the light of the creator. The identity is not static, but dynamic, with each
being discovering and enacting its own identity. The idea is further accelerated by instress-when
the most highly “selved” being recognizes the inscape of other beings. “Ultimately, the instress
of inscape leads us to Christ, for the individual identity of any object is the stamp of divine
creation. In the act of instress, therefore, the human being becomes a celebrant of the divine, at
once recognizing God’s creation and enacting his or her own God-given identity with it” (Norton
1515). Hopkins was trying to capture the moment of instress, or the moment of realization. By
using creative movement, complex rhythms, and eliminating contractions, the reader is left with
a startling and dynamic path of discovery.
In God’s Grandeur, Hopkins uses rich and vivid imagery to immediately bring us into the
presence of God. Our eyes are blinded by this transfigurative image of shook foil. In the very
next line, our senses are moving, but connected by rhyme, to oozing oil, which is another
visceral image. God’s greatness is the oil oozing from crushed olives, and like oil, moves over
everything, and always leaves it’s sheen behind. Hopkins then asks, Why do we not recognize
God’s discipline? Like the Israelites, our refusal to reckon with God leaves us trodding and
trodding. Hopkins rhythmic effect is stark, slow, and poignant-we are reminded of our
disobedience in the face of a holy and brilliant God.
Hopkins completes the first stanza with pungent reminders of man’s toil. You can hear
Hopkins' concern over the way that humanity and culture seemed to shift and change during the
second Industrial Revolution. “And all is seared with trade, bleared, smeared with toil, / And
wears man's sludge and shares man’s smell: / The soil is bare now, nor can foot feel, being
shod.” This image of man’s sludge and smell could be interpreted as man’s fall from grace in the
garden. The soil of the first garden is now barren, left to toil and in need of salvation. We became
imperfect, mortal, prone to the oil slick of sin, versus the brilliance of shook foil and fresh
pressed oil. Hopkins is drawing a sharp contract between a holy God and an imperfect people.
The inscape is the realization of who we are without Christ.
However, in stanza 2, Hopkins brings us back to nature and back to redemption through
the garden, which he implies resides in each of us. He says that despite all this, the toil, and the
sludge, and the sin, “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” His use of language
here creates a rich uninterrupted flow of expression-what lives inside us because of Christ cannot
be seen, but it can be sensed-the deep down things. Hopkins then brings us back to the earth’s
patterns - sunset and sunrise in these lines, “And though the last lights off the black West went, /
Oh morning, at the brown brink eastward Springs--” time is set in motion by our creator Who we
can rely on, despite the fall, and despite the sludge. And the last line compares the Holy Ghost to
a brooding mother hen, protective and loving.
Swirling through this poem is the idea of man being made in God’s image. We begin
with God’s Grandeur, and how it shines and oozes over all creation, and then move to the total
contrast of the consequence of sin, or in the very least the focus on the material and temporary. It
is only when we realize that we are created in His image, and at the same time also nurtured by
him, that we experience instress. When the majestic, maternal, and the material collide in a
transformative dance we are redeemed.
“As Kingfishers Catch Fire” encapsulates the moment of inscape within the first stanza.
Like in God’s Grandeur, the initial imagery is a blaze of visual stimulation where kingfishers are
compared to dragonflies caught fire. Both kingfishers and dragonflies are visually stunning, with
multiple colors and textures. We then move to three sounds; rocks being thrown in wells, one can
imagine that hollow and echo endless sound as they make their way to the water below. Next we
have the plucked strings of an instrument, and the ringing of bells. Hopkins uses a bouncing
rhythm and blends word sounds to emphasize the moments leading up to instress. “Like each
tucked string tells, each hung bell’s / bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad it’s name.” The
moment where a mortal speaks out it’s name, or enacts its own identity is inscape. Additionally,
Hopkins uses the word “selves” here as a verb, indicating the action of a being “selving” or
recognizing it’s identity. “Selves--goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, / Crying What I do is
me: for that I came.” We now have an individual identity determined, being individualized.
In the second stanza, Hopkins seems to be moving from inscape to instress-the moment
when a highly developed being recognizes its need for God and also his or her purpose. Once
again, Hopkins takes a noun and uses it as a verb, “I say more; the just man justices?” Hopkins'
choice of wording and alliteration creates a rhythmic affect and leads us into the next line where
he uses grace, “Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces.” He could have easily spoken more
plainly to make these points, but he purposefully makes the reader contemplate the essence of
these words by changing their form. The alliteration in both lines also contributes to an emphasis
of meaning.
The rest of this stanza is the climax or the crescendo and Hopkins moves to a more
concrete verbage. “Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eyes he is--Christ.” We bear the image of
Christ and Hopkins goes even further to emphasize that Christ is omnipresent in the world, but
also is represented in our hands and feet. This harkens to Matthew 25 where Jesus tells the story
of the sheep and goats. Jesus is the homeless person, the beggar on the street, the prisoner. When
God looks upon us, he sees Jesus, but the challenge is that when we look upon other beings, we
should also see Christ.
Hopkins' use of language, grammar, alliteration, rhyme and rhythm create a unique and
modern feel in his poetry. In The Windhover, he cleverly repeats words, omits conjunctions and
prepositions to give the reader a sensuous experience.
“I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing…”
The reader is taken up by the windhover, experiencing stillness and sky. Hopkins fuses
flashes of perception to ultimately lead the reader to moral reflection and an experience with
Christ. In lines one and two, the alliteration is strong and obvious, uninterrupted by extra words
or “proper” formatting! He also ends each line with rhyming -ing, which gives this poem another
unique sound quality. You can almost imagine the windhover hovering high in the sky, and with
each -ing sound, the bird soars higher and higher.