25th June Class with Mr.
Jellyman, Mr. Yes, Miss Thorp
PIED BEAUTY (GERARD MANLY HOPKINS)
SUMMER FARM (NORMAN MACCAIG)
Gerard Manley Hopkins
• Born 1844 in England and died in 1889
• Gerard Manley Hopkins was born as the first of nine children to
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Manley and Catherine (Smith) Hopkins
At ten years old Gerard Manley Hopkins was sent to board at
Highgate School (1854 -1863)
His last words were "I am so happy, I am so happy. I loved my
life"
Pied Beauty was written in 1877 but was not published until 1918
Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous
(after his death) 20th-century fame established him among the
leading Victorian poets. His experimental explorations in writing
prose (especially sprung rhythm) and his use of imagery
established him as a daring innovator in a period of largely
traditional verse.
Hopkins and Sprung Rhythm
• Much of Hopkins's historical importance has to do with the
changes he brought to the form of poetry; which were quite
different to that of the conventional metre of poetry.
• This structure is based on repeating groups of two or three
syllables, with the stressed syllable falling in the same place
on each repetition.
• Hopkins called his own rhythmic structure sprung rhythm.
• Hopkins saw sprung rhythm as a way to escape the
constraints of running rhythm, which he said inevitably
pushed poetry written in it to become "same and tame." In
this way, Hopkins can be seen as anticipating much of free
verse.
Pied Beauty
GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Breakdown of the Poem
(a)GLORY be to God for dappled things—
Aesthetic significance, juxtapositions increase the richness of our surroundings,
adding similar words to a description of something increases notice and
interest of it. Colour is prominent: Pied, dappled, couple-colour, brinded,
stipple (art form) etc.
Here’s an interesting question: Is the title saying that all beauty is mixed or
‘pied’, or that ‘pied beauty’ is just one kind of beauty?
(b)For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
Variations in colour and texture-sensory (therefore physical) The hyphenated
‘couple-colour’ is key for the sprung rhythm in the poem.
(c)For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that
swim;
All trout swim dont they? The last two words are important for the rhythm of
the poem, sprung rhythm.
Breakdown of the Poem
(a)Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Here, chestnuts give a different description of beauty, although it is still
physical, the idea of a nugget of goodness imprisoned within a hard exterior
invites a consideration of essential value in a way that the speckles on a cow,
for example do not.
(b) Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and
plough;
These lines connect the previous musings to human life and activity. It
introduces man made things, but then goes on to include these things, along
with the preceding list of nature, as part of God’s work.
(c) And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
This shows how the poet believes that all things, even man made are beautiful
because they are all diverse under the unity of God in a beautiful way.
Breakdown of the Poem
(d)All things counter, original, spare, strange;
The poet says that all things counter, after listing natural and man made things.
These things counter each other in the beauty that they have, but they are
original creations, and are all beautiful and worthy of awe.
(b)Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With ‘fickle’ and ‘freckled’, Hopkins introduces a moral and aesthetic quality,
each of which would conventionally convey a negative judgement, in order to
fold even the base and the ugly back into his worshipful inventory of God’s
gloriously ‘pied’ creation
(c) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
Here we see explosions of energy, although contrasting, are all tied into the
pied creation.
Breakdown of the Poem
(d)He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
God’s relationship to his creation is a father-child relationship. God is past
change, he is the unity in the diversity of the world. As the world changes,
God does not, therefore he will always create beauty.
(c) Praise him.
The most powerful thing of this poem is that all the listed things which are
always changing, are created by God, for Hopkins, the one unchanging
being, and all he can do in the final line is to express his amazement in a
short, utterly simple and almost breathless line.
Themes
 Religion: Pied Beauty is a celebration of natural
creation bookended by traditional religious
expressions of praise and glory.
 Question: Why does the speaker “praise” or give
glory to God? What does this action demonstrate
about the person giving praise?
Themes cont.
• Man and the Natural World: In Hopkins poetry, nature does
not exist without man. He doesn’t take the view that man exploits
nature, but rather Hopkins’s landscapes are filled with the tools and
marks of humanity just as it is filled with birds in trees.
• Questions: What images show nature, and what images show man
made things?
• What is the opposite of Pied Beauty? Is there an opposite?
• What kind of role does humanity play in nature? Does the poem
suggest that humans are destined to use nature, even if not in an
exploitive way?
• Chew on this: Although Hopkins clearly sees humans as a part of
nature, he also believes they have the responsibility to guide and
order nature, which places them in a superior position.
Themes cont.
• Awe and Amazement: The speaker admits he has no
idea how the world came to be filled with dappled things.
He can offer no explanation but can only describe and
admire.
• Question: How does the speaker’s awe manifest itself in
Hopkins “sprung rhythm”?
• Transience: According to the poem, the beauty of the
earth is dependent on change. According to the speaker,
the only thing that does not change is God (‘past
change’). God brings change into the world, like a person
slowly turning a kaleidoscope.
• Question: Why is God ‘past change’? And when, then, is
change a good thing?
Norman MacCaig
• MacCaig was born in Edinburgh in 1910 and
divided his time, for the rest of his life, between
his native city and Assynt in the Scottish
Highlands from where his mother’s family came
from.
• He was schooled at the Royal High School and
studied classics at the University of Edinburgh.
•For the early part of his working life, he was
employed as a school teacher in primary
schools.
Metaphysics
• Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy
investigating principles of reality
transcending those of any particular science.
It is concerned with explaining the ultimate
nature of being and the world.
• It relates to questions that cannot be
answered in factual terms. i.e. science may
tell us how the universe works, but why it
exists is a metaphysical question.
Summer Farm
Straws like tame lightnings lie about the grass
And hang zigzag on hedges. Green as glass
The water in the horse-trough shines.
Nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines.
A hen stares at nothing with one eye,
Then picks it up. Out of an empty sky
A swallow falls and, flickering through
The barn, dives up again into the dizzy blue.
I lie, not thinking, in the cool, soft grass,
Afraid of where a thought might take me – as
This grasshopper with plated face
Unfolds his legs and finds himself in space.
Self under self, a pile of selves I stand
Threaded on time, and with metaphysic hand
Lift the farm like a lid and see
Farm within farm, and in the centre, me.
Breakdown of the Poem
Straws like tame lightnings lie about the grass -simile
Gives the impression that ‘straws’ are dangerous, but in this case they have been pacified by the
environment (lie about the grass) The oxymoron presented here makes the first line of the poem
striking, afterall, how can lightning be tame?
And hang zigzag on hedges. Green as glass -simile
Green as glass, a metaphor, seems strange, as glass is not often thought of as green. However this links to
the next sentence, describing the water in the horse trough.
The water in the horse-trough shines.
This stanza sets the scene of the farm, but also how he describes it in such preciseness while considering
the vast scale of nature.
Nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines. –contrast to
lightning
Meticulous attention to detail- ‘nine ducks’
The way the lightning and number of ducks wobbling around are described is interesting, as they are
expressions that could startle you, as they make you think again about what they describe.
Breakdown of the Poem
A hen stares at nothing with one eye,
The constant use of “nothing out of nothing” is metaphysical. Foreshadows the importance of the ‘I’
persona, and shows idleness, but also self opinion. The poet is gazing around absent-mindedly, but at
the same time is seeing things in detail.
Then picks it up. Out of an empty sky
‘Nothing’ is described as a tangible object. The stanza has a dual meaning, continuing to describe the poets
surroundings but also showing how his observation leads him into deep thought (in the sky)
A swallow falls and, flickering through
The swallow is a metaphor for his thoughts, free to roam through the sky. As the swallow falls, a thought
comes to him out of the ‘empty sky’ and he gains a flicker of understanding or emotion as the thought
is “flickering through the barn” before it “dives up again into the dizzy blue” and he loses his train of
thought. The word dizzy conveys a sense of confusion afterwards.
The barn, dives up again into the dizzy blue.
The dizzy blue also makes you think twice about the sky and what thoughts roam there, but also the sea, as
the oxymoron ‘dive up’ is perhaps linked to this.
Breakdown of the Poem
I lie, not thinking, in the cool, soft grass,
This stanza shows the ‘I’ persona, and how his thoughts affect the poets identity. In this line, the poet does
not want to think about his identity, but his self awareness grows still
Afraid of where a thought might take me – as
The poet is ‘afraid’ because thoughts of identity on this farm can be heavy and unproductive. He is afraid
of the burden of philosophical indulgence.
This grasshopper with plated face
Here we are presented with an interesting image, a grasshopper, nature, with a plated face- something
man made. It suggests that nature would be hard to read, but instead the stanza goes on to say how it
‘unfolds’ suggesting it is made clear. Also, perhaps the poet describes himself with a plated face, hard
to read for himself.
Unfolds his legs and finds himself in space.
This shows the unfolding of a thought, the poet is jumping free from himself. “Finding himself in space”
refers to his conscious being above himself as he looks down upon the world and himself
within the farm.
Breakdown of the Poem
Self under self, a pile of selves I stand
This stanza shows the poets epiphany: This sense of multiple selves changing over time means that “the
self as such no longer appears as the enduring core substance of the personality, but an
extremely problematic concept which can never be fully comprehended but only
glimpsed” – there are so many selves that
Threaded on time, and with metaphysic hand
This sense of loss of identity is the consequence of his metaphysical thought which he was so afraid of in
stanza 3. The “metaphysic hand” is his mind reaching out and looking beyond the farm, lifting “the
farm like a lid”, and seeing the past and future of the farm as well as his own as they are intertwined in
the present.
Lift the farm like a lid and see
‘Lifting the farm like a lid’ – an instruction suggesting how the poet asks to open up the mind and see for
yourself what is underneath:
Farm within farm, and in the centre, me.
‘Farm within farm’ acts as a metaphor to show a Russian Doll type image; the poet becomes aware of the
many generations and many farms that have preceded this one .
Themes
 Identity and Self Awareness: Throughout the poem
the poet is fixed on his identity, and how his
thoughts scare him.
 Question: Why is the poet ‘afraid of where a thought
might take him?’
In Conclusion...