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Essay on Analysis of Hopkin's Poem "God's Grandeur"

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Gerard Hopkins wrote God's Grandeur in 1877 right around the time he was ordained as a priest. The poem deals with his feelings about God's presence and power in the world. He could not understand how the people inhabiting the earth could refuse or be distracted from God. This confusion was due to the greatness of God's power and overall existence that, to Hopkins, seemed impossible and sinful to ignore. However, as the poem progresses Hopkins expresses hope in the world and God's everlasting presence in it. This poem has much meaning to it and expresses the thoughts and feelings that Hopkins was having at the time he wrote it. When one first reads God's Grandeur it is hard to fully understand what Hopkins was trying to convey. One must …show more content…

The first point is the prominence and greatness of God in our world. The second builds off of the first, questioning the lack of respect, worship, or simple acknowledgement of God by the human race. The third point continues Hopkins's thinking process by expressing hope in the Holy Ghost and his never-ending existence in the world. The first point of the poem that Hopkins desired to convey is in the first three lines. The poem starts off by giving a description of God's grandeur in our world. The first line is representative of the time period that the poem was written, "The world is charged with the grandeur of God." Hopkins's use of the word "charged" to describe God's presence, may it have been intentional or not, reflects the world that Hopkins lived in. In 1877 electricity had been discovered, but it was still an uncontrollable and indescribable mystery. It was a power that could not be fully explained just like God's presence on the earth, something that is still as much of a mystery today. It was almost God-like, and was a perfect was to explain God's existence. Another comparison is made at the end of line three, "It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil." The world under God is being compared to the ooze of oil, expressing how God's will holds the earth together like oil. Throughout the poem Hopkins uses alliteration very effectively and in these first few lines it is blatantly evident. Certain consonants are used in

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