Reading Hopkin's work was like reading the diary of a severely conflicted man. Overall, he seems to be working to maintain his faith harder than a priest should. As the text tells us he struggled with dissappointment in what he perceived to be a lack of productivity; his "terrible sonnets" deal with this frustration and also with his "spiritual sterility," meaning, I guess, his mixed feelings over his conversion to Catholocism. The poems were also more difficult to read than those we have covered so far, in that he experiments with syntax and crams a lot of ideas together in a seemingly unplanned manner.
Take "Carrion Comfort" for example. Hopkins calls it a sonnet, but it doesn't have the traditional form of one. This is the modern sonnet, experimenting with new forms and dealing with themes of self-doubt instead of love and Nature and beauty.
In this poem, Hopkins is arguing for his rejection of despair. Despair provides false comfort, after all what kind of comfort is found in carrion, besides a unity with death, the giving up of life and purpose? He portrays despair as a beast hunting him, who "scan(s) with darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones?" and taunts him by fanning him as he lies "heaped" by "turns of tempest." He is trying to escape his despair, and states plainly that though it hounds him, he is able to make the choice to reject it: "I'll not...feast on thee...Not untwist...these last strands of man in me." He then outlines this choice with "cry I can no more. I can;" He has enough humanity, or hope, left in him to be able to "not choose not to be."
In the second stanza, he questions why not let despair take over. Why does despair hunt him? Is it just to see him ruined and wasted, like chaff blown away, his "grain" to be wasted in disuse? Hopkins says that he has accepted the bad in the world, and in his life, by kissing the hand that holds the rod, and was able to gain a measure of peace, allowing his heart ot "lap strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer." All these things his heart can do imply that joy is not his, that laughter doesn't come easily. In the last few lines, he doesn't know what his heart would cheer for, be it for God for whom he feels is responsible for his despair, or for himself, who fights the despair--"Cheer whom though? The hero whose heaven-handling flung me, foot trod me? or me that fought him?" He is battling sadness adn hopelessness, and is unsure and confused as to where the battle lays, either within himself or with the God he believes in, but has mixed feelings for.
Take "Carrion Comfort" for example. Hopkins calls it a sonnet, but it doesn't have the traditional form of one. This is the modern sonnet, experimenting with new forms and dealing with themes of self-doubt instead of love and Nature and beauty.
In this poem, Hopkins is arguing for his rejection of despair. Despair provides false comfort, after all what kind of comfort is found in carrion, besides a unity with death, the giving up of life and purpose? He portrays despair as a beast hunting him, who "scan(s) with darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones?" and taunts him by fanning him as he lies "heaped" by "turns of tempest." He is trying to escape his despair, and states plainly that though it hounds him, he is able to make the choice to reject it: "I'll not...feast on thee...Not untwist...these last strands of man in me." He then outlines this choice with "cry I can no more. I can;" He has enough humanity, or hope, left in him to be able to "not choose not to be."
In the second stanza, he questions why not let despair take over. Why does despair hunt him? Is it just to see him ruined and wasted, like chaff blown away, his "grain" to be wasted in disuse? Hopkins says that he has accepted the bad in the world, and in his life, by kissing the hand that holds the rod, and was able to gain a measure of peace, allowing his heart ot "lap strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer." All these things his heart can do imply that joy is not his, that laughter doesn't come easily. In the last few lines, he doesn't know what his heart would cheer for, be it for God for whom he feels is responsible for his despair, or for himself, who fights the despair--"Cheer whom though? The hero whose heaven-handling flung me, foot trod me? or me that fought him?" He is battling sadness adn hopelessness, and is unsure and confused as to where the battle lays, either within himself or with the God he believes in, but has mixed feelings for.
posted by stevepeano at 11:09 AM
1 Comments:
Steve, I like what you wrote, and I agree that Hopkins is difficult in reading. I have some points to make, though. You wrote about his struggle in faith saying that it was a little exagerated- well, in catholicism this is the point- doubts, thoughts, maybe even momentary disbelief are parts of this religion. Hopkins had to feel more as a priest. The religion he baceme a part of requires that of him. Moreover, the despair he wrote about happens to be a topic of many of his poems... why? Well, he was just a part of the epoque of decadents and pesimists. It was so called "illness", or "spleen"... All Europe was getting uder the influence of literary movement in which despair, nonsence and pain of existence were main subject. Another fact is that Hopkins died at young age; sick people also tend to brake down sometimes... Anywa- I like to read your blogs!
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