Summary of the Poem
Explore the ways in which Hopkins conveys the beauty of the nature in Pied Beauty? Hopkins creates a prayer like poem in praise of the beauty and design of nature that God has created. He chooses unusual descriptions to encapsulated the variety of beautiful sights and sounds that can be found in the world and celebrates the astonishing complexity of God’s creation in this pared down sonnet. He creates a reverent and worshipful tone that epitomizes his feelings of awe and wonder when confronted with the natural world. Firstly ‘Pied Beauty’ is a prayer like poem.
We can see this at the beginning and end Of the poem when it says ‘Glory be to God for dappled things’ and ‘Praise him’. This reminds us a lot of a prayer as we start a prayer with God and end with God this is a simple message from the poet that is he is writing about nature he is writing about god. Also it is a short poem, which makes a simple point. Secondly this poems design has a range of nature, which starts of big a gets smaller for example it starts of with the sky to cow to trout to chestnuts then finally with ‘finches wings’.
So he really shows us the range of nature from the massive sky to tiny little, delicate finches wings. Thirdly ‘Pied Beauty has some unusual descriptions for example to describe the sky he says ‘For skies of -couple color as a branded cow’ now here we can see that what he means is brindle but the author has change it to either fit the poem or because he thinks it sounds better. He means brindle as in striped with different colors this is unusual but a very good way to describe the sky. Fourthly Gerald Manly Hopkins uses a variety of beauty in his poem.
He uses sights and sounds to his advantage we can see this when he says ‘swift, slow’ and ‘sweet, sour he make these very opposite comparisons with nature. Fifthly the poem has astonishing complexity this has happened because he has made up his own words up for example ‘branded cow’ and ‘couple-color’ this makes him very individual. This also makes sounds very effective and makes us think more about the poem and what it is about. He makes words that are very similar to that actual one but he either changes them or edits hem for example ‘branded’ which is actually ‘brindle’.
Sixthly the pared down sonnet is very irregular as a normal sonnet has 14 lines here the sonnet has only eleven. However the poem has regular meter beats of ‘A, B, C, A, B, C, D, B, C, D, C’ so it is regular apart from the last five lines which make their own meter. Seventh the worshipful tone this is a very and they have to make that impression by the time you have finished the poem. They achieve this by the last line it is very short and says ‘Praise him’ this is a very simple one which makes it more affective.
It also it very memorable as it is very short and to the point. It reminds us of a prayer as in a prayer you end with amen and here it is ‘Praise him’ they are both really short and to the point. Awe and wonder, in conclusion, In this way, we can see how Hopkins creates a powerful poem that skillfully describes and praises the beauty of nature. He achieves this through carefully chosen images that economically portray natural images whilst structuring a reverent piece of almost religious quality.
