Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Pied Beauty
Analysis

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;
5
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, 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;
10
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

 Form: Curtal sonnet in Sprung Rhythm

 Theme: the ‘argument’ of the sonnet is framed by and within the sentences ‘GLORY be to
God…’ and ‘Praise him’, which may be taken to be its ‘message’ and purpose
 The ‘middle’ of the poem is an elaboration of this ‘argument’
 As such, the poem can be taken as an exhortation and an exemplum
 Consider to what extent, and how, it serves a homiletic and sacramental function
 Notice that ‘Glory be to God…’ is in subjunctive mood, ‘Praise him’ in the imperative
(Why does Hopkins not write ‘Let us praise him?’)
 The ‘Gloria’ section of the Latin Mass, which is a Christian sacrament and a service,
begins: Gloria in excelsis Deo…, glory to God in the highest, and goes on: Laudamus
te…, We praise You
 Lines 2-9 explains, enumerates and elaborates the nature of ‘God’s Grandeur’: ‘The
world is charged with the grandeur of God’
 This world is a created world, implying a creator—is the Creator above or within the
created order, is he Transcendent or Immanent?
 The created world involves contrariety (‘counter’), complimentarity (‘couple’); it is
mutable and mottled (‘fickle, freckled’)
 Note that the words/phrases dappled, couple-colour, brinded, plotted and pieced, fickle,
freckled, are similar in sense and suggestion: this is reinforced with sound effects—
alliteration and assonance, and stress. The word ‘dappled’ recurs throughout Hopkins’s
poetry and is a key word signifying a key idea
 Notice the implicature of nature, inanimate, (sky) vegetal (chestnut), animal (cow, trout,
finch, i.e. terrestrial, aquatic, aerial) and human nature as evidenced in human occupation
(fold, fallow, plough—implying a ‘field’, in both senses, then extending to all trades)
 See ‘Credo’ in the Latin Mass: I believe in one God…by whom all things were made

 See psalm 148: Praise ye the Lord…for He commanded, and they were created… Fire,
and hail; snow, and vapours; stormy wind fulfilling his word: 9 Mountains, and all hills;
fruitful trees, and all cedars: 10 Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl:
11 Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth: 12 Both young

men, and maidens; old men, and children

 From ‘all trades’ the argument extends its scope to ‘all things’—notice the movement
from the particular to the general, then to the radical particularity of God.
 Notice the vivid visual imagery: the sensuous immediacy after the style of Keats and the
Pre-Raphaelites: to what extent is the poem ‘a speaking picture’ (ut picture poesis,
Horace’s phrase), and what purpose does the imagery serve?
 Hopkins uses the word ‘landscape’. This 1) implies a metaphorical analogy—a farmland
‘plotted and pieced’ like a quilt 2) transforms nature into art, since landscape is a genre of
painting; think about the creative agency involved here
 Consider whether there is an implicit reference to the Classical pastoral (idealized
representation of shepherds) and georgic (idealized representation of farming) traditions.
 Consider the possible connection of landscape with inscape
 Counter, original, spare, strange are attributes of substances whose common
attributes are being ‘fickle, freckled’. Think through the value of all 4 adjectives, and
how they may relate to the organizing adjective ‘pied’
 Line 10 effects a volta or ‘turn’ in thought: this is an example of contrast, of the surprise
and abruptness Hopkins speaks of in his letters and journals.
 Is the question ‘who knows how?’ answered by the 2 following lines (freckled with
contrary qualities/attributes, and freckled by God) or does it remain unanswered? Is it,
then, a genuine question or a rhetorical question?
 A possible answer is, ‘both’: it is a mystery in the Christian, especially Catholic, sense,
which Hopkins describes as ‘an incomprehensible certainty’.
 The poem, then, can be said to turn upon the contrast of created order and Creator, whose
respective attributes or qualities are many- against one-ness, mutability against
immutable eternity, difference(constituting identity) against (pure)identity
 Could it be said that an appreciation of the observable beauty of the created order leads
one on to an appreciation of, and awe before, the inscrutable Creator?
 If the beauty of the created order is ‘pied’, would it be possible to find an
adjective/attribute for the ‘beauty [that] is past change’ and for Him whose ‘beauty is past
change’?
 Praise him: St Ignatius wrote: ‘Man was created to praise’. This implies 1) man was
created by a Creator 2) man was created for the purpose of praising his Creator,
therefore it is his duty and vocation to praise.
 Hopkins said ‘all things are upheld by instress…’ in connection with the philosophy of
the Pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides. Parmenides believed that the essence of created
nature is changeless and One; this was adapted by Plato and further adapted by Chrisrian
theologians to arrive at the doctrine of timeless transcendence of God. This can be
contrasted with the philosophy of Heraclitus who thought nature was a flux. See
Hopkins’s sonnet ‘That Nature is a Heraclitean fire…’
 See Latin Mass: Credo: Credo in unum Deum: I believe in one God—not only in one
God (as opposed to many) but in a God who is One, that is, above and beyond the play of
difference.
 Notice the crisp, curt finality of the last line, how does it secure its rhetorical effect?
 Hopkins in his sonnet ‘To what serves Mortal Beauty?’ answers: ‘…it…keeps
warm/Men’s wits to things that are;’ He also says that mortal beauty is (potentially)
‘dangerous’ since it ‘set[s] dancing blood’, i.e. excites enjoyment. How, and how far,
does this duality apply to ‘Pied Beauty’?
 Look out for instances of Foregrounding (i.e. formal highlighting), Parallelism, and
Contrast involving both sound and sense; notice, too, the movement of thought and its
conclusion—can it be described as an epiphany (revelation) or is it a foregone
conclusion?