Day 90: Pied Beauty

Okay. Gerard Manley Hopkins is one of my most favorite poets of all time. Here is perhaps his best work:

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 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;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

Naturally, I needed to explicate it.

Explication:

Hopkins’ “Pied Beauty”

Romanticism is a marvellous post-Renaissance movement in which to find religious fervor, in art, poetry, novels, and even theatre. The artists find God in nature, finding the maker through His handiwork—typically this handiwork is best admired if it is beautiful according to our own values of beauty. But one renegade Romantic, Gerard Manly Hopkins, penned a poem that features the dull, the spotty, and the strange as natural elements just as important in finding Divinity. “Pied Beauty” is a splendid reminder to us that, by describing all kinds of nature, though they be imperfect in our eyes, they are still creations of a perfect, loving God.

Hopkins is a Romantic poet; as such, he is a firm believer that “seeing a rose is to see the face of God”, or more simply, that the divine is best accessed through nature. But rather than choose something like a tiger (William Blake), Hopkins describes a cow (2). Rather than describing animals like sharks, whales, hawks or falcons, he uses trout and common finches as examples of God’s nature (3-4). This more common side of nature sets the tone for Hopkins’ poem; he argues, in Romantic fashion, that the face of God can also be found in something as common as river trout or a milk cow. In post-Renaissance world, where great art and poetry features the most perfect and beautiful humanity and nature have to offer, such an idea is revolutionary, and savors of future artistic movements such as realism. By coupling divinity with plain elements of the world, Hopkins suggests that”beauty” is a temporary and mortal word, ascribed by humans in nature based on temporary and mortal reasons.

In addition to describing common elements in nature, he describes the so-called imperfections we would see in those common elements. During the Romantic period, society looked on freckles and other such blemishes as imperfections brought on by exposure, lower society, and even the devil (witch-hunts, etc., and also the Puritan idea that Satan looks like a fair, freckled Scotsman). But Hopkins suggests that these imperfections are created by God, and are therefore well meditated in advance, and looked upon as “good”. His nature in this poem is “pied” in every way, spotted, dappled (1), freckled, and even fickle (8). This play on the word “piety” invokes yet more divinity within nature, and suggests our own proper reaction to finding God in the imperfect.

By combining un-sublime elements with physical imperfections, Hopkins makes a clear call for us to stop finding imperfection in the creations of God—creations we also are. These imperfections are not imperfections after all—they were, after all, created by an all-knowing and all-powerful God. “GLORY be to God,” he writes on the first line, and then the last two read “He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him” (10-11). This suggests that God Himself is beautiful—therefore everything that comes from him is also beautiful. Whether Hopkins suggests that God Himself is pied, striped, dappled, or spotted—all those imperfections a Romantic society would find—remains to be seen. I suppose the fact that the author brings it up is evidence enough of his opinions. He does say that beauty on earth cannot be determined by a mortal being. He does call us all to praise God for everything He has given, and not to find fault or ignore His creations. In that kind of devotion, we might be able to see beauty in everything on earth.