19 pages • 38 minutes read
God’s Grandeur
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Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“The Windhover” by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1918)
Gerard Manley Hopkins described “The Windhover” as the best thing he ever wrote. The poem was the last of the poems he wrote in the “God’s Grandeur” sonnet cycle and describes the beauty of the windhover’s flight, identifying in it the perfection of God.
“Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798” by William Wordsworth (1789)
William Wordsworth was captivated by the Wye Valley in Wales and wrote this poem about a visit to Tintern Abbey. This poem exemplifies many of the aesthetic values in the Romantic tradition. Wordsworth internalizes the natural landscape and finds in it an occasion for philosophical theorization on the internal life of memory, emotion, and the self.
“In the Valley of the Elwy” by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1877)
“In the Valley of the Elwy” is one of Hopkins’s few poems that mentions a geographically specific location. Here Hopkins makes reference to the natural world surrounding Wales, and like Wordsworth, Hopkins finds an intensity of experience in the landscape. While Wordsworth discovers in the Welsh countryside a moment of self-recognition and artistic creativity, Hopkins finds in it a wholly religious experience.
Further Literary Resources
“Selections from Hopkins’s Letters“ by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1864-82)
Hopkins was a prolific writer of letters throughout his whole life. In these letters, Hopkins addresses his friends, some of whom are poets, where he discusses his own theories on poetry, particularly his innovations in “sprung rhythm.” He also writes about his tastes in literature, expounding on his readings of John Milton and William Shakespeare, expressing his admiration for both.
“The Reception of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Poems,” 1918-30” by Elgin W. Mellown (1965)
Gerard Manley Hopkins was not a renowned poet during his life. In this article, Elgin W. Mellown details Hopkins’s work after his death and how it came to be canonized by the poets of Modernism. He discusses the influence of the Catholic church, his friend and literary executor Robert Bridges, as well as the import of Hopkins’s experimental verse in Modernist poetry, particularly in the work of T. S. Eliot and Dylan Thomas.
““God’s Grandeur”: Hopkins’ Sermon to Wordsworth” by Donald Rackin (1980)
Hopkins’s relationship to the Romantics, which was discussed earlier in this guide, can be tracked by looking at the themes and topics of spirituality and the natural world he explored in his poetry. However, in this article, Donald Rackin details the deeper connections by looking at the language Hopkins used in the lines of his verse. Rackin looks specifically at “God’s Grandeur” as a direct response to Wordsworth’s poem “The World Is Too Much with Us.”
Listen to Poem
Archivist, poet, and literary aficionado, Hugh Schwartzberg was known for his archival collection of manuscripts, as well as his recordings of poets reading their work. Here he reads Hopkins’s “God’s Grandeur.”
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By Gerard Manley Hopkins
