Francisco Romário Nunes (FECLESC)
This works intends to make a brief analysis over two of the most important poets of English literature. The first is Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744) and the other is Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 – 1889). They wrote well about reason and nature respectively, concerning to their style of writing, our purpose is to analyze and intertwine both Pope’s and Hopkins’ poems. The main aspects such as reason and nature will be discussed in order to comprehend the writers, and also, to compare their works according to the first. To make this analysis, some poems will be observed and analyzed; but it is important to point out that this work shall not describe historical aspects in detail but the sense and feelings expressed by the writers, which are essential to build up a critical study.
ALEXANDER POPE AND THE AGE OF REASON
The Age of Reason is known by the expression of reason rather than emotion. A time for deep feeling is over; there is not space for content but form. Individual intentions are no more required; on the contrary, social conventions are more important. In this sort of rebellion, it lacks a balance so well expressed by William Shakespeare, who was a writer from brain, heart, and senses. These three themes should be described together, and no longer be apart. Although brain tries to present love and sense by the experience, it does not work at all. The work would not be complete if it lacks one of the three related aspects. Because of this sort of dissociation, the language of reason produced something empty, without meaning. On the other hand, it was a new way of writing, and even though the works produced were a kind of absurd, they were fundamental to build up another universe of language and form. And great writers appeared at that time.
The greatest poet of the period is Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744). He was born on May 21 in 1688 in London. His father, Alexander Pope was a successful linen merchant who had become a Roman Catholic. His mother was also a Catholic. The author grew up to be about four feet six inches in height, tubercular and sickly, the victim of chronic headaches. While yet a boy, he read English, Latin and French poetry.
Pope published many works, among the main are The Rape of Lock (1712), Epistle to Addison (1725); The Dunciad (1728), an attack on poets who wrote to gain their lives; and he also translated The Iliad and The Odyssey of homer. His masterpieces are An Essay on Criticism (1712) and En Essay on Man (1733).
Alexander Pope was a classical poet, who accepted the world as it is, and participated in society, as a professor of a university in Dublin, also, he taught at many others colleges. His way of writing was most of the times satire, philosophical and critical. Pope was satirist; he had the habit of disapproving many things, an irony and hesitation with regard to all things. Pope’s poetry had become a kind of equilibrium very based on experience, which supported him as a great satirist. He used the principle of nature and reason to express his vision over the world. Nature in this sense, means human nature, he said “the proper study of mankind is man”. In other words, man is the main subject of his works; he dropped out subliminal themes to write about the feelings and expectations of the human being. He also wrote about politics, society and business, poetry and conversation.
Pope had respect for the word. According to him, to make poetry is necessary design, language and versification. About “rhyme” Pope said “I have nothing to say for rhyme but that I doubt whether a poem can support itself without it in our language, unless it be stiffened with such strange words as are likely to destroy our language itself”. As explained by Pope, to make poem the poet has to combine the right words in order to produce rhyme and sound. The great poet is not the one who changes the language, but the one who melts the words according to his purpose.
Pope had sense to turn things into satire. Most of his thoughts are well remembered until now. Although the influence of reason, he printed meaning in his words. His masterpiece An Essay on Criticism (1711) criticizes the critic at that time. It contains many sayings very used nowadays, such as “A little learning is a dangerous thing”. The Essay on Man (1733) invokes the figure of human nature. The very next topic shall discuss a little more about this last work.
A BRIEF ANALYSIS OVER POPE’S THE ESSAY ON MAN
In the Essay on Man, Pope attempts perfection. The poem focuses on the human being and nature and seems to work on a system of morality.
…Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!..
It is clear that man has to seek things by himself, glory and defeat are very close to each other, and in between lays the man. It is logical the sense of reason, this idea goes forward the instinct of living. In the piece below reason is described as the most important principle man should consider. Pope expresses reason as superior to everything. Hence, emotion is taken as an inferior subject, it is neither mentioned. If it is not by reason, man can attend anything.
… Two principles in human nature reign;
Self-love to urge, and reason, to restrain;
Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call,
Each works its end, to move or govern all
And to their proper operation still,
Ascribe all good; to their improper, ill.
Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
Reason’s comparing balance rules the whole…
In the piece below Pope is satirist. He describes man as a being who seeks new things all the time and as a being who is fool and stuck, afraid of new discoveries. Richness in this sense does not mean material things but knowledge, on the other hand, poverty is seen as lack of learning. Pope does not tolerate the ones who are afraid of new worlds.
The learned is happy nature to explore,
The fool is happy that he knows no more;
The rich is happy in the plenty given,
The poor contents him with the care of Heaven.
This work is full of philosophy, and it sums up what is rational. The Age of Reason, as typical tries to turns everything into reason. Man does not need to accept anything but reason. Although a little bit unbalanced, this poetical movement was really important to form new ideas and discoveries, since a large number of works were published. And also, many authors influenced the coming of the Romantic Age.
In the topic bellow, a brief overview on Gerard Manley Hopkins shall show a different point of view over the subject nature.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
Another very worthy literary figure of English poetry is Gerard Manley Hopkins. He lived during the Victorian Age. Born on July 28, 1844, he is considered the greatest poet from his time. He attended the Roman Catholic Church becoming a priest a little time later. Then he decided cease writing and burnt all his woks. Since then he spent nine years without writing.
Only in 1875, Hopkins starts writing again, after a ship sank near Thames River. Many of his friends died with the disaster.
Hopkins took part in what he had learned in Church to write poems. He portrayed his own way of writing, creating a sort of flexible form, although conventional, but complete and meaningful. He died in 1889 victim from typhoid fever. The works were not published during his lifetime, but a friend of his, Robert Bridges, published Hopkins’ poems edited in a volume which only appeared in 1918.
Until 1918, Hopkins was unknown. After the publication of his poems, immediately he became influenced and seen as a modern poet. In his works we are able to grasp the meaning he intended to express, which was “God’s power and beauty as manifested in nature”. Concerning to language he named a rhythmical system called ‘sprung rhythm’, which became a principle in his verses. This means that his poems were not a bunch of limited unaccented syllabic words. Also, Hopkins used to create new patterns and combine unusual words; this gave a different affect in the poem itself.
Some of his most important poems are God's Grandeur, As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Dráw Flame, Spring, Pied Pity, Peace and The Windhover.
AN OUTLOOK OVER HOPKINS’ POEMS GOD’S GRANDEUR, SPRING AND PIED PITY
Hopkins’ poems are very readable, mainly because they are short and clear to understand, and the language used seems to be more attractive. Hopkins proposed a new way of writing subjects related to spirituality and nature, he saw God as great than anything, and described the Divine as the highest form in the universe. In God’s Grandeur, we may observe his worship on god:
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Hopkins found God in nature; God and nature are understood as a sort of unification. God lays in nature, and nature is the representation of God himself. This effect had a kind of contemplation, as he focused on nature to represent God and His greatness. The very next poem Spring concerns to nature:
Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
The poet portrays the significance of nature and how delicate it is. It is the inspiration for the ear and the eyes. Is these verses; Hopkins also attached to biblical gospels; actually he melted the richness of nature with the bitterness of sinning. To finish, the poem Pity Pied molds the greatness of the Creator, and Hopkins’ praises for God.
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 all trades, 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.
The author folded describing all the things are original in essence and are beauty, even though they seem odd to us. The presence of God in nature means that, if you destroy it, you are destroying God, yet, as the Creator is powerful, it will grow up again forming new landscapes. Although Hopkins’ poems were too much attached to religion, He achieved what he meant. He found God in nature and poetry, actually, many of his poems contains references from the Bible. Here his literary techniques and theological knowledge went together to create content, form and sound.
THE PRINCIPLE OF NATURE IN POPE’S AND HOPKINS’ WRITINGS
Nature is regarded mainly as beautiful landscapes, views full of life, but it also can be part of the human being. In this sense, we mean human nature, which can be good or evil. Back to the analysis, the theme nature is described a little bit similar to these two principles, but in the very particular ways through the authors’ thinking.
Alexander Pope, for instance, related nature to reason, to human capacity of thinking. His sense of writing then comes along with human nature. The man is owner of his own destiny, “The proper study of mankind is man”; all the things depend on his behavior. Pope, also, gives the idea that reason and self-love are two very important things men must rely on: “Two principles in human nature reign; Self-love to urge, and reason, to restrain”. Man cannot attend anything but these subjects; they rule him and support him every time he needs. “Reason’s comparing balance rules the whole. Man, but for that, no action could attend”, this shows that reason is into human nature and it is like a guide to man act wrongly or rightly. For pope “The learned is happy nature to explore, the fool is happy that he knows no more; the rich is happy in the plenty given, the poor contents him with the care of Heaven”. In other words, the searching for knowledge is a very important value; it is a sort of conquered liberty. This short overview shows Pope’s sense of writing.
On the other hand, Gerard Manley Hopkins considered nature itself as the representation of God. It has not much to do with human mind, but the greatness of the Creator upon everything. Hopkins portrayed God from landscapes into poetry, “Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough”. He created images with effect: “view of the sea through summertime pines and a temple lantern cut from stone”. Like this he transported landscape and poetry to eternity, “And for all this, nature is never spent; there lives the dearest freshness deep down things”. This was the essence of his poems.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Each author, then, gives his style to the writing; his manners identify him and help him to build up a sort of identity. And this identity may influence someone else to create new ideas and thoughts later on. Alexander Pope and Gerard Hopkins, in spite of the same subject, were able to write different points of view and exploited the essence presented. They reached out what they meant, according to their works and their representations of nature, new literary universes were invented or imitated. That is why these poets’ works are still read and studied until today.
In conclusion the authors presented here influenced, and still do, contemporary writers. New ways of describing nature may appear someday and, as well as the expressions of nature developed by Pope and Hopkins, they probably will be read, analyzed and at last kept in people’s minds.
REFERENCES
WILSON, John Burgess: English Literature: a survey for students. London: Longman, 1970.
THORNLEY, G.C.: An Outline of English Literature. London: Longman, 1974.
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/284,>em 26/07/2010
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hopkins/index.html,>em 26/07/2010
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