‘Pied Beauty’ and ‘A Birthday’ are two poems that explore creation through the author’s portrayal of creation. Hopkins is a religious man, who sees things as God’s creations and its inner and outer beauty, where as Rossetti sees creation as life and love, and how they affect her. Hopkins appreciates and bows down to God for all of His beautiful and striking creations that God has spread all over the world. It is as if he is depicting God as an artist and His creations as a painted canvas board on which he can draw beauty and simple things. In ‘A Birthday’, Rossetti looks at the creation of new love that she has now found. She is overjoyed because her love is shared and wants to make a new beginning with this person. A Birthday is filled with joy, cheerfulness and expectation of
what this newly created life will be like with her new love.
Hopkins writes about God’s creations through nature. This poem describes his wonder and respect at the creation of such an extraordinary and ever changing course that is nature “All things counter, original, spare, strange;” Hopkins sees things as different and unique, but still sees the beauty that lies behind this. He manages to bring our senses to life, making us imagine beautiful things by showing us that all things no matter how different they are that they are still made by the one God. He doesn’t need extra words to describe something. His words are simple and create a realistic picture of what we think is beautiful. This creates a tone to the poem. When I read the poem I could see that Hopkins was awed and astounded by nature and was above all grateful for this glorious gift from God. He praises God in a very subtle manner, right until the end.
Rossetti starts the poem with repetit...
... middle of paper ...
...ler branches can grow from.’ And also how the branch holds fruit, another sign of life supported by the branch. The shell is the protective case of the mothers’ womb and signifies the guardian of life and creation in the great sea of our lives. The last two lines show us her joy for the birthday and her lover. “The birthday of my life” tells us that whoever’s birthday it is, it is a very special day in her life, and “my love has come to me” tells us that either her lover is now with her forever, or maybe that she has given birth to a child which is now the love of her life.
Both Gerard Hopkins and Christina Rossetti show us their joy of creation and their love for creation. Hopkins sees the things that God has given to us and how are so beautiful. Rossetti displays to us her feelings towards creation of new things, life and love, and how they mean so much to her.
Rossetti, Christina. The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti. With Memoir and Notes &c. Ed. William Michael Rossetti. London; New York: Macmillan, 1904.
...ve for these characters was fated to be unattainable and deceiving. The attempt to seek out such represents a temptation that is pointless to pursue because the simple variable of change is unavoidable. This patriarchal society's denial to this truth is a cruel deception that, in both poems, victimizes women. The deception is maintained in the fairy-tale folklores of romantic poetry that Goblin Market and The Prince's Progress imitate, both literally and suggestively. Rossetti’s narratives illustrate a complex of immediate gratification, especially with the incorporation of romantic ideas, and they highlight that the fulfillment of these delights, however brief, leads to certain betrayal and disappointment. In this way, Rossetti oddly criticizes the romantic ideas in traditional literature while presenting a review of the beliefs fundamental to those ideas.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “Body’s Beauty” in The House of Life: A Sonnet-Sequence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1928), p. 183
There were two principle views concerning imagination, the Victorians and the Romantics, who didn’t accept each other’s ideas about imagination. But, despite their clashes on the status and views of imagination, the Romantics and Victorians share similar ideas through different angles of perspective, which we could assume are linked in part to their era. The long poem, named Goblin Market, written by Christina Rossetti shows the contrast between the ideas of Romanticism and the Victorian image of imagination while utilizing the same motifs. Goblin Market centralizes its theme on the Victorian approach towards Imagination as being a destructive, alien force that leads to grave and fatal consequences. Nature is seen as a demonic force that leads to death, as well as the clear distinction of the imaginative creatures, consisting of the goblins, being portrayed as satanic and evil. In addition, throughout this tale we see how the imagination is constantly blamed for leading to unfortunate situations, while the Romantics would consider the imagination to be doing the person good even if it leads the person astray on a path of death and destruction. Thus, Rossetti’s text demonstrates the Imagination having satanic nature, which portrays imagination as intoxicating and deadly. Also, the author displays her disapproval of nature by demonstrating Laura’s rejection of nature as her enlightenment, whereas the Romantics would do otherwise. The Romantics have different views of the imagination than the Victorians. They consider imagination as a divine force and a pathway to a higher experience and spiritual truth in any form. The Romantics consider that their perc...
The poem "Pied Beauty" begins by praising God for all the colorful and diverse things in nature. The speaker is thankful for everything with dots, circles, different colors, etc. He seems to be fond of nature and "the great outdoors." Many of the images in the poem made me think of camping out, or a picnic. For example, fresh fire-coal, chestnut falls, finches, skies of two colors, cows, etc. But the poem does not only speak of natures’ diversity. It also makes reference to manmade things. For example, man’s trades, tackle, and trim are also varied. The landscape plotted and pieced. The poem goes on to thank God for more things. Everything that is different, everything that is changing, everything that has dots, etc. At the end of the poem, the speaker says, "He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change." I had trouble with this line, because I did not know what the speaker meant by this. But after researching, and asking around, I came to the conclusion that it means that God, who creates change, is unchanging himself. While the beauty of the earth lies in its change, and it’s diversity… the beauty of God is unchanging and timeless. So there is a bit of irony at the end.
In this poem, Rossetti paints a picture of betrayal as in A Prince’s Progress, and similarly we see the symbol of the apple tree representative of a treacherous lover: ‘I counted rosiest apples on the earth, of far less worth than love’. Here Rossetti laments the speaker’s loss by condemning the greed and overindulgence of those picking the apples and equating them with Adam and Eve’s betrayal of God. With the Christian faith being of such pivotal importance in Rossetti’s life, it is unsurprising that she, like Winterson employs such frequent use of the biblical imagery of fruit, however both writers utilise it to present different moral themes. One of the main presentations of fruit in Rossetti’s poetry is temptation and betrayal, encompassing Goblin Market, A Prince’s Progress, and An Apple Gathering; as one critic, Anthony H. Harrison, suggests: ‘As in An Apple-Gathering, at issue in almost all of Rossetti 's poems about betrayed lovers or betrayed expectations of love is the unattainability of
is a poem about the nature of creation, much as is his earlier poem from
Christina Rossetti born in London on December 5, 1830; Rossetti was homeschool by her mother Gabriele Rossetti; during her homeschooling she developed a great devout religious temperament as a young girl. Christina along with her mother and sister were all a member of the evangelical branch of the Church of England, Rossetti later on developed interest in the Tractarianism and became a Tractarian. A Tractarain was a follower(s), and supporters of the Oxford movement, Tractarianism was basically the religious opinions and principles held by the founders of the Oxford movement that was placed in series of ninety pamphlets titled Tracts for the Times, published in Oxford, England between 1833-1841.Rossetti bega...
Blake, Wordsworth, and Keats all represent the Romantic style of literature with their unorthodox themes of nature, art, and life; and how those three points can be tied together and used for creative purposes among humankind. Art and life are counterparts; one is lacking without the other. The Romantic period was about passion; finding inspiration and beauty in things people see every day. Wordsworth found childhood memories in a familiar landscape, Blake found himself captivated by the mysteries of how the majestic tiger was created, and Keats’ urn triggered him to put his inquiries of it into poetry. Each man expressed his individual view within their works; and like many of their Romantic contemporaries, their ideas ran against the flow of their time’s societal beliefs.
The poem “God’s Grandeur” by Gerald Hopkins is a poem of the relationship between God, nature and humans and the idea that no matter what is done to nature, it will heal itself. The title of the poem could be literally be taken to say “God’s Magnificence” and from this it can be inferred that the poem will draw positive connotations and images of the greatness or glory of God and his creation of nature. The poem spans and speaks literally of the effect God has on nature and man’s work that changes the landscape by production and industry but the “freshness” of nature is protected always remains and could never be destroyed. The poem is directed towards the reader where the tension of the work is the relationship between God/nature and man.
Christina Rossetti's poem, “In An Artist’s Studio”, explores how men foster a need for control by creating unrealistic expectations for women through their fantasies. Through the use of repetition, contrast of imagery, and symbolism, Rossetti guides us through the gallery inside of an artist’s mind, portraying the fantasies that give him a sense of control over the women he creates.
Nature is often a focal point for many author’s works, whether it is expressed through lyrics, short stories, or poetry. Authors are given a cornucopia of pictures and descriptions of nature’s splendor that they can reproduce through words. It is because of this that more often than not a reader is faced with multiple approaches and descriptions to the way nature is portrayed. Some authors tend to look at nature from a deeper and personal observation as in William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, while other authors tend to focus on a more religious beauty within nature as show in Gerard Manley Hopkins “Pied Beauty”, suggesting to the reader that while to each their own there is always a beauty to be found in nature and nature’s beauty can be uplifting for the human spirit both on a visual and spiritual level.
Romanticism was both an artistic and intellectual movement geared essentially toward emphasizing nature’s subliminal aura, the individual’s expression of emotion and imagination, and ultimately a heightened sense of consciousness. Widely acknowledged for his contributions to Romanticism, English poet William Blake is considered to be one of the most influential poets of the nineteenth century. Blake, a visionary far beyond his years, was adamant in expressing his views on the cosmos; that one cannot simply have the good without experiencing the bad nor can one have the bad without experiencing the good. Near the end of the seventeen hundreds, Blake published two highly acclaimed works supporting his claim that in order for the world to function as it does, all things in the universe must have an opposite, or a contrast. He published his poem collection entitled “Songs of Innocence and of Experience” in 1794 and finished composing his book “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, a few years prior to it. These two brilliant works exemplify exactly just how important a positive balance in the cosmos really is. William Black depicts good and evil in his poems with the use of the reference to joy and sorrow.
Through the ingenious works of poetry the role of nature has imprinted the 18th and 19th century with a mark of significance. The common terminology ‘nature’ has been reflected by our greatest poets in different meanings and understanding; Alexander Pope believed in reason and moderation, whereas Blake and Wordsworth embraced passion and imagination.
In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus defines beauty and the artist's comprehension of his/her own art. Stephen uses his esthetic theory with theories borrowed from St. Thomas Aquinas and Plato. The discourse can be broken down into three main sections: 1) A definitions of beauty and art. 2) The apprehension and qualifications of beauty. 3) The artist's view of his/her own work. I will explain how the first two sections of his esthetic theory relate to Stephen. Furthermore, I will argue that in the last section, Joyce is speaking of Stephen Dedalus and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as his art.