Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins is a deconstructed
sonnet that applauds the diversity of nature created by God. The structure and
verses of the poem are reminiscent of a prayer, similar to Bible verses. The
little sonnet is the celebration of diverse creation of God. The poem is
divided into two stanzas. The first stanza comprises of an assorted set of
examples the poet finds beautiful. Meanwhile, the second stanza is more of a
generalized statement about the sundry of nature. The poem begins with the call
to praise the Lord and it ends on a similar note as well.
All in all, the poet
reasons that the God is worthy of any worship simply because of the varied
nature of his creation. According to him, only a being as omnipotent as God can
paint the sky in dual colors as such of a brinded cow; can put rose-hued
speckles on trout; can plot and piece a land beautifully etc. Only a powerful
being like God can create something original and beautiful but so strange. However,
there is a huge contradiction with the poet’s reasoning. Even though he praises
God for creating a multitude of objects and creatures, God himself remains
eternal and absolute with no scope of diversity. God himself is an infinite
constant – an unchangeable being. Hence the question remains that how something
as static as God can create myriads of different things. The poem finds beauty
in difference. But as God is unvarying and perpetual in qualities, it almost
appears as though God himself may not be the most beautiful being. Hence, the
message of the poem is inherently in contradiction to itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment