Gods Grandeur Essay Example For Students

Gods Grandeur Essay As a Jesuit priest who had converted to Catholicism in the summer of 1866, Gerard Manley Hopkinss mind was no doubt saturated with the Bible (Bergonzi 34). Although in Gods Grandeur Hopkins does not use any specific quotations from the Bible, he does employ images that evoke a variety of biblical verses and scenes, all of which lend meaning to his poem. Hopkins creates a powerful form of typological allusion by abstracting the essencethe defining conceit, idea, or structurefrom individual scriptural types (Landow, Typological 1). Through its biblical imagery, the poem manages to conjure up, at various points, images of the Creation, the Fall, Christs Agony and Crucifixion, mans continuing sinfulness and rebellion, and the continuing presence and quiet work of the Holy Spirit. These images combine to assure the reader that although the world may look bleak, man may yet hope, because God, through the sacrifice of Christ and the descent of His Holy Spirit, has overcome the world. The op ening line of Gods Grandeur is reminiscent both of the Creation story and of some verses from the Book of Wisdom. The word charged leads one to think of a spark or light, and so thoughts of the Creation, which began with a spark of light, are not far off: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light (Gen. 1.3). Yet this charge was not a one time occurrence; the world is charged with the grandeur of God (Hopkins 1). Or, in the words of Wisdom 1:7, The spirit of the Lord fills the world (Boyle 25). This line of the poem also sounds like Wisdom 17:20: For the whole world shone with brilliant light . . . Nor does the similarity end with the first part of this biblical verse. The author of Wisdom proceeds to tell us that the light continued its works without interruption; Over the Egyptians alone was spread oppressive night . . . yet they were to themselves more burdensome than the darkness (Wisd. 17.20-21). Here lies the essence of Hopkinss poem. In lines five through eight, he will show us the oppressive night that men bring upon themselves in their disregard for God and His creation. But he will also show us, in the final sestet of his poem, that the light will nonetheless continue to shine without interruption. God will not cease working in the world. Indeed, His grandeur will flame out, like shining from shook foil (Hopkins 2). The word flame is often associated with Gods grandeur. In Daniel 7:9, the prophet describes Gods throne as being like the fiery flame. In Revelation, the Son of God . . . hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire (Rev. 2.18). In Exodus, God appears unto Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush (Exod. 3.2; Boyle 31). After promising Samsons parents a son, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar (Judges 13.20). It is possible, too, that this flame is meant to recall the cloven tongues like as of fire that appeared above men on the day of Pentecost, when Gods grandeur was shown through the descent of His Holy Spirit and in the speaking of tongues (Acts 2.1-4; Boyle 27-28). The second half of this image is primarily a scientific one. It refers to gold leaf foil as used to measure electrical charges in Faradays famous experiment (Boyle 26). But there is also a biblical significance. Proverbs 4:18 tells us that the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Just as light is reflected from gold foil, flashing out in multiplying rays, so too does the Light of God, which leads men, continue to increase. This image in one way ties into lines three and four of Hopkinss poem, in which Gods grandeur gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil / Crushed. Both images demonstrate a process of increase in Gods grandeur. Gethsemane means the place of the olive-press' (Landow, Typological 6; Boyle 32). It was there that Gods grandeur gathered to a greatness, for it was there that Christ wrestled with doubt and fear and, gathering His strength, finall y made an irrevocable choice to glorify His Father: not my will, but thine, be done (Luke 22.42). The olive, in itself, is not particularly valuable. It can be eaten, but until it is pressed, it has no further use. Once pressed into oil, however, it was used in biblical times for cooking (1 Kings 17.12-13), lighting lamps (Exod. 27.20), anointing (Ps. 23.5), binding wounds (Luke 10.34), and in perfume (Luke 8.46). It was very valuable, and the promised land was referred to as, among other things, a land of oil olive (Deut. 8.8). This, then, is an apt metaphor for Gods grandeur as revealed through Jesus Christ. Had Christ chosen, at that point of agony in the garden, not to submit to the crucifixion, His entire life up to that point would have been (like the uncrushed olive) of little value. His teachings and His miracles would probably have been forgotten in time, and man would still have no adequate atonement for sin. But just as the olive is crushed to reveal something costly and useful, so too did Christ chose to be crushed to bring forth His priceless blood, which saves men (Landow, Typological 6). Accepting this role was no easy matter for Christ. Robert Boyle sees the main point of the olive oil image as being that something hidden, beautiful, and wonderfully powerful is revealed (31). But an at least equally important point is how that hidden something is revealed. Boyle believes the olive oil image refers not to the gathering of ooze from the cracks of a press but rather to gentle kneading with a hand: the beauty and power is hidden within the olive and can be brought out without a press at all, e.g., by the pressure of the fingers or palms (32). This seems unlikely, however, given that at Gethsemane, Christ was not lightly pressed as if in a palm, but was rather weighed down and crushed with great agony, sweating as it were great drops of blood and begging that, if at all possible, His cup be taken from Him (Luke 22.42-44; Boyle 32). Furthermore, it w as at the oil-press that Christ, in order to purchase beauty and life, chose to submit to an even greater crushing: the beams of the bark that would grind Him down as He bore His cross up the hill of Calvary, the pain that would come from being nailed through His hands and feet, and the slow suffocation that would precede His death (Landow, Typological 6). George P. Landow acknowledges the significance of Christs suffering. He describes one of Hopkinss basic and generating conceit:. . . higher beauty and higher victory can come forth only when something . . . is subject to greater pressure and crushed or bruised . . . true beauty, true life, true victory can only be achieved, as Christ has shown, by being bruised and crushed. (Allusion 1). This conceit, Landow explains, is based upon the type of Genesis 3:15, which says: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel. Christ is the one who bruises Satans head, defeating the adversary through His own bruising, His crucifixion. To the casual reader, this image of the ooze of oil / Crushed may seem unnecessarily crude. It contrasts sharply with the brilliant metaphor of flame and shining. As Virginia Ellis writes, the image of shaken goldfoil, once properly understood, vividly suggests both the breadth and the sudden flashing depth of Gods power (129-30). The word ooze, on the other hand, generally possesses a disagreeable connotation. Yet this contrast must be deliberate. For the Incarnation is, after all, a very crude thing. An omnipotent, omniscient God chose to come down from the heavenly realm and take on the form of a mere man, subjecting Himself to the limitations of humanity, in order that He might die a cruel death to save men who were yet sinners (Rom. 5.8). The brilliance of lines one and two of Hopkinss poem contrast with the crudeness of lines three and four to reveal Gods amazing condescension, which is part of His grandeur. Given this awesome condescension, and given the emotional and physical pain to which Christ subjected Himself, Hopkins cries plaintively, Why do men then now not reck his rod? (4). Most likely, this reference to rod will evoke in the readers mind the image from Revelation in which Christ rules men with a rod of iron (Rev. 19.15). But a mo re appropriate allusion may be found in Isaiah: And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him (11.1-2; emphasis added). The his of this line of the poem must grammatically refer to the God of line one. Gods rod, then, is Christ Himself. God gave up his rod, His only Son, as a sacrifice for the very men who (we will soon see) fail both to perceive and to honor Him in His creation. And the very blame which Hopkins heaps on man in lines five through eight of the poem is witness to his vivid realization that man does not need to be behaving as he does, that the Fall has been undone by the Second Adam (Boyle 37). Indeed, the rod of iron that awaits these men could become for them a rod of comfort. If they would but trust in Gods Rod, they too, like the psalmist, might say, Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me (Ps. 23.4). Juvenile Delinquency EssayOnly seemingly, writes Ellis, is Gods energy fallen, crushed, debased in this world (128). For, even though the last lights off the black West went / Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs (Hopkins 11-12). Or, as 2 Samuel 23:4 prophesies, he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. Again, the vehicle of the metaphor is nature, and its rejuvenation symbolizes Christs coming into the world. This image of morning springing from darkness also draws our attention to the words of Isaiah: Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily (58.8). And again:I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. (Isaiah 42.16; emphasis added)The continuing presence of the Holy Spirit is proof of this promise. God continues to work through the Holy Ghost, who over the bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings (Hopkins 13-14). The bent (crooked) world has not been abandoned by God; it will be made straight, for it has been conquered by Him, and it is still being protected by Him. The bird imagery of line fourteen is drawn from the baptism of Jesus, when he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him (Matt. 3.17; Boyle 38). This dove imagery, in turn, is meant to recall Genesis, in which the Holy Spirit apparently broods over the world: And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters (1.2; Boyle 38). The wing imagery possess a variety of positive connotations. Wings are associated in the Bible with Gods healing (Mal. 4.2), with His protection (Ruth 2.12; Ps. 17.8, 26.7, 57.1, 61.4, 63.7, 91.4; Matt. 23.37), with the strength that He imparts to man (Isa. 40.31; Exod. 19.4), and with His conquest. This last association, though not the most obvious, is perhaps the most crucial. When God is said to spread His wings over a city, it means He has conquered it (Jer. 48.40). At the end of Gods Grandeur, God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, has spread His bright wings over the bent world, implying that He is not only protecting, healing, and strengthening it, but that, despite the seeming triumph of darkness, He has already conquered the world through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who was crushed like an olive for this very purpose. The world remains charged with the grandeur of God, in spite of all mankind has done and is doing to pollute and pervert and tread out its radiance (Ellis 129). God, through the constant presence of His Holy Spirit, continues to rejuvenate physical nature as well as the human spirit; both are being made over anew (Wisd. 19.6). So, however dark and dreary this world may appear (and does appea r in lines five through eight of the poem), we must not surrender hope. For as Christ exhorted, In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world (John 16.33).