"Pied Beauty

Lauren Patton

English 1002

Dr. Jude Meche

24 February, 2012

A Reading of Gerard Manly Hopkins’

“Pied Beauty”

“Pied Beauty” by Gerard Manly Hopkins exemplifies him as a nature and religious poet. In the first stanza Hopkins states “Glory be to God for dappled things” (line 1). This clearly reveals that Hopkins is praising god for all the things created by God. The line that best reflects what Hopkins is trying to get across can be found in the very last line of the poem, “praise him.” (11). Throughout the poem, the speaker contrasts the different things in nature he is thankful for. Hopkins even states that he is thankful for the things that are different, as stated in second stanza “all things counter, original, spare, strange;” (7). From the beautiful things to the “strange” things Hopkins still declares his praise for everything God has created and put on this earth.

In the first stanza Hopkins depicts his acclamation for God’s creations and contrasts the beauty in all things. Such as in the first stanza, “For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow;” (2) Hopkins contrasts the “couple-color” (2) of the skies to the “brinded” or striped cow. The poet contrasts the trout with rose-colored characteristics “all in stipple” (3), meaning spotted, which relates to an art technique known as stippling. Hopkins then states the “Fresh-firecoal chestnut” (4) dropping and opening to reveal a reddish-brownish nut inside. He contrasts this to the “finches’ wings” (4) which are a variety of color. Hopkins presents the beauty of these things in a way we can almost translate and uses forms of metaphor to relate to the “dappled things-“(1) which is stated at the beginning of the poem.

Hopkins then directs his attention to the beauty of the landscape as depicted in lines 5-6. In the last lines if stanza one the poet states “[the] Landscape plotted and pieced” (5), which depicts the land as a manmade landscape being “plotted and pieced” (5) meaning divided into...