{"id":511,"date":"2022-12-16T05:16:47","date_gmt":"2022-12-16T05:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/education\/?page_id=511"},"modified":"2023-03-27T06:51:07","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T13:51:07","slug":"e212-questions-hopkins-spr-2011","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/e212-questions-hopkins-spr-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"E212 Questions – Hopkins – Spr. 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

EMAIL<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0SYLLABUS<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0POLICIES<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0| QUESTIONS<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0|\u00a0PRESENTATIONS<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0JOURNALS<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0PAPER<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0EXAM<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGod\u2019s Grandeur\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.  What failure does Hopkins charge common human beings with?  What do they fail to perceive in nature, and why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.  How does this poem assert the capacity of poetic language to celebrate God?  What does the poet\u2019s description of nature have to do with his determination to praise God? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs Kingfishers Catch Fire\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.  How does the \u201cselving\u201d of natural things, as explained in the first stanza or octet, set up a pattern for human beings to follow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.  How is human \u201cselving\u201d different from and higher than that of nature, according to the speaker? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Windhover\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

5.  Compare this poem to Tennyson\u2019s \u201cThe Eagle.\u201d  What is similar, and what differs between the two poems with respect to the speaker\u2019s way of observing a bird of prey in flight, and any broader significance that may be drawn from the observation of nature?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6.  How does the sestet (the final six lines) complete the poem\u2019s meaning\u2014why, with regard to the speaker\u2019s perception of the Windhover diving, is there \u201cNo wonder of it,\u201d and what do the references to the shiny plough and \u201cblue-bleak embers\u201d add to your understanding?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPied Beauty\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

7.  How does this poem attempt to liberate nature from saturation by human consciousness?  How might that attempt be said to distinguish Hopkins\u2019 treatment of nature from the romantics\u2019 treatment of it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8.  The poem ends with the line \u201cpraise him\u201d\u2014i.e. praise God for the great diversity of things as described in the first ten lines.  How is the appreciation of nature\u2019s diversity, for Hopkins, an affirmation of God\u2019s creative energy?  To respond, you might want to refer to the Norton introduction\u2019s explanation of Hopkins\u2019 affinities with Duns Scotus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBinsey Poplars\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

9.  Connect this poem to what your Norton introduction says about Hopkins\u2019 doctrines of \u201cinscape\u201d and \u201cinstress.\u201d  How does this poem dramatize a failure of \u201cinstress\u201d on the part of those who have chopped down the stand of poplars? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDuns Scotus\u2019s Oxford\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

10.  How does the speaker particularize Oxford, and how is his mention of Duns Scotus, the \u201csubtle doctor\u201d of scholastic fame, part of that particularization? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

11.  What is the speaker\u2019s complaint about modernity\u2019s intrusion into the Oxford schoolscape and landscape, over and above the obvious \u201cuglification\u201d of the scenery?  As with \u201cBinsey Poplars,\u201d connect this poem to what your Norton Introduction says on page 1649 about Hopkins\u2019 doctrines of \u201cinscape\u201d and \u201cinstress.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFelix Randal\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

12.  How does Hopkins, as a Jesuit priest who has ministered to the blacksmith Felix Randal, respond to the man\u2019s death?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13.  In what sense is this poem a meditation on the difficulty of \u201clooking to the end,\u201d both for the priest and for the once active blacksmith?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

14.  Describe the psychology of depression that Hopkins is exploring.  Why is it so difficult to escape the mental state he finds himself in?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo Worst, There is None\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

15.  What is this lowest state of the soul that the speaker describes?  Why is it appropriate to describe it as a kind of personal hell?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16.  Compare the poem\u2019s last three lines to Swinburne\u2019s final lines in \u201cHymn to Proserpine.\u201d  Why is the thought ultimately not comforting to Hopkins?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat Nature Is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

17.  How is nature a destructive force in the first part of the poem?  What links nature\u2019s energy with that of the Resurrection? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

18.  How does the poem figure the power and scope of the Resurrection?  What images, what poetic strategy, help Hopkins accomplish that task? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Journals<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

19. To what extent are Hopkins’ observations about perception and nature similar to the reflections on those things in his poetry? Find a few instances in the journals that help you understand the poetry and explain how they help in that regard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edition: <\/strong>Abrams, M. H. et al, eds.  The Norton Anthology of English Literature.  <\/em>8th ed.  Vol. E.  New York: Norton, 2006.  ISBN Package 2 (Vols. DEF) 0-393-92834-9. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGod\u2019s Grandeur\u201d 1.  What failure does Hopkins charge common human beings with?  What do they fail to perceive in nature, and why? 2.  How does this poem assert the capacity of poetic language to celebrate God?  What does the poet\u2019s description of nature have to do with his determination to praise God?  \u201cAs Kingfishers Catch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"wf_page_folders":[43],"class_list":["post-511","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4678,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/511\/revisions\/4678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"wf_page_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_page_folders?post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}