Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Pied Beauty"

VOCABULARY
1. dappled: spotted, speckled, pied; multicolored
2. couple-colour: two colors
3. brinded: Brindled; having a brownish yellow or gray coat with
spots or streaks of a darker color
4. rose-moles: reddish spots on the skin
5. stipple: pattern of spots; a technique in painting where one
uses the end of brush bristles to make dots
6. Fresh . . . falls: fallen chestnuts with shells that opened; the
exposed nuts resemble glowing coals
7. Fold: a "fold" is a fenced-in area for sheep
8. Fallow: a field that has been left empty
9. tackle: equipment
10. trim: equipment.
11. Counter: opposite ( as in counter clockwise)
12. Spare: rare; not common
13. fickle: changeable
14. adazzle: glittering brightly; the opposite of dim
15. fathers-forth: creates, begets

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
rose-moles: Reddish spots on the skin
stipple: Pattern of spots; A technique in painting using dots.

trout

chestnut

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

finch


And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
tackle: equipment - trim: equipment.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Counter: opposite ( as in counter clockwise), unusual - Spare: rare; not
common

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
fickle: changeable freckled: having freckles (small brown spots on someone's skin.)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
adazzle: glittering brightly; the opposite of dim; dazzling

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that
swim;

Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle , freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
In this line, the poet describes three pairs of
opposites: fast and slow, sweet and sour, and
bright ("adazzle") and dim.
The pairs are
separated from each other by means of
semicolons. At this point, the poet means to
include every possibility as a reason for praise. All
those creatures and objects have value and
beauty.

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

 BEAUTY: The poem is a celebration of beauty in all
its forms. Whether fickle or freckled, fragile or
changeable, big as the sky or small as the wings of a
small bird, all God’s creations have beauty in their own
unique ways. The idea of beauty even extends to the
useful tools and equipment. Everything and everybody
is beautiful in its/his/her own way. The appreciation of
beauty in Victorian poetry was a reaction to the spread
of ugliness in English cities under the impact of
relentless industrialism (another form of reaction was
the aesthetic movement pioneered by Walter Pater).

 DIVERSITY: The poem also celebrates diversity in
God’s creation. It is an invitation for acceptance and
tolerance of all that is different, odd, unfamiliar, or
unconventional.

 CHANGE: All things in this world are changeable,
mutable, fragile. Change means also decay, and all
the created world is subject to decay and death. Only
God is beyond change.
 NATURE: The poem encourages people to appreciate
the beauty of nature in all its different shapes and
forms, to look around them with fresh eyes, to see
beauty in the simplest and most commonplace things
in the natural world, and to see how all that attests to
God’s greatness.
 PRAISING GOD: God deserves to be thanked and
praised for creating this beautiful world. This poem is
an act of prayer in both its content and form.

CURTAL SONNET
Gerard Manley Hopkins called this poem a curtal
sonnet, meaning a shortened or contracted sonnet.
A curtal sonnet consists of eleven lines instead of
the usual fourteen for the standard Shakespearean
or Petrarchan sonnet.
NOTE:
• The rhyme scheme in the Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet is abba
abba (the octave) and cde cde (the sestet).
• The rhyme scheme in the Shakespearean sonnet is abab cdcd
efef gg.
gg
• In “Pied Beauty,” it is abcabc dbed

SOUND

Rhyme scheme: ABCABC DBED
Sound Devices: The poem abounds in alliteration. This
is used by the poet to unify all aspects that are described
in the poem despite their apparent differences. All things
are linked because they are created by the same creator.

• Examples: “Glory be to God ;” “couple-colour,”
“Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;”
“plotted and pieced;” “fold, fallow;” “spare, strange;”
“fickle , freckled;” “swift, slow;” “sweet, sour;”
“ fathers-forth”
Consonance works to the same effect of gathering things in
the poem in unified whole.

SPRUNG RHYTHM:
“Pied Beauty” is an example of Hopkins’ sprung
rhythm. It is a metrical system which consists of
one stressed syllable, either standing alone or
followed by a varying number of unstressed
syllables, ranging from one to four. Hopkins
intended it to approximate common speech.
/ - -

-

/

-

/

-

-

Glory be to/God for /dappled/ things—
-

/

-

-

/

-

-

-

/

-

-

For /skies of couple-/colour as a /brinded/cow;

DICTION
-

Neologisms and Hyphenated words:
Hopkins uses hyphens to coin new words
(neologisms):
couple-color
rose-moles
fresh-firecoal - chestnut-falls
fathers-forth

INSCAPE
Inscape is a concept that Hopkins derived
from the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus.
everything in the universe, according to
Hopkins, is characterized by a distinctive
design that constitutes individual identity.
In other words, inscape is those
characteristics that give each thing in the world
its uniqueness and, differentiating it from other
things.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Pied Beauty"

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Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Pied Beauty"