Biblical Referances In Hopkin free essay sample

# 8217 ; Essay, Research Paper Biblical referances in Hopkin s work. Hopkins was no uncertainty saturated with the Bible ( Bergonzi 34 ) . Although in # 8220 ; God s Grandeur # 8221 ; Hopkins does non utilize any specific citations from the Bible, he does use images that evoke a assortment of scriptural poetries and scenes, all of which lend intending to his verse form. Hopkins # 8220 ; creates a powerful signifier of typological allusion by abstracting the kernel # 8211 ; the shaping amour propre, thought, or construction # 8211 ; from single biblical types # 8221 ; ( Landow, # 8220 ; Typological # 8221 ; 1 ) . Through its scriptural imagination, the verse form manages to raise up, at assorted points, images of the Creation, the Fall, Christ s Agony and Crucifixion, adult male s go oning wickedness and rebellion, and the go oning presence and quiet work of the Holy Spirit. These images combine to guarantee the reader that although the universe may look bleak, adult male may yet trust, because God, through the forfeit of Christ and the descent of His Holy Spirit, has overcome the universe. The gap line of # 8220 ; God s Grandeur # 8221 ; is evocative both of the Creation narrative and of some poetries from the Book of Wisdom. The word # 8220 ; charged # 8221 ; leads one to believe of a flicker or visible radiation, and so ideas of the Creation, which began with a flicker of visible radiation, are non far off: # 8220 ; And God said, Let there be light: and there was light # 8221 ; ( Gen. 1.3 ) . Yet this # 8220 ; charge # 8221 ; was non a 1 clip happening ; # 8220 ; [ t ] he universe is charged with the magnificence of God # 8221 ; ( Hopkins 1 ) . Or, in the words of Wisdom 1:7, # 8220 ; The spirit of the Lord fills the universe # 8221 ; ( Boyle 25 ) . This line of the verse form besides sounds similar Wisdom 17:20: # 8220 ; For the whole universe shone with superb visible radiation. . . # 8221 ; Nor does the similarity terminal with the first portion of this scriptural poetry. The writer of Wisdom returns to state us that the light # 8220 ; continued its plants without break ; Over [ the Egyptians ] entirely was dispersed oppressive dark. . . yet they were to themselves more onerous than the darkness # 8221 ; ( Wisd. 17.20-21 ) . Here lies the kernel of Hopkins s verse form. In lines five through eight, he will demo us the # 8220 ; oppressive dark # 8221 ; that work forces bring upon themselves in their neglect for God and His creative activity. But he will besides demo us, in the concluding six of his verse form, that the visible radiation will however go on to reflect # 8220 ; without interruption. # 8221 ; God will non discontinue working in the universe. Indeed, His magnificence # 8220 ; will flare out, like reflecting from shook foil # 8221 ; ( Hopkins 2 ) . The word # 8220 ; fire # 8221 ; is frequently associated with God s magnificence. In Daniel 7:9, the prophesier describes God s throne as being like # 8220 ; the fiery flame. # 8221 ; In Revelation, # 8220 ; the Son of God. . . hath his eyes like unto a fire of fire # 8221 ; ( Rev. 2.18 ) . In Exodus, God appears # 8220 ; unto [ Moses ] in a fire of fire out of the thick of a shrub # 8221 ; ( Exod. 3.2 ; Boyle 31 ) . After assuring Samson s parents a boy, the angel of the Lord # 8220 ; ascended in the fire of the communion table # 8221 ; ( Judges 13.20 ) . It is possible, excessively, that this fire is meant to remember the # 8220 ; cloven linguas like as of fire # 8221 ; that appeared above work forces on the twenty-four hours of Pentecost, when God s magnificence was shown through the descent of His Holy Spirit and in the speech production of linguas ( Acts 2.1-4 ; Boyle 27-28 ) . The 2nd half of this image is chiefly a scientific 1. It refers to gold leaf foil as used to mensurate electrical charges in Faraday s celebrated experiment ( Boyle 26 ) . But there is besides a scriptural significance. Proverbs 4:18 Tells us that # 8220 ; the way of the merely is as the reflecting visible radiation, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. # 8221 ; Just as visible radiation is reflected from gold foil, blinking out in multiplying beams, so excessively does the Light of God, which leads work forces, continue to increase. This image in one manner ties into lines three and four of Hopkins s verse form, in which God s magnificence # 8220 ; gathers to a illustriousness, like the sludge of oil / Crushed. # 8221 ; Both images demonstrate a procedure of addition in God s magnificence. Gethsemane # 8220 ; means the topographic point of the olive-press # 8221 ; ( Landow, # 8220 ; Typological # 8221 ; 6 ; Boyle 32 ) . It was there that God s magnificence # 822 0 ; gather [ ed ] to a illustriousness, # 8221 ; for it was there that Christ wrestled with uncertainty and fright and, garnering His strength, eventually made an irrevokable pick to laud His Father: # 8220 ; non my will, but thine, be done # 8221 ; ( Luke 22.42 ) . The olive, in itself, is non peculiarly valuable. It can be eaten, but until it is pressed, it has no farther usage. Once pressed into oil, nevertheless, it was used in scriptural times for cookery ( 1 Kings 17.12-13 ) , illuming lamps ( Exod. 27.20 ) , anointing ( Ps. 23.5 ) , adhering lesions ( Luke 10.34 ) , and in aroma ( Luke 8.46 ) . It was really valuable, and the promised land was referred to as, among other things, a # 8220 ; land of oil olive # 8221 ; ( Deut. 8.8 ) . This, so, is an disposed metaphor for God s magnificence as revealed through Jesus Christ. Had Christ chosen, at that point of torment in the garden, non to subject to the crucifixion, His full life up to that point would hold been ( like the uncrushed olive ) of small value. His instructions and His miracles would likely hold been forgotten in clip, and adult male would still hold no equal expiation for wickedness. But merely as the olive is crushed to uncover something dearly-won and utile, so excessively d id Christ take to be crushed to convey forth His invaluable blood, which saves work forces ( Landow, # 8220 ; Typological # 8221 ; 6 ) . Accepting this function was no easy affair for Christ. Robert Boyle sees the # 8220 ; chief point of the [ olive oil ] image [ as being ] that something hidden, beautiful, and wondrous powerful is revealed # 8221 ; ( 31 ) . But an at least every bit of import point is how that concealed something is revealed. Boyle believes the olive oil image refers non to # 8220 ; the assemblage of sludge from the clefts of a imperativeness # 8221 ; but instead to pacify working with a manus: # 8220 ; the beauty and power is hidden within the olive and can be brought out without a imperativeness at all, e.g. , by the force per unit area of the fingers or handle # 8221 ; ( 32 ) . This seems improbable, nevertheless, given that at Gethsemane, Christ was non lightly pressed as if in a thenar, but was instead weighed down and crushed with great torment, sudating # 8220 ; as it were great beads of blood # 8221 ; and imploring that, if at all possible, His cup be taken from Him ( Luke 22.42-44 ; Boyle 32 ) . Furthermore, it was at the oil-press that Christ, in order to buy # 8220 ; beauty and life, # 8221 ; chose to subject to an even greater # 8220 ; oppressing # 8221 ; : the beams of the bark that would crunch Him down as He bore His cross up the hill of Calvary, the hurting that would come from being nailed through His custodies and pess, and the slow asphyxiation that would predate His decease ( Landow, # 8220 ; Typological # 8221 ; 6 ) . George P. Landow acknowledges the significance of Christ s agony. He describes one of Hopkins s # 8220 ; basic and bring forthing amour propre # 8221 ; : . . . higher beauty and higher triumph can come away merely when something. . . is capable to greater force per unit area and crushed or bruised. . . true beauty, true life, true triumph can merely be achieved, as Christ has shown, by being bruised and crushed. ( # 8221 ; Allusion # 8221 ; 1 ) . This amour propre, Landow explains, is based upon the type of Genesis 3:15, which says: # 8220 ; And I will set hostility between thee and the adult female, and between thy seed and her seed ; it shall contuse thy caput, and thou shall contuse his heel. # 8221 ; Christ is the 1 who bruises Satan s caput, get the better ofing the antagonist through His ain bruising, His crucifixion. To the insouciant reader, this image of the # 8220 ; sludge of oil / Crushed # 8221 ; may look unnecessarily petroleum. It contrasts aggressively with the superb metaphor of fire and reflecting. As Virginia Ellis writes, the image of # 8220 ; [ s ] haken goldfoil, # 8221 ; one time decently understood, # 8220 ; vividly suggest [ s ] both the comprehensiveness and the sudden flashing deepness of God s power # 8221 ; ( 129-30 ) . The word # 8220 ; ooze, # 8221 ; on the other manus, by and large possesses a disagreeable intension. Yet this contrast must be deliberate. For the Incarnation is, after all, a really rough thing. An omnipotent, all-knowing God chose to come down from the celestial kingdom and take on the signifier of a mere adult male, subjecting Himself to the restrictions of humanity, in order that He might decease a barbarous decease to salvage work forces who were # 8220 ; yet evildoers # 8221 ; ( Rom. 5.8 ) . The glare of lines one and two of Hopkins s poem con trast with the crudity of lines three and four to uncover God s astonishing superciliousness, which is portion of His magnificence. Given this amazing superciliousness, and given the emotional and physical hurting to which Christ subjected Himself, Hopkins cries plaintively, # 8220 ; Why do work forces so now non reck his rod? # 8221 ; ( 4 ) . Most likely, this mention to # 8220 ; rod # 8221 ; will arouse in the reader s mind the image from Revelation in which Christ regulations work forces # 8220 ; with a rod of Fe # 8221 ; ( Rev. 19.15 ) . But a more appropriate allusion may be found in Isaiah: # 8220 ; And there shall come Forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a Branch shall turn out of his roots: And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him # 8221 ; ( 11.1-2 ; accent added ) . The # 8220 ; his # 8221 ; of this line of the verse form must grammatically mention to the # 8220 ; God # 8221 ; of line one. God s rod, so, is Christ Himself. God gave up his rod, His lone Son, as a forfeit for the really work forces who ( we will shortly see ) neglect both to comprehend and to honour Him in His creat ive activity. # 8220 ; And the really blasted which [ Hopkins ] tonss on adult male # 8221 ; in lines five through eight of the verse form # 8220 ; is witness to his graphic realisation that adult male does non necessitate to be [ acting ] as he does, that the Fall has been undone by the Second Adam # 8221 ; ( Boyle 37 ) . Indeed, the rod of Fe that awaits these work forces could go for them a rod of comfort. If they would but swear in God s Rod, they excessively, like the psalmist, might state, # 8220 ; Yea though I walk through the vale of the shadow of decease, I will fear no immorality: for 1000s art with me ; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me # 8221 ; ( Ps. 23.4 ) . But # 8220 ; [ i ] nstead of acknowledging the authorization of God s stateliness and magnificence in nature, as St. Paul says he should, # 8221 ; writes Boyle, # 8220 ; . . . adult male tramples it in his disdain for and ignorance of his and its Creator # 8221 ; ( 35-6 ) . This is made clear in line five of the verse form: # 8220 ; Coevalss have trod, have trod, have trod. # 8221 ; The image resembles God s ailment in Ezekiel: # 8220 ; Seemeth it a little thing unto you to hold eaten up the good grazing land, but ye must step down with your pess the residue of your grazing lands? # 8221 ; ( 34.18 ) . It is bad plenty that adult male has disregarded the beauty of God s creative activity and failed to see His magnificence in it. But adult male has done worse than ignore it, he has polluted it with his ain iniquitous nature ; he has brought darkness upon himself in the really thick of God s visible radiation. # 8220 ; And all is seared with trade, # 8221 ; writes Hopkins ( 6 ) . Nothing has escaped adult male s mercenary touch. Work force, consumed by their ain involvements, have fo rgotten James s warning: Travel to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will travel into such a metropolis and go on at that place a twelvemonth, and purchase and sell, and acquire addition: Whereas ye know non what shall be on the morrow. For what is you life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a small clip, and so vanisheth off. ( Jas. 4.13-14 ) This image of all being seared with trade conjures up a image of the symbolic wicked metropolis of Babylon, where work forces merchandise in # 8220 ; gold, and Ag, and cherished rocks. . . Equus caballuss, and chariots, and slaves, and psyches of work forces # 8221 ; ( Rev. 18.12-13 ) . Work force have put their trust in the green goods of their ain custodies, caring nil for the psyche. Indeed, they have chosen the animal over God, and have possibly been seared non merely with trade, but in order to merchandise, for # 8220 ; no adult male might purchase or sell, salvage he that had the grade, or the name of the animal, or the figure of his name # 8221 ; ( Rev. 13.17 ) . Yet all of adult male s humdrum, mercenary nisus will come to nil: # 8220 ; And. . . every bit many as trade by sea, stood afar away. . . crying and howling, stating, Alas, alas, that great metropolis, wherein were made rich all that had ships. . . for in one hr is she made desolate # 8221 ; ( Rev. 17-19 ) . Work force, tuging to accumulate useless wealth, have become # 8220 ; [ b ] leared, smeared with labor # 8221 ; ( Hopkins 6 ) . This, argues Boyle, should non be taken simply as an indictment of industrialism: The state of affairs reaches far more profoundly into the nature of adult male. . . After the Fall adult male. . . has to step the universe and to sudate. . . ( Genesis, 3:17-19 ) . . . But Hopkins accent is on the # 8220 ; all # 8221 ; of # 8220 ; all is seared with trade. # 8221 ; And his ailment is that the dirt is non cleared here and at that place, but it is au naturel. He is non here reprobating adult male for the Fall, but for what he adds to the Fall from his ain personal maliciousness and rebellion against God. . . ( 36 ) This image of au naturel dirt pertains non merely to adult male s devastation of nature, but to his religious bleakness. In Christ s fable of the sower, we learn that: A sower went out to seed his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the manner side ; and it was trodden down, and the poultry of the air devoured it. . . And some fell among irritants ; and the irritants sprang up with it, and chocked it. ( Luke 8.5-7 ) Nature is the vehicle of this metaphor, but adult male s spirit is the tenor. The dirt is au naturel merely as adult male s psyche is au naturel ; he has borne no religious fruit. Either he has rejected God s good intelligence, as if treading it beneath his pess, or he has at foremost received it lief, but so been # 8220 ; chocked with the attentions and wealths and pleasances of this life # 8221 ; ( Luke 8.14 ) . Not merely is the dirt # 8220 ; bare now, # 8221 ; but # 8220 ; nor can pick feel, being shoed # 8221 ; ( Hopkins 7-8 ) . Again we are reminded of the scene of the combustion shrub, in which God tells Moses: # 8220 ; put off thy places from off thy pess, for the topographic point whereon 1000 standest is holy land # 8221 ; ( Exod. 3.5 ; Boyle 31 ; Ellis 131 ) . We see adult male # 8220 ; corrupting with shoed pess what should be holy land, non bare dirt # 8221 ; ( Boyle 31 ) . In the Bible, to be barefoot is to experience. In Moses s instance, the feeling is fear. In the instance of those defeated by war and take off shoeless, the feeling is shame ( Isa. 20.2-4 ) . And in the instance of David go uping the Mount of Olivet to seek God s counsel during the rebellion of Absalom, the feeling is sorrow: # 8220 ; And David. . . wept as he went up, and had his caput covered, and he went barefoot # 8221 ; ( 2 Samuel 15.30 ) . But in Hopkins s verse form, the work forces are shoed, typifying the fact that they have become thickened, incapable of religious feeling. If work forces are to be shod with anything, they should be # 8220 ; shod with the readying of the Gospel of peace # 8221 ; ( Eph. 6.15 ) . The image painted in lines five through eight of # 8220 ; God s Grandeur # 8221 ; leaves small evident hope for adult male. But we have been forewarned in the first three lines of the verse form that God s visible radiation has non been eclipsed by adult male s darkness, and that His magnificence will yet # 8220 ; fire out. # 8221 ; Hopkins does non abandon this promise, but resumes it with full force in the concluding six of his verse form. # 8220 ; And for all this, # 8221 ; he avows, # 8220 ; nature is neer spent # 8221 ; ( 9 ) . The word # 8220 ; nature # 8221 ; may be taken to use, on three different degrees, to physical nature ( i.e. stones, trees, animate beings, etc. ) , human nature ( i.e. the human race ) , and godly nature ( i.e. God ) . Physical nature, despite adult male s abuse of it, has non been spent, but continues to be rejuvenated and to bare informant to its Creator. Indeed, God has promised peace in nature, vowing that # 8220 ; [ t ] hey shall non ache nor destruct in all my sanctum mountain # 8221 ; ( Isa. 11.6-9 ) . Likewise, human nature is neer spent, # 8220 ; [ f ] or God formed adult male to be imperishable ; the image of his ain nature he made him # 8221 ; ( Wisd. 2.23 ) . And eventually, godly nature is neer spent # 8211 ; that is, God is non exhausted, and He has non given up on adult male. He will go on to labour, through the Holy Spirit, to convey work forces to repentance, assisting them to go # 8220 ; sharers of the godly nature, holding escaped the corruptness that is in the universe through lust. # 8221 ; ( 2 Pet. 1.4 ) . Man has non be # 8220 ; spent # 8221 ; ; he has non been sold to Satan. To the contrary, he has, in fact, been # 8220 ; bought with a monetary value # 8221 ; ( 1 Cor. 6.20 ) . This monetary value, # 8220 ; Christ s decent into human flesh, # 8221 ; and His crucifixion, is what makes the # 8220 ; freshness # 8221 ; of line 10 of the verse form # 8220 ; dearest # 8221 ; ( Landow, # 8220 ; Typological # 8221 ; 6 ) . This # 8220 ; freshness # 8221 ; is likely meant to arouse and accordingly to withstand the conclusiveness of the image of the wanton devastation of nature in Wisdom. The word # 8220 ; freshness # 8221 ; is alone, being found nowhere in the Protestant Bible. But in Wisdom, work forces, # 8220 ; believing non aright # 8221 ; and believing their lives to be short and mortal, state, # 8220 ; allow us. . . use the freshness of creative activity avidly. . . Let no hayfield be free from our abandon # 8221 ; ( Wisd. 2.1-9 ) . When construing the verse form on the degree of physical nature, we should non undervalue # 8220 ; [ t ] he anguish that Hopkins. . . felt because industrial adult male non merely failed to react to the signifiers o f nature but in fact seemed dedicated to their obliteration # 8221 ; ( Bump 159 ) . Hopkins wrote in one of his diaries: The ashtree growth in the corner of the garden was felled. It was lopped foremost: I heard the sound and looking out and seeing it maimed at that place came at that minute a great stab and I wished to decease and non see the inscapes of the universe destroyed any more. ( Bump 159 ) Yet, despite the fact that adult male abuses nature for his ephemeral pleasance, he does non hold the power to destruct it wholly, for there still # 8220 ; lives the dearest freshness deep down things # 8221 ; ( Hopkins 10 ) . The # 8220 ; deep down # 8221 ; things signify non merely the greening of nature, but the greening of adult male through the presence of the Holy Spirit. Christ s decease, while redeeming evildoers, besides made it possible that the Holy Spirit might be sent into the universe ( John 16.7 ) . The symbolic dove, whose image we see in lines 13-14, expresses # 8220 ; the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in animals and above all in the psyche of work forces # 8221 ; ( Boyle 37 ) . The Spirit dwells within all trusters, but It will besides go on Its attempts to convey disbelievers to repentance, for God is # 8220 ; non willing that any should die # 8221 ; ( 2 Pet. 3.9 ) . And although Christ was crushed down, emotionally and physically, He rose once more, and He will besides come once more. # 8220 ; Merely apparently, # 8221 ; writes Ellis, # 8220 ; is God s energy fallen, crushed, debased in this universe # 8221 ; ( 128 ) . For, even # 8220 ; though the last visible radiations off the black West went / Oh, forenoon, at the brown threshold eastward springs # 8221 ; ( Hopkins 11-12 ) . Or, as 2 Samuel 23:4 prophesies, # 8220 ; he shall be as the visible radiation of the forenoon, when the Sun riseth, even a forenoon without clouds ; as the stamp grass jumping out of the Earth by clear polishing after rain. # 8221 ; Again, the vehicle of the metaphor is nature, and its greening symbolizes Christ s coming into the universe. This image of forenoon jumping from darkness besides draws our attending to the words of Isaiah: # 8220 ; Then shall thy light interrupt Forth as the forenoon, and thine wellness shall jump Forth quickly # 8221 ; ( 58.8 ) . And once more: I will convey the blind by a manner that they knew non ; I will take them in waies that they have non known: I will do darkness visible radiation before them, and crooked things directly. These things will I make unto them, and non abandon them. ( Isaiah 42.16 ; accent added ) The go oning presence of the Holy Spirit is cogent evidence of this promise. God continues to work through the Holy Ghost, who # 8220 ; over the set / World broods with warm chest and with ah! bright wings # 8221 ; ( Hopkins 13-14 ) . The set ( crooked ) universe has non been abandoned by God ; it will be made consecutive, for it has been conquered by Him, and it is still being protected by Him. The bird imagination of line 14 is drawn from the baptism of Jesus, when # 8220 ; he saw the Spirit of God falling like a dove, and illuming upon him # 8221 ; ( Matt. 3.17 ; Boyle 38 ) . This dove imagination, in bend, is meant to remember Genesis, in which the Holy Spirit seemingly broods over the universe: # 8220 ; And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waterss # 8221 ; ( 1.2 ; Boyle 38 ) . The flying imagination possess a assortment of positive intensions. Wingss are associated in the Bible with God s 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 adult male ( Isa. 40.31 ; Exod. 19.4 ) , and with His conquering. This last association, though non the most obvious, is possibly the most important. When God is said to # 8220 ; distribute His wings over # 8221 ; a metropolis, it means He has conquered it ( Jer. 48.40 ) . At the terminal of # 8220 ; God s Grandeur, # 8221 ; God, in the individual of the Holy Spirit, has spread His # 8220 ; bright wings # 8221 ; over the # 8220 ; dead set universe, # 8221 ; connoting that He is non merely protecting, healing, and beef uping it, but that, despite the looking victory of darkness, He has already conquered the universe through the decease and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, who was crushed like an olive for this really purpose. The universe remains charged with the magnificence of God, # 8220 ; in malice of all world has done and is making to foul and corrupt and step out its glow # 8221 ; ( Ellis 129 ) . God, through the changeless presence of His Holy Spirit, continues to rejuvenate physical nature every bit good as the human spirit ; both are # 8220 ; being made over anew # 8221 ; ( Wisd. 19.6 ) . So, nevertheless dark and drab this universe may look ( and does look in lines five through eight of the verse form ) , we must non give up hope. For as Christ exhorted, # 8220 ; In the universe ye shall hold trial: but be of good cheer ; I have overcome the universe # 8221 ; ( John 16.33 ) .