Something remarkable dawned on me today - I have a blog! And I have been characteristically remiss about posting. Unfortunately, until I am out of school in May I fear my posts will remain sporadic; however, I hope to make those few that do appear quite engaging.
That said, regarding Hopkins: an English writer during the Victorian period, Hopkins was a Catholic priest (a Jesuit) known for his rather curious style (known as "sprung rhythm") and his inventions of the terms "instress," "inscape," and "selving." If you are unfamiliar with his life and with these terms (and in the interests of not prolonging this already necessarily lengthy post), may I direct you to his page on the almighty Wikipedia?
Though, I now note, that page has a section on the very poem I have examined (by the way, you can find the original poem online HERE), I have not used this article in preparation of my own interpretation and, as such, any similarities to that text are purely coincidental.
Very good. And now....
“[W]hat in God’s eye he is – ”: Hopkins’s
View of Selving in “As kingfishers catch fire”
By Caitlin Clancy
Copyright 2014
Copyright 2014
In
his vibrant poem “As kingfishers catch fire,” Gerard Manley Hopkins expresses
the action of selving as he believes it occurs both in all of created beings
and also, in a very particular way, in man. For Hopkins, it seems that man not only selves differently
than the animals, plants, or inanimate objects of the world, but also that man selves
in a higher way – towards a higher end.
Man’s selving, in the view of Hopkins, poet and Catholic priest, is
meant to make him more like the God in whose divine image he was created. Human selving is, therefore, for
Hopkins a process marked by acts of goodness, and thus of conformity to the
will of God and the person of Christ.
At the outset of his work, Hopkins writes: “As
kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; / As tumbled over rim in roundy
wells / Stones ring; …” (1-3). The
first part of Hopkins’s poem focuses on the created world and on all inscapes,
living and nonliving, that exist within it: he highlights “kingfishers,”
“dragonflies,” and “Stones.” In
these, Hopkins seems to – characteristically – see an expression of God and
God’s glory: for him, “kingfishers catch fire” and “dragonflies draw flame” –
that is, he associates these animals with the brightness and power of the
element fire, itself often associated with God the Holy Spirit. Moreover, Hopkins views these creatures
as active, and as participating in God, the Prime Mover, through their own
motion; the “kingfishers catch fire”
and the “dragonflies draw flame” (1,
emphasis added). Even the
nonliving beings, for Hopkins, here possess motion and action: the “Stones ring” as they are “tumbled over rim in roundy wells” (3, 2, emphasis added).
Further, this action of created beings seems to
constitute part of selving.
Hopkins writes that,
…like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves – goes itself; myself it speaks and spells
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came (3-8).
For Hopkins, the “kingfishers,” “dragonflies,” and “Stones” (and by
extension, other created beings as well), are “like” the individual “tucked
string[s]” which “[tell]” of themselves: “myself
it speaks and spells” (1, 3, 7).
Thus their action, their motion, is directed towards attaining and
expressing the fullness of their being. These creatures are, too, like “each
hung bell” whose “Bow” through action (when it is “swung”) “finds tongue to
fling out broad its name” – that is, proves able to communicate what it itself is (Hopkins 3, 4). And this, moreover, they do with great
energy, as Hopkins’s verbs convey: they “catch,” “draw,” are “tumbled,” “ring,”
and “fling” (1, 2, 3, 4). In
Hopkins’s view, the essence of this energetic selving action is that “[e]ach
mortal thing does one thing and the same”; put differently, all living beings,
for Hopkins, selve – through a process of becoming more fully what they are and
ought to be, they outwardly express their essence (5). Every one of them “[d]eals out” its own
“being” which “dwells” inside it (or “indoors,” as he puts it) (Hopkins 6). Thus, all creatures display through
their selving something of the glory of God with which they are endowed.
But while merely mortal beings – such as the animals and
inanimate objects Hopkins mentions – may selve into inscapes simply by becoming
more fully themselves alone, by each “go[ing] itself” and “speak[ing]” and
“spell[ing]” its “myself” in the
world, still human beings, for Hopkins, seem to be able to experience a higher
kind of selving (7). Hopkins
indicates this when he transitions to his second stanza. He states: “I say more:” – indicating
both by direct wording and by punctuation that he is about to go beyond what he
previously stated (Hopkins 9). “I
say more:,” Hopkins declares, adding, “the just man justices” (9). This line is notable first for the fact
that it is the first time in the poem Hopkins speaks directly of man – and thus
his transition highlights all the more the difference he sees between the
selving of human and non-human beings.
Moreover, when he does here refer to man, he speaks of “the just man” in
particular who, apparently, “justices” (Hopkins 9). Hopkins here cleverly changes a noun – justice – into an
unusual verb (“justices”) (9). What Hopkins here suggests, apparently, is that a human being,
like all other beings, selves and becomes more what he is: in this case, “the
just man” becomes more just by doing just actions (9).
Hopkins, however, takes the matter further: for him,
such a man “[k]eeps gráce: that keeps all his goings graces;
/ Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is – / Chríst…” (10-12). Thus, man, or at least “the just man,” maintains
grace within his soul (and so “[k]eeps grace”) by acting always in accordance
with the grace and law of God and never contrary to it (he “keeps all his
goings graces”). Moreover, in so
doing, such a man behaves, in God’s view, in a holy manner – that is, as Christ
would – and in this way all the more “[a]cts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he
is” (Hopkins 11). For the man who
lives according to the law of God necessarily imitates Jesus and thus becomes
like Him; hence, “the just man… / …in God’s eye” is, in a way, “Chríst”
(Hopkins 10-11, 12). It may also
be said – and perhaps Hopkins deliberately means to intimate something of the
sort – that not only is “the just man” in particular like Christ but, indeed,
all men are, in a way, like Christ in God’s view, for He sees all human beings
as his sons and daughters, and because Christ died to redeem all mankind. Thus, as Hopkins, a Catholic priest,
surely knows, all men ought to be like Christ – and so, in this way, it would
seem that men are meant to selve into Christ-like beings. They are intended to become “in God’s
eye, what in God’s eye” they are – that is, the living image of His Son (Hopkins
11).
Hopkins expresses this sentiment again when he writes,
“…for Christ plays in ten thousand places / Lovely in
limbs, and lovely in eyes not his / To the Father through the features of men’s
faces” (12-14). It is men – men who live justly and according
to God’s grace – who make Christ present in the world. Through their actions and conformity to
Christ’s image, men, far more so than any animal, plant, or object, are able to
bring Christ to others and are the only earthly beings able to – like Christ –
consciously do the will of the Father.
And, thus, through them “Christ plays in ten thousand places” and men
become “[l]ovely” to God through their own beings (“through the features of
[their] faces”) because they conform to His desire in the context of their own
individual callings (Hopkins 12, 13).
Thus man, for Hopkins, selves in a special way that the
animal, vegetable, and mineral inscapes of the world cannot. Man alone, for Hopkins, selves in such
a way that he becomes not only more fully man, but also transforms to become
more fully God-like. Men, in
contrast to other, lower, inscapes, selve by doing a will that is beyond their
own. Hopkins states of the lesser beings in nature that they “[cry] Whát I dó is me: for that I came” – that
is, their sole purpose would seem to be fulfilling their own limited existence through
expression of their own essence and nothing more – but man’s task is much different
(8). Like Christ, who said, “For I
have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent
me” (words that Hopkins echoes, and seems to deliberately use for purposes of
juxtaposition, in referring to the selving of lesser creatures) man is meant to
act according to God’s will rather than his own desire (John 6:38).
Hence, while it remains true that, in Hopkins’s view,
“[e]ach mortal thing does one thing and the same” – that is, selves – still the
manner of that selving proves different for creatures in different orders of
being. For Hopkins, because man is
part of a higher created order than animal, vegetable, and mineral life, he selves
in a singular way. That is, man
becomes more fully the likeness of the God in whose image he was uniquely made. It is men, and men alone, who can please
God in this way: through “the features of men’s
faces” – and not those of any other created beings – does “Christ [play] in ten
thousand places” and become “[l]ovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his / To
the father” (Hopkins 12, 13-14, emphasis added). To do this, moreover, man must become “just” and “[keep] all
his goings graces” by imitating Christ and so, to some extent, becoming Christ in the view of the
Father: he selves by “[acting] in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is” (Hopkins
9, 10, 11). That is – man selves
by becoming conformed not to himself, but to Christ.
Works Cited
Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Poems and
Prose. “As kingfishers catch fire.” London: Penguin, 1963. 51. Print.
The Holy Bible: Revised Standard
Version Catholic Edition. London, Eng.: Oxford UP, 1966.
Print.
