Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins (Questions & Answers)

 

Pied Beauty

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

(Questions & Answers)

 

1.       What is the meaning of Pied Beauty?

-        Gerard Manley Hopkins’ ‘Pied Beauty’ is a kind of song of praise to God. The poem celebrates God's work and invites the reader to do the same. “Pied” means having two or more colours, and it is this quality of variety that the speaker most admires about God's work.

 

2.       What are the main themes of the poem, Pied Beauty?

-        Briefness of nature and eternity of God are the major themes of the poem.

 

3.       When was Pied Beauty written?

-        Pied Beauty was written in 1877

 

4.       What is the form and meter of the poem?

-        "Pied Beauty" has no regular meter. It has sprung rhythm. The accents and downbeats are concentrated together. Hopkins fuses words together in order to have the maximum amount of meaning using the minimum number of words. The rhythm is characterized by stops and starts. Hopkins creates strong accents by using alliteration. There is alliteration in almost every line. "Pied Beauty" does not have a regular form. Its a hymn and takes its cues from the book of ‘Psalms’ in the Bible. The poem has two stanzas, the first of six lines and the second of five. There are not a standard number of syllables per line. The rhyme scheme is: ABCABC DBCDC. The last line "Praise Him" looks like the concluding "amen" of a religious prayer.

 

5.       Is the poem written in ‘curtal-sonnet’ form?

Yes, the poem, Pied Beauty is in ‘curtal-sonnet’ form. Curtal-sonnet is a sonnet of 11 lines rhyming ‘abcabc dcbdc’ or ‘abcabc dbcdc’ with the last line a tail, or half a line. The curtal sonnet form was invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and he used it in three of his poems as “Pied Beauty” and “Peace.”

 

6.       What is Gerard Manley Hopkins praising in "Pied Beauty"?

-        Hopkins’ ‘Pied Beauty’ is a hymn praising God. It honors God for his unusual creations of nature. In the poem, Hopkins praises the God for all of nature, especially for spotted or multi-colored things, like: The many-colored skies, the cow with darker spots or streaks, the trout with the rosy spot on its gills, chestnut, finch, various kinds of landscape, all types of tools used by the workmen, everything that is odd, unusual, and incongruous in the natural world and Things that are freckled or changeable.  For all the things in nature, he thanks and praises God.

 

7.       What is the tone of Pied Beauty?

-        The tone of Pied Beauty is exuberant and spirited. The poem is a song of joy.

 

8.       What type of work is the poem, Pied Beauty?

-        ‘Pied Beauty’ is a lyric poem praising God for his variegated creation. It is a curtal sonnet. A curtal sonnet consists of eleven lines instead of the usual fourteen. ‘Pied Beauty’ may also be classified as catalogue verse because it presents a thesis followed by a list of examples, that support the thesis.