"And it was all yellow..."
I'm going to be focusing on one particular poem of Hopkins that peaked my interest. I'll admit the initial reason "The Starlight Night" caught my eye was because the opening line sounded much like a certain Coldplay song but how can anyone brush past the amazing imagery and idiosyncratic writing style of Hopkins without taking a closer look?
There's such a flavor his writing gives, you can almost feel the words like actual textures in your mouth. The alliteration he riddles his poems with greatly contributes to this feeling, for instance:
"Fire-folk", "Bright boroughs, the circle-citadels", "Down in dim woods, the diamond delves! the elves-eyes!". Everything rotates from crunchy to soft and gooey like a really good Mac-n-cheese bake. I just love the way the word pairs sit and roll off the tongue, "Flake-doves sent floating forth.." sounds like a warm crescent roll.
I also love his word choices in describing the stars; using metaphors to comparing them to eyes, doves and "quickgold" or quicksilver.
The next line "Ah well! It is all a purchase, all is a prize" strengthens the comparisons to precious metals and also makes a very good point. This line seems to be saying, "you get out what you put into it". You can compare this to a project or a research paper. If you don't put in effort, your results won't meet the standard. Hopkins is saying that if you don't take time to look up at the night sky and admire the stars, you won't be able to appreciate the beauty of it.
There's such a flavor his writing gives, you can almost feel the words like actual textures in your mouth. The alliteration he riddles his poems with greatly contributes to this feeling, for instance:
"Fire-folk", "Bright boroughs, the circle-citadels", "Down in dim woods, the diamond delves! the elves-eyes!". Everything rotates from crunchy to soft and gooey like a really good Mac-n-cheese bake. I just love the way the word pairs sit and roll off the tongue, "Flake-doves sent floating forth.." sounds like a warm crescent roll.
I also love his word choices in describing the stars; using metaphors to comparing them to eyes, doves and "quickgold" or quicksilver.
The next line "Ah well! It is all a purchase, all is a prize" strengthens the comparisons to precious metals and also makes a very good point. This line seems to be saying, "you get out what you put into it". You can compare this to a project or a research paper. If you don't put in effort, your results won't meet the standard. Hopkins is saying that if you don't take time to look up at the night sky and admire the stars, you won't be able to appreciate the beauty of it.
I know the exact coldplay song you're talking about!! One of the animators I follow on youtube made a highschool film from it (I'll tell you about it tomorrow if you're in class ;) )
ReplyDeleteI loved Hopkins' writing style, but sadly I don't understand all of what he was saying. He provided an exquisite imaginary scene(s) in my head.