Carrion Comfort by Gerard Manley Hopkins Essay -- Carrion Comfort Hopk

Carrion Comfort by Gerard Manley HopkinsGerard Manley Hopkins was a talented poet, and he was likewise extremely devoted to his faith. He used his poetry as an avenue in which to express his love and praise to his Creator, and many of his poems are beautiful hymns of adoration. Carrion Comfort, however, is unitary of his terrible sonnets. Hopkins not only wrote about the beautiful part of faith, but also the questioning and suffering that inevitably comes during a persons apparitional journey. The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet was one of Hopkinss favorite forms of poetry and one that he employed frequently in his writing. Hopkins enjoyed the fusion of form and content, and the organize of an Italian sonnet perfectly lends itself to such a synthesis. An Italian sonnet is divided into two parts, the octave and the sestet. The first eight lines have an ABBAABBA rhyme turning away and the sestet concludes with CDCDCD. The content of an Italian sonnet is very specifically and thematically organized as is the content of Hopkinss Carrion Comfort. The octave is divided into two quatrains, which bribe and then develop, respectively, a problem or situation on which the poem focuses. The sestet relates the answer or solution to the problem. The transition between the two sections of the poem can be easily identified through dramatic punctuation, or a distinct change in tone. The octave in Carrion Comfort strongly illustrates intense suffering and despair experienced by the speaker. Hopkins masterfully depicts the transformation from the utter despair caused by this suffering to hope and reconciliation with God as he makes a transition into the sestet. Throughout the poem, Hopkins uses various poetic elements, such as th... ...feast on theeNot untwist--slack they may be--these last strands of manIn me or, close to weary, cry I can no more. I canCan something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on meThy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? ScanWith darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan,O in turns of tempest, me heaped there me frantic to avoid thee and flee?Why? That my chaff might fly my grain lie, sheer and clear.Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,Hand rather, my heart lo lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer.Cheer whom though? The hero whose heaven-handling flung me, foot trodMe? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that yearOf now make darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God) my God.