Hopkins Innovative Style Analysis

"Hopkins' Innovative Style displays his Struggle with what he believes to be Fundamental Truths"

Reading this statement it was impossible to eagerly have various examples of Hopkins’ innovative style spring to mind. It is beyond reasonable doubt that this statement recognises Hopkins’ superb use of innovative style in his entire body of poetry. Although undoubtedly present, Hopkins’ struggle with fundamental truth lies mostly within his Terrible Sonnets, as he struggles with the presence of God, his own depression and mental anguish. Hopkins’ style guides the reader through his inner struggles, allowing us both to attempt to comprehend his pain, and question the fundamental truths that we ourselves have taken for granted.

The idiosyncrasy
Easily recognised as the darkest of the Terrible Sonnets, Hopkins’ in bouts of desperation and raw honesty, delves into his depression in a valiant struggle to comprehend his torment. With no restraint on the use of style and technique, Hopkins’ hurls his pain with his language as the vessel, toward God and the reader. Onomatopoeia fused with sprung rhythm make real the “pangs will, schooled at forepangs”. The use of rolling over “ling-ering” suggest the perpetuity of his suffering. Hopkins’ questions the very foundation of his being, by pleading to the Virgin Mary to subdue his anguish. “Comforter, where, where is your comforting?”, Repetition used here truly display the desolation of Hopkins; with his life based around religion, this revelation that religion may not have the power to relieve him of his torture, or worse chooses not to exercise it, shakes him to the
Hopkins uses this almost serign language to set nature as a sacred entity that should be protected from the “cloud” of man. Interestingly, we can deduce a further lack of faith on Hopkins’ part from this poem. Hopkins’ attempts to persuade Christ to save our world, in order to preserve the innocence and purity of both nature,“girl and boy”. He feels as if Christ will abandon them, and sees it necessary to convince Him that the earth is “worthy the winning”. It’s as if Hopkins fears that the presence of the sacred can possibly disappear at any moment, thus taking the responsibility on himself to draw Christ’s attention back to the world. This means that Hopkins’ will perceive any wrong-doings in the world as a fault of his own, possibly leading to his depression later in life. So at first glance, S may not strike anyone as Hopkins strictly tackling a fundamental truth, but upon closer inspection, it is clear that Hopkins fears the absence of the omnipotent protector and in the guise of vivid exaltation, he voices his