Thursday, September 24, 2015

How can I compare and contrast the structure and poetic elements of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43 and Gerald Manley Hopkins' "God's...

Most of the themes of both poems are different from one another, and this would be a stark contrast between the two. Where "Sonnet 43" focuses on love and mortality, "God's Grandeur" examines the cost of the Industrial Revolution on the natural world. However, it is worth noting that the two can also be seen as love poems. Browning's is a poem directed at her lover and Hopkins' poem is directed at God (he was a priest after all).

Although both poems were written within a generation of one another, the changes that have happened in technology have made their worlds far different. For example, "Sonnet 43" was written in 1850 and "God's Grandeur" was written in 1877 just as the Industrial Revolution was beginning to really gather steam (pun intended!). Browning's more traditional rhyme scheme makes sense in 1850, whereas Hopkins' use of a more modern and free rhythm may have been more successful in the timeframe he wrote it rather than in Browning's.

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