1. Spring and Fall Pied Beauty
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Spring and Fall
Pied Beauty

2. Biographical Information
Won a poetry prize in boarding school.
Was supposed to become an Anglican Minister.
Decided to become Catholic instead
Vowed never to write again

3. Biographical Information
Finally did write again when asked to write an Ode in memory of five Franciscan Nuns.
Poetry he composed for his friends was published after his death (1863) by Robert Bridges (Friend/poet).
Was considered 20th Century at first, but realized he was definitely part of the nineteenth century.

4. Biographical Information
Classified as Romantic:
Love of nature
Transcendental power
Striving for individuality
Classified as Victorian:
Doubts and spiritual anguish

5. Spring and Fall: To a Young Child
Page 842

6. Getting Ready to Read
Think back to when you were a child. What types of things made you upset?
What types of things upset you now?
What do you attribute to the difference?

7. Background Information
Hopkins made up words.
Wanwood / leafmeal = made up words
Used to condense and “compound” sound and meaning to make it exactly right in the context it is used.
Assonance – repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonants in words that appear near each other. EX – hate, pale

8. Vocabulary Goldengrove unleaving Wanwood Leafmeal Nor ghost
Grove of trees whose autumn leaves are falling
Pale wood
Reduced to decaying leaves
Neither
spirit

9. Read the Poem

10. Re-reading
Lines 2-6: What examples of assonance do you find in these lines?
What is the effect of the use of assonance?
Line 11: How many ways can you interpret the word spring?
How would you interpret the poem’s last line?

11. Re-reading Who is Margaret? Why does she grieve?
What happens to the human heart as time passes?

12. Pied Beauty
Page 843

13. Getting Ready to Read Pied – Covered with different colored spots
Write down all the things you can think of that are covered in spots.

14. Vocabulary Streaked with a darker color Brinded Random dots or spots
Freshly roasted chestnuts
Parceled into fields
creates
Brinded
Stipple
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls
Pieced
Fathers-forth

15. Read the Poem

16. Re-reading Lines 1-5: What overall impression does this list create?
Lines 7-9: What do the adjectives in these lines have in common?
Line 9: What types images do the adjectives in this line call to mind?
What is Hopkins’s main idea as summed up in the final line?

17. Re-reading
How does the poet combine alliteration with antithesis (opposites) in line 9?
How does the rhythm of the last line make it especially effective?

18. Re-reading What statement does the speaker make about beauty?
What items are praised by the speaker?
Whom / what is the source of beauty according to the speaker?