Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Pied Beauty
Pied Beauty
The first unusual technique that Hopkins uses is the form of the
poem. A curtal sonnet is a curtailed form of the classic renaissance
Petrarchan sonnet, which has been shortened proportionally from 14
lines to ten, with a sextet and quatrain replacing the standard octave
and sextet. The proportional reduction and mathematical patterns
within the sonnet were very important to Hopkins, and display his
faith in the certainty of Gods power in the universe. Gods power is
also subtly emphasised in the unusual rhyme scheme though, with
ABCABC DBCDC departing from the convention of the sonnet. Here,
Hopkins break in the rhyme scheme serves to subconsciously ponder
the mystery of God and His mysterious nature. The certainty of the
poetic form representing the certainty of Gods power plays with the
surprising change in rhythm that highlights the mystery of God.