Theological assumptions in William Blake and Gerard
Manley Hopkins: Rebellion or Submission?
Both William Blake and Gerard Manley Hopkins
are renowned poets whose religious implications can be easily noticed in their
poetry and have been widely commented upon. Hopkins’ religious beliefs could
seem easier to understand and illustrate because they were somehow
institutionalised (he was a Jesuit priest) and Blake, on his side, had a more
particular conception of religion, but the truth is that both Blake’s and
Hopkins’s poetry is the result of very complex and spiritual meditations and
their concerns with religion can only be understood by conscientiously reading
their written words.
Considering that the term “religion” is open
to a wide range of interpretations, we must restrict it before we start our
argumentation. As the title of this paper reflects, we are going to deal with
the “theological assumptions” of Blake and Hopkins. Being literal, this means
that we are going to centre on the figure of the Theos, that is, God. Therefore, we will try to give answer to
the question of what concept do these poets have of God in terms of: “location:
where does God dwell?; manifestation: how can be the presence of God noticed?;
and interaction with men and nature: how is the relationship between God,
Humanity and the World?
In order to focus and have some reference
point to talk about we will look at two poems (one by Blake and one by Hopkins)
so we can extrapolate from them some of the most defining characteristics of
Blake and Hopkins’s theological beliefs in a comparative way.
But before we do this, it is of great
importance to make a brief illustration of
the religious atmosphere that was taking place during the historical
moments in which each of the authors’ poetry developed, specially taking into
account those elements (movements, tendencies, events, etc.) that seem to have
influenced them in a more noticeable way. This contextual introduction makes
even more sense when we consider that, apart from the fact that both poets were
unrecognised during his lifetime, the other point in which they can converge a
priori (before we enter to discuss their poetry) is the fact that both
Blake and Hopkins lived in a moment of religious controversy. Their particular
responses to the situation they lived is what makes him diverge, rather than
converge.
William Blake
lived in an epoch of politic and ideological destabilization, an epoch in which
important changes took place and transformed society.
The French Revolution is unquestionably the
clearest evidence of this. It started up in 1789, when Blake was in his
maturity. A maturity that can also be applied to his poetry. In fact, it has
been said that “Blake’s moment of most intense poetic achievement came during
the French Revolution” [1]. Additionally, considering Blake’s revolutionary
thoughts, it’s no surprise that he supported and enthusiastically followed the
development of the revolt, although he rejected the Terror later promoted by
Robespierre.
“Throughout the
early stages of The Revolution, Blake was a loud voice in the artistic and
poetic landscape, supporting it both spiritually and through his work” [2].
However, the French Revolution not only
carried with itself a climate of political tension. All this ideological stir,
which was mainly caused by the rebellion against the absolute power of
monarchy, had also important consequences in the religious atmosphere of the
time as it might appear obvious due to the intrusive presence of the Church in the political life, fact that
caused it to be seen as another source of oppressive authority. According to
Robert Ryan, “It is not generally remembered that the passions driving the
ideological conflicts of the 1790s were religious as well as political in
character” [3].
As far as Britain is concerned, the ideals of
the French Revolution seemed to nourish the religious convictions of those who
opposed the Established Church and its interference in the political issues.
The stage was set for debate. The Revolution Controversy, a British discussion over
the French Revolution, lasted from 1789 through 1795 [4], and its religious
implications were more than evident.
“The constitutional adoption of the principle
of freedom in religion in France gave a boost to Dissenters from the Church of
England, while heightening the insecurities of the supporters of the existing
Church establishment” [5]
These insecurities were violently materialized
through the Priestley Riots of 1791, which were fomented by Anglicans
and directed primarily at Dissenters, who were headed by the figure of Joseph
Priestley [6]. The aggressors motto, “Church and King” made clear their aim to
keep politics and religion together, working as authoritative institutions.
“It seemed to many that not since England’s
revolution of the 1640s had religious conflict posed such a threat to social
stability” [7]
Another element
of religious character that helped to destabilize the global consciousness by
the end of the 18th century was Millennialism. It was particularly
strong because of the effect that the French Revolution had had in the
population’s collective mind. “Many people perceived the French Revolution as a
foreshadowing of an Apocalypse that would usher in a new millenarian epoch, one
levelling social distinctions between people and bringing about what was
believed to be Christ's absolute rule”. [8]
In fact, apocalyptic themes can be found in
almost all the Romantic authors, as it was a generalised feeling. And when we
refer to Romanticism we are, of course, talking about Blake too, as his
prophetic works are a defining clue of his poetry which cannot be missed. “Each
of his three longer prophecies – The Four Zoas, Milton, an Jerusalem climaxes
in a cosmic and physic convulsion that transforms the earth, puts an end to
time, and brings humanity into the life of Eternity with Jesus, who has
triumphed over the enemies of mankind”. [9]
è
William Blake: What
faction?
Blake religious convictions have been a very
important matter of debate among the critics. What seemed clear was that he was
on the side of the Dissenting group because of reasons such as his rejection of
some doctrines such as the Trinity, the Original Sin and of course, the
institution of the Established Church. In fact, William Blake opposed any kind
of institutionalised religion, and that fact is what has leaded some scholars
to relate William Blake with Swedenborgianism. The aim has been to give an only
answer to all the questions that inevitably emerge when studying Blake’s
poetry.
Some critics, like Robert Rix, have documented
Blake’s attendance to Swedenborgian reunions and possible relations with
radical masons. He has also done an interesting comparison between some of the
statements of William Blake and the beliefs of the Swedenborgians. [10]
But, on the contrary, other scholars have
labelled this kind of attempts as “a twentieth century legend” [11] or even
declared that some works such us, particularly plates 21-24 of William Blake’s
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, “have been conceived as an independent,
anti-Swedenborgian pamphlet” [12]
Swedenborgian or anti-Swedenborgian, the thing
that stays evident is that when observing all the critical approaches that have
tried to insert Blake into an specific religious trend or community we may
notice that they are never fully satisfactory. In Robert Ryan’s opinion this
has a primary reason. “That the final determination of Blake’s personal creed
is left so much to the reader is a striking illustration of the poet’s respect
for the inviolable freedom of the individual religious imagination”. [13]
The Victorian Era: a period of religious doubt
The Victorian Era in which Gerard Manley
Hopkins lived also represented a moment of religious instability. It appears
that one of the major reasons, and this seems to be common knowledge, was the
evolution of science, mainly represented in Charles Darwin’s The Origin of
Species.
The era of the Queen Victoria experimented
improvements in all fields of knowledge and was the first to face modern
questions and provide modern solutions.[14]
And, as we have said, these improvements
affected science as well, and this supposed one of the biggest challenges for
religion ever. Clergymen had to face a theory that affected the most important
assertions of Christian religion, and this involved the growing of doubt and
the questioning of faith.
The reaction of the religious men of the time
was to shut themselves away and become more and more specialised, so they
stayed away from other social matters that had interested him in previous
times. [15]
But this does not mean that there was a single
and unified religious atmosphere during the Victorian Era. On the contrary, one
of the main characteristics of the religion of these times was its diversity
and schismatic activity.
On one side we had the Church of England,
which we have already mentioned. From the time of the Elizabethan settlement
on, the Church of England (the Anglican Church) attempted, with varying degrees
of success, to consolidate its position both as a distinctive middle way
between Catholicism and Puritanism and as the national religion of England.
[16]
An important movement was Evangelicalism. The
term came into general use in England at the time of the Methodist revival
under Wesley and Whitefield, which had its roots in Calvinism and which, with
its emphasis on emotion and mysticism in the spiritual realm, was itself in
part a reaction against the "rational" Deism of the earlier
eighteenth century.[17]
Evangelical Christians were a diverse group,
coming from denominations which included Methodists, dissenters, Quakers,
Congregationalists and Anglicans (some of whom increasingly embraced
evangelical doctrine). Some were at the forefront of movements such as
missions, abolition of slavery, prison reform, orphanage establishment, hospital
building and founding educational institutions. [18]
It’s also worth mentioning the Broad Church,
which was a loosely associated group of intellectuals in the Church of England
which in many ways represented what has become liberal twentieth-century
Protestantism. Working under the direct or indirect influence of German liberal
thought, Broad Churchmen emphasized that the Bible, though in some sense
divinely inspired, was not, as Evangelicals and Tractarians believed, literally
true in every detail, and that therefore the scriptures should be read
metaphorically or even mythologically. [19]
And finally, The Oxford Movement, which was
also known as the Tractarian movement, aimed to emphasize the church's Catholic
inheritance as a source of legitimacy and deeper spirituality. Its main intent
was to defend the Church of England as a divine institution against the threats
of liberal theology, rationalism, and government interference. Some members
(notably John Henry Newman and Henry E. Manning) ended up converting to
Catholicism. [20]
“The Oxford Movement added a conservative
option to the lively atmosphere of Victorian religious debate. The Victorians
who abhorred the atheism of the Utilitarians and the agnosticism of the
scientists, were put off by the enthusiasm of the Evangelicals, found the Broad
Church too latitudinarian to have any meaning left to its doctrine, and yet
could not stomach going over to Rome, found these High Church Anglicans a
perfect conservative solution.” [21]
è
G. M. Hopkins: the convert
The Oxford Movement was particularly
significant for the poet we are dealing with now, G. M. Hopkins. Before he
became interested in the Tractarians, he had been searching for a religion
which could speak with true authority. The influence of John Henry Newman, who had converted to
Catholicism, served him as an example and in 1866 he was received by Newman
into the Catholic Church.
“His conversion was a gradual process, not an
impulse, based on his increasing theological and emotional dissatisfaction with
his life in one Church and need to find spiritual fulfilment in another”.[22]
Shortly after a retreat at Easter in 1868 he
decided to join the Society of Jesus [23].
That fact lead him to believe that he should
burn his early poems “feeling that the practice of poetry was too
individualistic and self-indulgent for a Jesuit priest committed to the
deliberate sacrifice of personal ambition”[24]
Hopkins insecurities increased and he tried to
silence them by the practice of strict exercises of faith. He had to repress
possible homosexual impulses and this resulted in a certain suppressed
sexuality and frustration of ambition evident in the mature poems.
“In fact he became more strict with himself
than this, gathering for his confession even such trivialities as talking too
much or unkindly or staying up too late” [25]
But his poetic desires were freed when he
studied the writings of Duns Scotus in 1872 and he decided that his poetry
might not necessarily conflict with Jesuit principles [26]. Then, Hopkins begun
writing again and could provide poetry with meter innovations such as his sprung
rhythm and ontological and mystical reflections such us his theory of
“inscape”.
***
Since this moment, we have make a brief
explanation of the religious atmosphere of
the two historical moments in which the poetry of our two authors
developed and their attitude towards each situation.
On one hand we have a religious disorder paralleled
to the political destabilization of the French Revolution and a poet, William
Blake, who supported the values of this revolution and manifested his rejection
of the authoritative Established Church.
And on the other, we have a poet who, a
century later, faced the controversial religious climate of the Victorian Era
deciding to become part of the most conservative and “institutionalised” branch
of religion.
Besides, as we have said, Hopkins fought a war
against himself trying to repress those sexual or spiritual impulses in order
to obey the laws that he himself had chosen to follow considering them as the
answer of his search for a true religious authority.
And Blake, on his part, being against any kind
of authority, was also an advocate of free love. “Blake embodied his objection
to the entire theology of sub-mission, self-denial, contrition, and expiation
that institutional Christianity fostered. Humility and docility were to him
suspect virtues, encouraged by those who would diminish the freedom of others.”
[27]
Given these considerations, Blake and Hopkins’
antagonistic positions appear quite obvious, but they are still aprioristic.
We are now prepared to enter their poetry and
see how these initial intuitions find its place in the poets’ poetical writing.
We will first analyse two poems, William
Blake’s “The Divine Image” and G. M. Hopkins’ “God’s grandeur” which have been
selected because they are representative of the most important theological
concerns of both poets.
|
The Divine Image. |
|
02 |
|
To
Mercy Pity Peace and Love, |
|
03 |
|
All
pray in their distress: |
|
04 |
|
And
to these virtues of delight |
|
05 |
|
Return
their thankfulness. |
|
06 |
|
For
Mercy Pity Peace and Love, |
|
07 |
|
Is
God our father dear: |
|
08 |
|
And
Mercy Pity Peace and Love. |
|
09 |
|
Is
Man his child and care. |
|
10 |
|
For
Mercy has a human heart |
|
11 |
|
Pity,
a human face: |
|
12 |
|
And
Love, the human form divine. |
|
13 |
|
And
Peace, the human dress. |
|
14 |
|
Then
every man of every clime, |
|
15 |
|
That
prays in his distress, |
|
16 |
|
Prays
to the human form divine |
|
17 |
|
Love
Mercy Pity Peace. |
|
18 |
|
And
all must love the human form, |
|
19 |
|
In
heathen, turk or jew. |
|
20 |
|
Where
Mercy, Love & Pity dwell, |
|
21 |
|
There
God is dwelling too. [28] |
The poem we are going to analyse, “The Divine
Image”, it’s part of Blake’s collection
“Songs of innocence”, consisting of a group of poems which, contrary to those
of “Songs of Experience”, with which
they are published together, describe the innocence and joy of the natural
world, advocating free love and a closer relationship with God. [29]
“The Divine Image” is divided in five
quatrains. The rhythm pattern that its rhyme (ABCB) and its structure convey
stands out for its simplicity and musicality, common features in Blake’s poetry
and more specifically in his Songs of Innocence and of Experience.
However, and as it is also frequent in Blake’s
work, this cleanness in language it is
not parallel of a simplicity or triviality in the content, which is
extraordinarily spiritual and manifestly existential. “The Songs have been most
often approached as short poems and appreciated by readers of literary
inclination for a rare combination of simplicity with formal variety and
lyrical intensity” [30]
The poem begins by presenting Mercy, Pity,
Peace and Love as the four virtues that every man asks for in their painful
moments. They are also the four virtues which men are thankful for in their
moments of delight. The use of capital letters for these virtues makes them
appear even more significant and helps to personified them.
In the second quatrain, Blake manifests that
these virtues are God (it has to be noticed that it is not an attribution
of qualities, but a complete identification: “For Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love /
is God our father dear”). And in the same way, Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love are
also equated to man. Thus, since we read the second stanza, we already start to
suspect that, even when the complete assertion has not been done yet, if those virtues representing God, represent
man as well, a complete identification between Man and God may be taking place.
The total equation between God and Man starts
taking shape in the third quatrain, when the fact that those four virtues are
of human nature is justified through a complete personification of them: Mercy
is found in the human heart, Pity in the human face; Peace is a piece of
clothing that envelops humans, and Love exists in the human "form" or
body. Thus, it is in “the human form divine” where these virtues find place and
become identifiable. If we thoroughly consider this affirmation, we will notice
that it conveys the sensation of these virtues being more human than
divine. It is the first moment where the equal comparison between Man and God
stops being that equal and begins to be more hierarchical, and surprisingly,
the supremacy is not of God, but of Man. The fact that these virtues are of
human nature but they are the same virtues that God represents, makes us think
that it was God who was created in the image of Man, and not the other way
around. This is a very unorthodox statement.
The fourth quatrain tells us that it must be
known that when every man, wherever he is from, is praying in his
distress, he is praying to the “human form divine”, which is composed of the
four virtues (Love Mercy Pity and Peace). Thus, when men are praying they are
asking for virtues and qualities that are already part of them, so it would be useless
to search for these virtues in a world outside the human form. The question
remains: if those virtues are the essence of mankind, what thing is moving them
away from men so that they have to pray for them?
The last stanza starts saying that the human
form must be loved, no matter what creed or race, as the presence of the
virtues Love Mercy Pity and Peace corresponds with the presence of God. Then, a
wholly existence of God in the world can only be possible when we all love each
other, because when we do this we are manifesting Love, Mercy, Pity and Peace,
thus, we are manifesting God, the divinity of the human form.
It may be noticed that, unlike in the second
quatrain in which God is mentioned first, here, there has been an inversion of
the analogy between God and Man. “When Mercy, Love and Pity dwell (now knowing
that these virtues are human, so they represent Man) / there God is dwelling
too”. Now Man is mentioned first, and God appears, later, as a consequence.
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining
from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like
the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade;
Bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and
shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest
freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink
eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast
and with ah! bright wings. [31]
The poem was written in 1877, when Hopkins had
already considered his return to poetry with his masterpiece “The Wreck of the
Deutschland”. At this time Hopkins’s ordination as a Priest have just taken
place, though he served not too successfully as preacher or assistant to the
parish priest in Sheffield, Oxford, and London. [32]
God’s grandeur is an Italian sonnet. The
Italian sonnet comprises two parts. First, the octave (two quatrains), which
describe a problem, followed by a sestet (two tercets), which gives the resolution
to it. Typically, the ninth line creates a "turn" or volta
which signals the move from proposition to resolution. [33]
The poem begins with a statement, “The world
is charged with the grandeur of God”, that introduces us to the idea of a
powerful and superior God that is manifested in the world through his
“grandeur”, which occupies the earth in the way of an electric charge, somehow
conveying the idea of the Creation. “The word "charged" leads one to
think of a spark or light, and so thoughts of the Creation, which began with a
spark of light, are not far off”. [34]
The fact that this grandeur “will flame out,
like shining from shook foil” makes us suspect that the grandeur of God is not
imperceptible, it can be seen, its shining can be perceived, thanks to the
descent and constant presence of the Holy Spirit. And finally, we have the idea
of the ooze of oil as a grandeur that increases, that emerges gathering to a
greatness. But in order to this grandeur to be materialized it has to emanate
from something, something that has to be previously crushed: the olive. This
image seems to be a clear metaphor of Christ.
“Just as the olive is crushed to reveal
something costly and useful, so too did Christ chose to be crushed to bring
forth His priceless blood, which saves men” [35]
And now the problem comes: civilisation.
Considering the power of God’s grandeur and the suffering that was required in
order to reach this greatness, “Why do men then now not reck his rod?”. The
rest of the octave talks about human’s exploitation of the world (“Generations
have trod, have trod, have trod”) which has left his corrupted mark (“And all
is seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil”) making clear both his
destruction and disconnectedness of and from nature (“the soil is bare now, nor
can foot feel, being shod”).
Then, in the ninth line, with the beginning of
the final sestet, comes the change, the resolution, the beginning of an
optimistic ending: “And for all this, nature is never spent”, because the
dearest freshness remains in things. In spite of the inevitable existence of
night and darkness, morning and sun, which is the Holy Ghost, always comes,
surrounding the world with his warmth and brightness. “Because the Holy Ghost
over the bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings”.
In Burris words, emphasized by the Biblical
references;
“The world
remains charged with the grandeur of God, "in spite of all mankind has
done and is doing to pollute and pervert and tread out its radiance"
(Ellis 129). God, through the constant presence of His Holy Spirit, continues
to rejuvenate physical nature as well as the human spirit; both are "being
made over anew" (Wisd. 19.6). So, however dark and dreary this world may
appear (and does appear in lines five through eight of the poem), we must not
surrender hope. For as Christ exhorted, "In the world ye shall have
tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John
16.33).” [36]
Now, taking as a reference “The Divine Image” by William Blake, and “God’s
grandeur” by G. M. Hopkins, but not necessarily restricting to them, we are
going to do a comparison between both poets, focusing in their main points of
divergence. The aim is to, through the analysis of their poetry and paying
attention to the theological implications, make a little more clear the reason
why Blake has been seen as a radical and Hopkins, as a conservative, even a
reactionary.
The only reading of the title of Hopkins’ poem
gives us the major clue for his conception of man and God’s relationship. The
word “grandeur” conveys ideas of glory, magnificence, splendour, majesty. And
in order for something to be glorious, magnificent and splendorous, just like
sun, it has to shine upon something else, it has to be in an upper level.
Hopkins had the conviction that there was
something greater than himself, and that it was God [38].
As we have seen when analysing Blake’s “The
Divine Image”, the poem goes from an initial identification between Man and
God, justified by the fact that what is essence in God is also the essence of
Man, to the assertion that those virtues are more purely human and hence God
appears to be created in Man’s image rather than being the Creator. “Blake's
"Divine Image" is therefore a reversed one”[39]
“Important here is that he abandoned the
biblical creator sky-god for humankind in universal proportions. Where Blake
includes a creator god (Urizen) in his galaxy of mythical beings, he is a
"mistaken Demon of heaven. . . . thy labor vain, to form men into thine
image.” [40]
“The
Divine Image” seems to make clear that Blake had a conception of God as a
mental representation, a product of man’s imagination. In fact, one of the most
radical assortments of Blake is that religion ought not to exist at all, its
presence being a consequence of humanity’s fallen condition. “Long before
Ludwig Feuerbach and Sigmund Freud, Blake was pondering the mind’s tendency to
project and submit to inhuman, oppressive divinities”. [41]
“Why do men then now not reck his rod?”. In
this line of Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur” the word “rod” is indisputably the most
appropriate representation of the divine authority. This rhetorical question is
not an innocent one. It blames man for acts contrary to divine law and his
non-subordination to this unquestionable power.
Nonetheless, a more biblical interpretation of
the term “rod” has been done, asserting that it is the representation of
Christ:
“God’s rod, then, is Christ Himself. God gave
up his rod, His only Son, as a sacrifice for the very men who fail both to
perceive and to honor Him in His creation.” [42]
An earthy materialization of God’s authority
or a metaphorical representation of
God’s son it is not important for us now. On the contrary, it is very
profitable considering both possibilities as far as Blake would have opposed to
both of them.
Firstly, it has already been mentioned Blake’s
systematic opposition to any kind of authority. In fact, he couldn’t see
anything more harmful than the submission to an oppressive power. “Throughout
his life Blake seems to have committed to the idea that “every man may converse
with God & be a King & Priest in his own house”” [43]. This affirmation
has lead him to be related with Antinomianism or lawlessness.
Secondly, Blake’s negation of the divine
Trinity, probably his most Swedenborgian aspect, would had let him to question
the second of the possibilities we mentioned (the rod being Christ, God’s son,
and his Holy Spirit dwelling in the world), as it implies the assumption of the
existence of three different persons.
“The only qualification Blake might make in
this formulation would be to insist, as Emmanuel Swedenborg did, that Jesus was
himself the Living God, embodying in his Divine Humanity the fullness of the
Godhead. The Swedenborgians adopted as a defining doctrine the belief “that
there is only One God, One Person, in whom is the Divine Trinity, called
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”. [44]
As we have said, Hopkins’ first octave blames humankind for an attitude opposed to
the divine laws. Man’s civilization has followed a pattern marked by worldly
things as trade and toil, that has both destroyed nature and unlinked man from
it. Therefore, human features and actions are presented as material, disturbing
and incorrect. Human behaviour is wrong and must be corrected by an spiritual
connection with God. We don’t encounter here, contrary to what we saw in
Blake’s poem, inner human virtues such
as Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love, but an outside divinity carrying those virtues
to which man has to connect spiritually in order to change his sinful nature.
“It is bad enough that man has disregarded the
beauty of God’s creation and failed to see His grandeur in it. But man has done
worse than ignore it, he has polluted it with his own sinful nature; he has
brought darkness upon himself in the very midst of God’s light.” [45]
On his side, Blake did not think that a
possible wrong attitude of men was linked to the disobedience of a divine
authority. In fact it was totally the opposite way. It was the misconception of
what God truly is, that is, his representation as an outside being with
tyrannical powers, the condemnation of human’s imagination. And as we have
seen, human imagination is the primary source of God.
More surprisingly, he saw this misconception,
encouraged by the Church, as the personification of the Antichrist.
“Blake sometimes calls Satan “the God of this
world”. He is the God most Christians actually worship and persecute others for
not worshipping. The religion of Satan is the one that is practiced in most
churches on most Sundays, an ideology that accept the present defective order
of the world as a manifestation of God’s eternal will” [46]
Let’s show how stunningly different is
Hopkins’ conception of God and Satan. His words, extracted from the notes on
one of his Exercises as a Jesuit, “The principle or Foundation” [47], speak by
themselves:
“You cannot mean your praise if while praise
is on the lips there is no reverence in the mind; there can be no reverence in
the mind if there is no obedience, no submission, no service. And there can be
no obeying God while you disobey him, no service while you sin. […] For if you
are in sin you are God’s enemy, you are under Satan’s standard and enlisted
there.”
Therefore, for Blake, a free individual
imagination is the clearest evidence of God, a God which dwells in man. Then,
the repression of that freedom by authoritative means is the incarnation of
Satan. While for Hopkins, is the submission of man to the divine law, the
recognition of the grandeur of God, what makes us be in God’s hands, what keeps
us away from the sinful role of Satan.
We are in conditions to assert that Blake’s
Satan is Hopkins’ God, and Hopkins’ Satan, being the representation of the
disobedience to authoritative laws, is Blake’s God.
Hopkins, although his hierarchical approach to
religion and his belief on man’s sinful disjointedness from God and Nature,
contemplated the possibility of a mystic union with God. According to Isobel
Armstrong, who stresses the material conditions that are needed, “A perfect union with God is possible. It is
a union made possible, however, by the governing metaphor of rural labour and
an archaic, agrarian economy” [48]
This would justify Hopkins’ rejection of an
industrialised civilisation, but this materialist approach lives out other
media that provided Hopkins his particular divine union: poetical language and
nature.
He divided poetry into a classification of
various levels, only one of them being capable of providing that mystic union
with God. “The highest level he calls "poetry proper, the language of
inspiration" when words come unbidden in a burst of creativity”. [49] His
invention of the sprung rhythm represented his search for this high
poetry. It may be noticed the contrast that this means in relation with Blake’s
simplicity of language.
Nature was also a source for divine
inspiration and meeting with God, something possible thanks to the perception
of what he called the “inscape” of things.
“By "inscape" he means the unified
complex of characteristics that give each thing its uniqueness and that
differentiate it from other things, and by "instress" he means either
the force of being which holds the inscape together or the impulse from the
inscape which carries it whole into the mind of the beholder” [50]
“For Hopkins poetry and landscape — either
individually or together — were two of the biggest things which stopped his
mind in its tracks and let him glimpse eternity.” [51]
William Blake, on his side, believed that a
total union with God could only be possible with a full liberation of the
Poetic Genius, which was God himself. A freed imagination provided a world
conscious of the real nature of God.
He also thought of religion as being
intimately connected with poetry. But this relation appears as totally inverse
of that of Hopkins. While Hopkins saw poetry as a medium to reach God, Blake
thought that religion was a consequence of poetry, it emerged from it.
“To repair the damage done by the fall of
humanity, then, would entail transforming religion back into poetry. […]
Blake’s way of recovering the gospel message was to remythologize it in terms
of his own tale of the Zoas. This had the effect of defamiliarizing the
Christian revelation, freshening its impact, and detaching it from the
religious practices of institutional churches” [52]
And, as far as Nature is concerned, while
Hopkins repudiated man’s interference on it, William Blake could not think
about Nature without taking into consideration man’s contribution to it. “In the words of one of his proverbs of hell,
"Where man is not, nature is barren." Human cultivation of the earth
is obviously implied.” [53]
Moreover, he denied the existence of a Creator
God who finds his providence paralleled and represented in nature. And if the
case of men being alienated from the natural world was given, the only reason
might be the repression of human’s Poetic Genius or imagination.
“Blake
does not believe that an external source can endow nature with meaning. Blake
believes that divinity resides within the human breast and so it is the human
imagination that gives meaning to the world.” [54]
William Blake’s humanistic presence in the
divinity, or we should say, the divine presence in man’s nature, and his
enormous emphasis upon the individual imagination ( so enormous it is that he
transforms this imagination into God) can be considered as the most romantic
and revolutionary conception ever applied to religion.
On his side, G. M. Hopkins, in his search for
an spiritual fulfilment, chose to follow an orthodox religious life,
characterised by the continuous exploration of the means that could lead him to
a union with an external God. These investigation made him later become known
for his poetical innovations. But his internal fight between his impulses and
his moral duties and his tendency to preserve a submissive approach to God remained represented in his poetry as a sing of his religious
conservatism.
Probably, in the utopian case of William Blake
reading Hopkins’ poetry, he would have seen in him the incarnation of that
theology of submission which he rejected because of his oppressive action upon
human’s imagination, but he might have also admire as well his spiritualism and
his love for poetry.
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