Semantic and Thematic Aspects in the Carrion Comfort by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Abstract

Gerard Manley Hopkins sought a stronger rhetorical style in verse-sprung rhythm for the shape, sound, and sense of Carrion Comfort. The poet shows a sense of desolation produced partly by spiritual aridity and partly by a feeling of artistic frustration. The poem reveals strong tensions between his delight in the sensuous world, his urge to express it, and his equally powerful sense of religious vocation in the sonnet. This sonnet is enriched with the vivid use of echo figures of speech, alliteration, repetition, and a highly compressed syntax to project profound personal experiences, including his sense of God’s mystery, grandeur, and mercy in the energizing prosodic element of his verse sprung rhythm, in which each foot may consist of one stressed syllable and any number of unstressed syllables instead of the regular number of syllables used in the traditional meter. Despair and dejection play a prominent role in displaying the writer’s semantic point of view. The tone of the octave and sestet differ drastically in aspects. Initially, the tone is full of distress, while later, the technique is cheerful. This research attempt will seek answers to how the poem's mode and structure dramatize the speaker's exchange with his interiority and the exterior world? What is the effect of the variations in syntax reflecting a claustrophobic interior consciousness? Therefore, this paper explores the semantic and thematic aspects of the sonnet successfully, keeping in mind the poem's thematic aspects and perspectives.