The Caged Skylark by Gerald Manley Hopkins. Part One

“The Caged Skylark” by Gerald Manley Hopkins

As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage, 

    Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells — 

    That bird beyond the remembering his free fells; 

This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age. 

Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage 

    Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells, 

    Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells 

Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage. 

Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest — 

Why, hear him, hear him babble & drop down to his nest, 

    But his own nest, wild nest, no prison. 

Man's spirit will be flesh-bound, when found at best, 

But uncumberèd: meadow-down is not distressed 

    For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.

Gerald Manyley Hopkins (1844-1899, Victorian poet).

Gerard Manley Hopkins was an English poet and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame established him among the leading Victorian poets. His manipulation of prosody established him as an innovative writer of verse. Two of his major themes were nature and religion.

Extended metaphor

noun

1.    a common Eurasian and North African lark of farmland and open country, noted for its prolonged song given in hovering flight

Other poems about Skylarks:

1. To a Skylark by William Wordsworth
2. To a Skylark by William Wordsworth
3. The Skylark by James Hogg
4. The Skylark by Frederick Tennyson
5. To a Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley
6. Song by Hartley Coleridge
7. Overflow by John Banister Tabb
8. The Lark Song by James W. Whilt
9. A Green Cornfield by Christina Rossetti

« The Caged Skylark »

Themes: 

Oppression versus Freedom

Death and Resurrection

Nature and Mankind

Sonnet : The word sonnet is derived from the Italian word “sonetto,” which means a “little song” or small lyric. In poetry, a sonnet has 14 lines, and is written in iambic pentameter. Each line has 10 syllables. It has a specific rhyme scheme, and a volta, or a specific turn. Generally, sonnets are divided into different groups based on the rhyme scheme they follow. The rhymes of a sonnet are arranged according to a certain rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme in English is usually abab–cdcd–efef–gg, and in Italian abba–abba–cde–cde. https://literarydevices.net/sonnet/

Structure:

Given this poem contains 14 lines and adheres to many of the rules of the style, this poem can be considered a sonnet:

The first octet (of 8 lines) follows the rhyme: abbaabba

Then it has two tercets (of 3 lines) which make up the closing sestet (so combined, of 6 lines) with the rhyme structure: ccd ccd.

Hopkins follows the tradition that the octet introduces an idea that the sestet reverses or challenges. He introduces the idea that both the skylark and the human are caged and miserable. Then, he presents/explores the idea of the uncaged bird in the first tercet, and the idea of how the human spirit can be set free (through the idea of resurrection).

Octet = confinement /oppression

         = both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells 

    Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage

Sestet = freedom / liberation

= hear him babble & drop down to his nest, 

    But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.

I would argue the structure of his poem echoes the themes of oppressed versus free as his structure is contained and yet his speaker’s voice is (qui)te free and spontaneous:

The logical, clear, repetitive structure emphasizes the measured and logical approach of the speaker.

However Gerald Manley Hopkins changed the traditional rhythms of iambic pentameter (regular patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables). Instead, he used a sprung rhythm – varying the number of syllables from 1-4 but always placing the stress on the first syllable.  In practice, this gives the voice of his poems a spontaneous and natural quality.

Hopkins used sprung rhythm, which was his version of accentual verse. In accentual verse, while the number of stressed syllables in a line is regular, the length of the feet (the number of unstressed syllables between stressed syllables) varies. Much of the time in Hopkin's poems, it's fairly evident which syllables should be stressed, but when it wasn't, he put acute accents on stressed syllables and grave accents on unstressed syllables to aid the reader.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCIA3CSKVWg

"The Caged Skylark" by Gerard Manley Hopkins, read by the Wordman

Function of Rhythm Rhythm in writing acts as beat does in music. The use of rhythm in poetry arises from the need to express some words more strongly than others. They might be stressed for a longer period of time. Hence, the repeated use of rhythmical patterns of such accent produces rhythmical effect, which sounds pleasant to the mind as well as to the soul. In speech, rhythm is used unconsciously to create identifiable patterns. Moreover, rhythm captivates the audience and readers alike by giving musical effect to a speech or a literary piece. https://literarydevices.net/rhythm/

Voice and Tone

Written in third person, using masculine pronouns for both bird and human.

Tone: convinced and argumentative

Discourse markers’ = yet, or, not that, but, but = which mark out the stages or progress of his argument.

Imperatives = “hear him” = emphasize urgency and also the imperative tone.

Repetition = “sweetest, sweetest,” “sweet-fowl, song-fowl”, “hear him, hear him,” and “own nest, wild nest” – also creates a “consonant chime,” much like that of bird song? Urgent, repetitive consonant sounds?

Language

Lexical field of “cages”: cells, barriers, prison.

Coinages are words invented by a poet to convey something for which the “ordinary” English language proves inadequate: in other words, the coinage derives from bringing together other, more recognizable words into a new and fresh combination that accomplishes what the poet cannot otherwise achieve. Hopkins is a great inventor of coinages.

Compound adjectives like “dare-gale”

Compound nouns like “sweet-foul”

Compound verbs like “day-labouring-out”.

The compression creates an intensity but the true meaning is often hard to get! 

Try “dare-gale” and imagine the skylark “daring to fly in a gale”

Voice

In Welsh-language poetry, cynghanedd (Welsh pronunciation: [kəŋˈhaneð], literally "harmony") is the basic concept of sound-arrangement within one line, using stress, alliteration and rhyme. 

The key? Hopkins likes the sound of the alliteration and the internal rhyme.

Harsh ‘b’ and ‘d’ (end even ‘m’) in the octet: “Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells” mimics/echoes the “drudgery” being described.

Note how the soft alliteration in “s” echoes the sweet, song-like nature of the following line: sing sometimes the sweetest, sweetest spells, 

Again, Hopkins is creating a contrast in poem by contrasting that which is sweet and free with that which is harsh and contained.

Closing image

 https://featheryournestquiltstore.com/listing/627619837/noahs-ark-2-by-2-rainbow-animals-abraham

Man's spirit will be flesh-bound, when found at best, 

But uncumberèd: meadow-down is not distressed 

    For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ4a_Gu49SA

A fairly random but well expressed conclusion

The Caged Skylark expresses the Christian theme of being set free of sin by the resurrection of Christ. The first two stanzas display an image of the human spirit trapped inside it's body like a bird in a cage, it talks about humans living in this prison with small moments of great happiness that succumb to the larger periods of pain and suffering.
The last two stanzas flip the image. After talking about the Skylark, miserable in it's cage one's first thought would be that the best thing for the bird would be to be set free from the cage. But Hopkins puts forward the idea that the bird and our souls will need a home, so when we are set free our bodies and the bird's cage would no longer be prisons, the bird would make a nest as it's new home but would still have space to fly and freedom, and in resurrection our bodies would be light and free.
The Caged Skylark takes great use in imagery and alliteration, and Hopkins portrays the theme of religion that he has used in many of his poems, the first eight to ten lines express dark imagery, using harsh and ominous words such as bone-house, drudgery and rage. This changes in the last stanza, portraying an image of a rainbow free in a meadow, saying that our body will be no burden to our soul as a rainbow is no burden to a meadow, and the free bird dropping down to his own nest, his "wild nest" reinforcing the theme of freedom after transformation, resurrection and release, the human body is not limited, is "uncumbered" by it's heaviness, it's bones and it's flesh, and is ultimitely weightless and will rise and be free, just like a skylark being released from it's cage and given a nest.

http://www.eliteskills.com/analysis_poetry/The_Caged_Skylark_by_Gerard_Manley_Hopkins_analysis.php