Doubt and Religious Vision - Essay Example

Faith, Doubt and Religious Vision. Many poems celebrate life and human achievement, describe the beauty of nature, lament over the horrors of war and relate heroic tales of the past and present. However, it is the theme of the Divine, the question of death and mortality, and the meaning of religion and faith, which inspire the most poignant outpourings of the poet. These are the subjects which run through some of the greatest and most beautiful verses ever penned, including Mathew Arnold’s “Dover Beach,” Mathew’s “The Parable of the Good Seed,” Emily Dickinson’s “Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church,” John Donne’s “Death be not proud,” Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur,” John Milton’s “When I Consider How my Light is Spent,” William Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much With Us,” and John Keats’ “When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be.” The nature of Divinity is the leitmotif of many poems. It is a common feature of poets, especially the Romantics, like Dickinson, Wordsworth and Hopkins, to see Divinity in Nature. To these poets, Nature is only a physical manifestation of the Divine, and is worthy of worship. Dickinson’s poem, “Some Keep the Sabbath in Church” clearly shows that she sees God in Nature. With the use of metaphors, she asserts that a songbird is the choir, an orchard is the church and God is the preacher. She completely identifies Divinity with Nature, and keeps her Sabbath “With a Bobolink for a Chorister –/And an Orchard, for a Dome” (Dickinson, 3-4). Dickinson communes with God through Nature. It is Nature which is her lasting Paradise. Similarly, Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur” features the manifestation of God in Nature. Man’s obsession with labor and the material things color his life, so that “ all is seared with trade” (Hopkins, 9). This leads to man’s alienation from Nature. Hopkins conveys this alienation symbolically through the image of clad feet which are cut off from contact with the bare earth: “nor can foot feel, being shod” (Hopkins, 8). With his powerful image of God as the protective mother hen who “ broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings,” (Hopkins, 14), the poet conveys that the renewing power of God’s natural creation constantly nurtures and protects man. In the same vein, Wordsworth, in “The World Is Too Much With Us,” laments that man is out of step with Nature: “we are out of tune;/ It moves us not (Wordsworth, 8-9). Wordsworth’s anguish over man’s materialism and alienation from Nature is so strong, that he is willing to sacrifice his Christian faith and become a pagan who can see and worship the ancient Gods in the actions of Nature. God, for Wordsworth, is Nature. In contrast to Wordsworth’s willingness to reject his traditional faith, Mathew Arnold, in his hauntingly beautiful description of “Dover Beach,” laments the loss of “The Sea of Faith” (Arnold, 21), which once encompassed human life. Arnold compares faith to the retreating tide. As man loses his faith in the Divine, and is trapped in the misery of life, he “Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain (Arnold, 33-34). Man is bereft without faith. The Christian vision of faith is repeated in “The Parable of the Good Seed.” Here, we see the categorical assertion of the coming of Judgment Day, when the good are rewarded and the evil punished by a Righteous God. The evil shall be cast “ into a furnace of fire,” while the “ the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Mathew, 42-43). Again, it is the shining affirmation of Christian faith which runs through Milton’s “When I Consider How my Light is Spent.” Milton affirms his faith and his resignation to the dictates of God. In a poignant expression of submission to God’s will, Milton asserts that “ who best/Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best” (10-11). Milton’s fear that he may not be able to express his poetic potential is echoed by Keats. The exploration of the themes of death and mortality is common to many poems In “When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be,” Keats fears that he may not achieve his full creative potential before his death, and may die “ Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain” (Keats, 2). However, he goes on to resign himself by contemplating the futility of fame and work in the face of mortality. All the things he wishes to accomplish before death will literally be rendered nothing by death. When death ensures that “ love and fame to nothingness do sink.,” (Keats, 14), all other fears are relegated into the realm of futility. When Donne contemplates the nature of death in “Death be not proud,” he celebrates the triumph of the soul over death in a direct challenge to Death, which he personifies. While Keats endows Death with the power to render everything meaningless, Donne sees Death only as a short pathway to eternal life, where “One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally” (Donne, 13). The eternal life promised by faith makes Death powerless, and lets Donne make the triumphant assertion “ poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me” (Donne, 4). The thought of death frees Keats from anxiety, Milton’s faith liberates him from care, and Donne’s belief in eternity makes death meaningless for him. The themes of religion, Divinity, faith, eternity and mortality are a recurring leitmotif in poetry. All the eight poems under study touch upon these themes. Dickinson, Wordsworth and Hopkins see Divinity in Nature. To them Nature is the highest form of the Divine and reflects the majesty and beauty of God. Arnold, Milton and Mathew make their verses reaffirm their Christian faith. Milton and Keats overcome their fear of not realizing their creative potential through submission to God and the inevitability of death. Arnold, Hopkins and Wordsworth regret the coils of materialism and strife which man has allowed to entrap him. Arnold laments the death of faith, while Donne’s faith enables him to triumph over death itself. In each case, the poets are moved to creative expression by their exploration of the meaning of faith and Divinity. Their poetry strikes an intimate chord in the reader, as these same themes of God and mortality run through our deepest thoughts and hopes. Works Cited. Arnold, Mathew. “Dover Beach.” Title of Collection. Ed. Editors Name(s). City of Publication: Publisher, Year.1019. Print. Dickinson, Emily. “Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church.” Title of Collection. Ed. Editors Name(s). City of Publication: Publisher, Year. 960. Print. Donne, John. “Death be not proud.” Title of Collection. Ed. Editors Name(s). City of Publication: Publisher, Year.1037. Print. Hopkins, Gerard Manley. “God’s Grandeur.” Title of Collection. Ed. Editors Name(s). City of Publication: Publisher, Year. 782. Print. Keats, John “When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be.” Title of Collection. Ed. Editors Name(s). City of Publication: Publisher, Year. 1060. Print. Mathew. “The Parable of the Good Seed.” Title of Collection. Ed. Editors Name(s). City of Publication: Publisher, Year. 857. Print. Milton, John. “When I Consider How my Light is Spent.” Title of Collection. Ed. Editors Name(s). City of Publication: Publisher, Year. 1069. Print. Wordsworth, William. “The World Is Too Much With Us.” Title of Collection. Ed. Editors Name(s). City of Publication: Publisher, Year. 868. Print. Read More