Hopkins Versus Wordsworth Essay, Research Paper
The way Technology has changed Man:
Compare and Contrast of Hopkins and Wordsworth
“Where do you want to go today?”. We all know this slogan of
the most advanced software company in the world, Microsoft. The
question we will soon have to answer is were we can’t go today.
William Wordsworth, a quaint man from the late 18th century and
early 19th century, understood the need for change in this world and
expressed a pre-mature concern for the future that still applies to this
very day in “The world is too much with us”. Gerald Hopkins, a poet
from the later 19th century, expressed many of same ideas and
philosophies as Wordsworth in “God’s Grandeur”. Their main points
were that man’s continuous journey towards the future has led us to
forget our roots. Though how could two poets from two different
lifestyles, Wordsworth the revolutionary and Hopkins the Jesuit, come
up with the same basic ideas? They both showed that our continuous
journey towards the future has led us to forget our roots as shown by
our destruction of nature, by the way the Industrial Revolution has torn
us away from our harmony with nature and by the ways we can return
back to mother earth.
Man continues to destroy nature in an attempt to strengthen
himself. Wordsworth and Hopkins talk about man’s primal instinct to
destroy what is around him. Ironically our destruction of nature leads
to the advancements in our personal technologies. This is made
evident when Wordsworth says “getting and spending we lay waste
our powers.” While it is obvious is that Wordsworth thinks we have
become to attached to material goods, what does he mean by “lay
waste our powers”? Perhaps the only explanation we can give is that
Wordsworth believes that Man has, somewhere deep down in him, the
ability to be a creator, an architect who can use nature and not abuse
it. He also believes that Man keeps destroying nature without
realizing the effects this adds to our lives. Hopkins shows this same
type of idea but with a higher connection, the power of God. He uses
God as a way of showing us the wrong we are doing. He shows Man’s
disobedience of God as a way to show that we have forgotten nature.
Wordsworth thinks our own ambitions have led us to this point and we
can’t say that Hopkins completely disagrees with that. Hopkins shows
how nature accumulates our pollution. They both must have realized
the influence these technologies were having on their societies.
They indicate how the Industrial Revolution has torn us away
from our harmony with nature. This point is made evident not only
through the two poems under question but through the way these two
poets lived. Wordsworth took his experience in the French revolution
and experiences with nature to great heart. This is where the “getting
and spending” part of his poem really comes in to strike a chord with
<his fellow humans. Wordsworth wants us to remember that
technology is not, and should not be the most important thing in our
lives. While it was the “in” thing to move to the city and forget your
rural surroundings, it was rarely the right thing to do. Hopkins had
this problem being a Jesuit in Liverpool, one of the most polluted
cities. He had to take his inner harmony in stride with his religious
belief. He used this religious belief to allow himself to feel cleansed of
any sort of hate towards technology. He used his earlier poetry to
actually show his discontent with society. While he perhaps was not as
influenced by social advancements as Wordsworth, they did play some
part in his earlier years. Wordsworth had the opening and money to
become someone meaningful in a high paced society yet chose to be
the revolutionary. Hopkins took the option of grueling it out to become
a Jesuit. These different paths led the two men to different
conclusions.
Both poets wondered if it would be possible to return to nature.
They then came to the conclusion that Man can rejoin mother nature
and rekindle this extinguished flame. Hopkins encourages us to look
towards the future to find this lost flame. We see how we have “trod”
over nature yet “nature is never spent.” Nature has been crushed by
Man yet still endures this abuse. This is what allowed Hopkins to tell
Man to look on into the future. He believes that we should give up our
old habits and work towards achieving new goals. By contrast,
Wordsworth sees a much grimmer future. He believes that nature
“moves us not” as we have willingly given up our ties with the beauty
that surrounds us. As well he is convinced that the only way we could
salvage the future is to return to the past. This is a forward to the past
sort of concept, meaning; to go into the future we must become what
we once were. He would rather be a “pagan” then to live in our times.
Wordsworth emphasizes how the powerful civilizations of the past
have all concentrated on nature as the basis of their society. If Man is
ever to attain greatness again he must return to this sort of notion.
Both poets have unique opinions about solutions to this problem.
The ongoing puzzle of how man has forgotten nature persists up
to this very day. Each poet shows man’s destruction of nature, the
effects of the Industrial Revolution and the ways of returning back to
mother earth. We can only being to wonder what Wordsworth and
Hopkins would think of our modern age that continues these nasty
habits. In fact, we have jumped a step beyond going into the
information age. I don’t think anyone can answer this question, and I
certainly cannot. We must nevertheless continue to interpret these
poems to their full benefit. Only time will tell if man does completely
destroy nature but I believe he will not. We must remember to make
an influence and fight for our world, our home.