Technical description of Gerard Manley Hopkins" poem:.
The poem in designed as an English and Italian sonnet. It has 14 lines each line has 10 syllables, 5 accents per line, which is the major metrical line in English called an iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is: ABBA ABBA CDCDCD. The language of the poem is old English, very high diction, very formal. The syntax in many sentences is marked syntax, and in 7 sentences one can find an enjambment, some are stronger then the others. The poet is creating an effective metaphor in line 9 to line 12, between God's master piece- nature, to his unsuccessful work. In the first 7 lines the poet is asking many questions most people ask in their life, he is addressing God with questions about evil versus good in the world. The poet is having a dramatic monologue between him and God. The poet is naming God as "sir" "lord" "lord of life". The speaker and the poet have a very close relationship of representation. The auditor is God and he does not respond, and the audience is the readers and they identify with the speaker. The poet is using accented metric when he counts the syllables, he is also using parallelism, personification, and a writing topos.
In Gerard Manley Hopkins" poem the speaker appears to be a devoted religious man. In the poem the speaker is asking many difficult questions about the problem of evil in the world. The questions are asked in a polite, formal manner; however, the speaker's questions are a hidden attack on God. The speaker's questions are defiance and rebellious. The question of good versus evil, or more specifically, the question "Why do sinners" ways prosper?" is a question almost every religious person is asking at a certain point in his religious life. Through strong enjambments, parallel comparison, formal diction and poetic voice the poet is delivering his message of opposition to God's unjust ways.