God’s Grandeur

“The Windhover” by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1918)

Gerard Manley Hopkins described “The Windhover” as the best thing he ever wrote. The poem was the last of the poems he wrote in the “God’s Grandeur” sonnet cycle and describes the beauty of the windhover’s flight, identifying in it the perfection of God.

“Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798” by William Wordsworth (1789)

William Wordsworth was captivated by the Wye Valley in Wales and wrote this poem about a visit to Tintern Abbey. This poem exemplifies many of the aesthetic values in the Romantic tradition. Wordsworth internalizes the natural landscape and finds in it an occasion for philosophical theorization on the internal life of memory, emotion, and the self.

“In the Valley of the Elwy” by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1877)

“In the Valley of the Elwy” is one of Hopkins’s few poems that mentions a geographically specific location. Here Hopkins makes reference to the natural world surrounding Wales, and like Wordsworth, Hopkins finds an intensity of experience in the landscape. While Wordsworth discovers in the Welsh countryside a moment of self-recognition and artistic creativity, Hopkins finds in it a wholly religious experience.