Emotional Analysis of G. M. Hopkins’ Spring and Fall

Abstract

This article critically focuses on the emotions created in the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. It explores the various features responsible for creating feelings in poetry. Among them are word choice, sound choice and imagery. Moreover, it delves into the poem to anayse how devices such as alliteration, simile, metaphor, diction, and symbolism play a vital role. Appropriate implementation of these features create strong emotions in poetry. In most of his poems, Hopkins employed coinage words. In “Spring and Fall”, he doubly used coinage words in a single – line. In the second line of the poem, he coined ‘Goldengroove’ and ‘unleaving’ and in the eighth line ‘wanwood’ and ‘leafmeal’. The word ‘Goldengroove’ is not used for a place in reality yet, and it is a place that represents autumn’s beauty. ‘Golden groove also refers to the ‘Garden of Paradise’. It indicates the four seasons of the year and the chronological phases of human life too. The words ‘golden’ and ‘groove’   are combined to form a single word. The word ‘unleaving’ encapsulates the noun ‘leaf’ employed as a verb possessing a negative prefix ‘un’, which means ‘leaving leaves’. The coinage word ‘unleaving ' is an Anglo-Saxon and comes in the category of pun. Another word, 'wanwood', is also a compound word. ‘Wanwood’ explains the pale condition of trees that have shed their leaves, so they seem to become ‘wan’ or pale.  Initially, the word ‘leafmeal’ appears to be ambiguous, yet this ambiguity is expelled immediately.’Leafmeal’ refers to the phrase ‘leaf by leaf’. The two words ‘wanwood’ and ‘leafmeal’ are originated from Anglo- Saxon ring.  Hopkins entitled the poem” Spring and Fall”, which itself enhances strong emotion. The rhyme scheme's alteration in this innovative poem, “Spring and Fall”, exhibits the speaker's feelings.