E349S March 20: Unity in Nature and Name

God's Gift: Untarnished Nature

Hopkins's poem "God's Grandeur" comments on the lack of reverence and appreciation for nature and all its heavenly wonder. Even  though "generations have trod" the land until nature is "bare now," "nature is never spent." [1] It is evident that God is the sole reason for the preservation and resiliency of nature, even as mankind's industrial revolution continues to havoc nature. To further this idea, in The Tragic Vision, Hopkins asserted that "if other people could see [the] unifying force of nature," they would be "brought closer to God." (Bump 428) The poem asserts the need for devout appreciation of nature because nature is God's creation, his glorious assertion of life.

No Name. No identity. 

Lewis Carroll's "Looking-Glass Insects" chapter provides a commentary on name associations and name roles in regards to identity. The Gnat proposes that if Alice did not have her name, she would be someone absolutely different. For example, "if a governess wanted to call [Alice] to [her] lessons, she would call out, 'Come here--" because "there wouldn't be any name for her to call." [2] Alice ponders the concept of another individual taking her name, and consequently, taking her identity. In really, the name does not encompass the personality and the identity. Intricate characteristics and influences forge personality and a sense of identity.

 
Works Cited

1. Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Major Works Including all the Poems and Selected Prose (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 128.

2. Lewis Carroll, The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2000), 175.