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English Literature / Unit 14   ENL 1333 short lesson, about 20 seconds

"God's Grandeur" and the Terrible Sonnets

Captions available

The idea

"God's Grandeur" opens, "The world is charged with the grandeur of God," and mourns that "all is seared with trade," yet "nature is never spent." In his last years Hopkins wrote the "terrible sonnets" of spiritual desolation, such as "No worst, there is none."

In practice

Grandeur, then desolation.

Where people slip

Both kinds of poem are sonnets.

Your place on the trail

Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.

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