God's Grandeur and Writing a Voiceover

God's Grandeur by Gerald Manley Hopkins

God's Grandeur is a poem a written in sonnet form (Italian - 8 lines then 6 lines) exploring the relationship people have with nature and God. It is an extremely dense and complicated poem, with lots of interesting use of language and it is not very positive about people! The speaker seems quite distant from others around him (or her).

The speaker of the poem is very critical of the way people treat the earth and the world around them, and aims to remind the reader about the glory of God and his role in creating and managing the world, at a time when Man seemed intent on destroying it (think about the massive growth in industry over the course of the nineteenth century. The speaker believes the earth is heading for destruction and is essentially temporary. However, nature does seem to have a capacity for continuation, night turns into day, because God is there to protect.

1. What type of sentence is the opening line? What mood does it create? What is the effect of the verb 'charged'? What are its connotations?
2. What does the speaker suggest will happen to the world in lines 2 & 3? What is the effect of the imagery used?
3. What type of sentence is used in line 4? Why? What are the connotations of the noun 'rod'? What word does 'reck' make you think of that could also be relevant in the context?
4. Why has Hopkins repeated 'have trod' in line 5?
5. How does Hopkins show the reader how critical he is of how people are living in lines 6 & 7? What are the key lexical choices? How does he use sound to capture this too? How does he show his distaste for Man?
6. How does he demonstrate how he feels about our destruction of the earth and how relationship with nature in line 8?
7. What is the shift in line 9? What conjunction does he use? What does 'spent' mean? Does it link to any other words in the poem?
8. What type of word is 'dearest'? What does he mean by 'deep down things'? What does this suggest about how he thinks people normally live their lives?
9. He use 'and' to start the line again (line 11). Why does he do this?
10. How does he describe the cycle of night and day in lines 11 & 12? What effect does the dynamic verb have?
11. Why is there a cycle of day and night? How does he present God as a protector of Earth (despite the fact that it is 'bent' what does this suggest?) and make God sound like someone who nurtures?

Nature Documentary Voiceover: Creative Writing

Watch two examples from the series of nature documentaries called 'The Hunt' narrated by David Attenborough. You need to watch 'The Silent Assassin' and 'Fast Food.' Read the scripts and answer the questions about the stylistic and linguistic features of the text.

Nature Voiceover Script and Questions

Nature Documentaries