Seasons of Change

Poetry uses many elements to convey meaning and theme in an often times consolidated form. The use of such elements, such as form, imagery, and symbolism, enable the author to evoke specific feelings and thoughts in the reader. Gerard Manley Hopkins uses elements like alliteration and diction to juxtapose life and death in his poem “Spring and Fall.” The poem compares a young girl’s sadness over the changing of seasons to humans’ sadness regarding their own mortality. This inevitable fate causes a loss of innocence even before she is able to describe it with words or emotions. Hopkins alludes to the idea of the contrast of life and death from the very beginning of the poem by choosing contrasting words “spring” and “fall” for the title. Many times when speaking about the seasons, authors will use the term autumn rather than fall. This intentional decision by the author clues readers in on the theme and draws parallels to comparisons of youth versus age and innocence versus experience. Spring, often representative of youth, innocence and renewal, is depicted by young Margaret and her “fresh thoughts” (4). The speaker suggests that autumn is comparable to old age and death with the term “Fall.” The use of the word fall also calls to mind the “fall from grace” of man from the Bible. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, causing all men to be subjected to a mortal life with sin. This idea speaks to the theme of mortality and loss of innocence, as both were concepts of the Bible story and Hopkins’ poem.
The setting of the poem is a town called Goldengrove in the fall. The words golden and grove elicit an autumnal feel, and literally mean a yellow-orange group of trees. This scenery of abundant trees with beautiful reds, oranges and yellows sets the stage for the “unleaving” (2) and the comparisons of the tree cycle to our human life cycle. The name Goldengrove could again have Biblical connotations as well, as the Garden of Eden was full of trees (grove) and copper serpents (golden). Hopkins uses the leaves falling from a tree to evoke the feelings that come with awareness of one’s own mortality. The tree is a metaphor for the cycle of life. By choosing to set the poem in the fall, rather than spring, Hopkins was setting the tone of the poem as well. Springtime gives feelings of happiness and opportunity as it is seen as the time for new life and budding. Fall, however, is seen as a time of loss, as plants and animals start shedding their flowers and settling for winter. Setting the poem in the more callous of the seasons allowed Hopkins to convey a more wistful and somber tone. Hopkins uses many elements of sound to give the poem an almost nursery rhyme feel. This strongly contradicts the solemn subject matter of the poem, which again gives the reader the contrast of life versus death. The poem consists of three sets of couplets, a tercet, and three more sets of couplets. The couplets have a song like feel with similar syllables and feminine rhyme scheme. This is in contrast to the tercet in the middle of the poem, which rhymes just the last syllable (masculine rhyme) and gives way to the transition between young Margaret’s innocent grieving and what will be her eternal mourning. The dramatic climax in the middle of the poem emphasizes the loss of innocence at the realization of mortality. Alliteration is also used to give a young, playful feeling to this grave subject. Two thirds of the 15 lines have alliteration, and some of the individual words, like Goldengrove and wanwood, are alliterations themselves. This frequent alliteration adds to the childlike feel of the poem, and in combination with the subtitle “to a young child,” reiterates the youthful feeling in the poem amidst the serious subject. Word choice and order are two more elements Hopkins uses to help support the theme of mortality in this poem. Choosing euphemisms for death, instead of using the words death and dying directly, help the author to convey the dark subject matter while still keeping it child-friendly. Hopkins’ use of words like “grieving” (1), “colder” (6), and “ghost” (13), the connotations of death and mortality are expressed throughout the poem without ever directly saying it. Hopkins also chose to use made- up words to draw attention to otherwise routine ideas. “Wanwood” (8) is used to mean dead leaves or wood, but also conveys thoughts of being pale and weak from the word wan. “Leafmeal” (8) is a play on the word piecemeal, which just means disconnected or disorganized leaves. Hopkins phrases the words together, stating “worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie” (8), to say that there is a pile of dead leaves on the ground. “Unleaving” (2) is used to convey the falling leaves, but is also calls the readers’ attention to the word leaving. This elicits the feelings of dying, particularly in the context of the word “grieving” (1) in the preceding line. By using these made up words, it causes readers to pay more attention to ideas and concepts. These made up words also reiterate the fact that this poem is dedicated to a young girl, because they sound like words a child might make up. Hopkins also uses imagery and figures of speech to demonstrate his theme of mortality and loss of innocence. “Leaves, like the things of man” (3) is a simile that draws likenesses between the problems of humans and nature. Synecdoche is used in line 5, where the speaker says “as the heart grows older,” which is relevant because it is reinforcing the fact that it is young Margaret’s heart that is saddened by the falling leaves and it is her heart that will grow “colder” to “such sights” (6). “Sorrow’s springs” (11) is a metaphor comparing the source of sorrow to the source of a river. Furthermore, it draws on the comparison between “crying a river” and crying because of sorrow. Finally, the speaker’s third person persona supports the ideas of mortality and loss of innocence through the use of apostrophe. It is never revealed if the speaker is an adult figure talking to Margaret, reflecting on Margaret’s feelings, is a ghost, or even is Margaret as an adult. The speaker does, however, share that Margaret’s grieving about the changing season and the leaves falling from the trees is more than just sorrow for dead leaves, but rather a sorrow for the end of that cycle of life. The speaker claims that Margaret will continue to grieve, but as her innocence turns to maturity and responsibility, she will “know why” (9) she is mourning. In “Spring and Fall,” a variety of literary elements are used to help Hopkins convey feelings of loss of innocence and mortality. These symbols, alliterations, and dictions depict the certainty of death and the young child’s transformation from naïve and innocent to knowledgeable and burdened. The realization of this imminent fate, which affects all living things from trees to humans, is the ultimate cause of human sorrow.

References
Dictionary.com. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.dictionary.com
Hopkins, G. M. (1918). “Spring and Fall.” Retrieved from http://www.bartleby.com/122/31.html