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Poems for study » As Kingfishers Catch Fire » Imagery and symbolism in As Kingfishers Catch Fire

Personification

The main figure of language in the octave is personification. Each object, whether animate or inanimate, is given a voice:

  • ‘finds tongue to fling out broad its name’
  • ‘myself it speaks and spells’.

The ‘indoors’ metaphor is difficult. It seems to mean: each thing proclaims the essence of its inner being. There is a sense of being ‘at home’ in itself, as we talk of people being ‘at home’ in their skin.

Jesus portrayed as living within human beings

There is a biblical teaching that Christian believers are the body of Christ:

‘for we were all baptised by one Spirit into one body.....Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.’ ([61 Corinthians 12:13,276] TNIV).

The ‘body of Christ’ metaphor is thus a Christian commonplace, hovering between a literal and a figurative understanding. ‘Grace’ can be a physical attribute as well as a spiritual one. There is a tradition of Catholic mysticism which is quite sensuous, and it is in this way that Hopkins writes.

Investigating As Kingfishers Catch Fire
  • Can you see that many expressions of philosophy or religion are actually metaphorical? We cannot express abstract or supernatural concepts literally without becoming too abstract for words (literally).
    • Can you think of some examples of how beliefs are made concrete by metaphors?
  • What human features are applied to the biblical God?
Relating to, or contained in, the Bible. The Christian Bible consists of the Old Testament scriptures inherited from Judaism, together with the New Testament.
Name originally given to disciples of Jesus by outsiders and gradually adopted by the Early Church.
Title (eventually used as name) given to Jesus, refering to an anointed person set apart for a special task such as a king.
Undeserved favour. The Bible uses this term to describe God's gifts to human beings.
1. Sometimes used to denote all Christians 2. Used specifically of the Roman Catholic church.
The seeking of direct spiritual encounter with God, usually through a life of self-denial and contemplation. Mystics often have visions or other supernatural revelations of God.
A particular system of belief, faith and worship ' for example, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism.
An image or form of comparison where one thing is said actually to be another - e.g. 'fleecy clouds'.

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves--goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is--
Chríst--for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

 
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