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crossref-it.info - AS/A2 English Literature Study Guides - texts in context.

 

Poems for study » I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark » Imagery and symbolism in I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark

The symbolism of night and light, and the image of the dead letters have been mentioned, as has the imagery of bitterness in terms of indigestion.

Yeast

The other memorable image is that of yeast, especially the compound word ‘selfyeast’; the ‘selfyeast of [Hopkins’]spirit’ produces only sourdough. This is a homely and straightforward image, made dramatic by the compound. It has biblical associations of contamination, from the injunction of Jesus to beware the ‘yeast of the Pharisees’ Matthew 16:11-12

Fell

The ‘fell of dark’ is interesting. Hopkins has used ‘fell’ in No Worst, There is None, in the sense of ‘fierce’ or ‘terrible’. It could mean that here, too, but ‘a fell’ is also an animal skin, giving the impression of some fierce, smothering force over him as he wakes – the stuff of nightmares.

Investigating I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark
  • Why would you say Hopkins has moved away from nature imagery to images of bodily functions?
  • Collect all the images of the body and comment on the list.
Today's New International Version
11How is it you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.' 12Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
King James Version
11How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? 12Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.