Dillard and Hopkins on the Mystery of Beauty

In December I finished reading Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. In her first of two afterwords, written eight years apart, Dillard calls this book a "theodicy," which is a "defense of God's goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil" (Merriam-Webster) (I had to look it up). The book takes on this task, albeit in a complicated and indirect way. Throughout it, Dillard closely examines the natural world, observing and commenting on its intricacies, curiosities, beauties, and horrors. She certainly doesn't shy away from looking at the problem of evil, but that's a post for another day. She also expounds on some of the most glorious and abundantly good aspects of nature, one of which is birdsong. Specifically, Dillard raises the question, "Why do birds sing?" Scientists still haven't figured it out, she says. So she posits her own theory and invokes a poem ("As Kingfishers Catch Fire") by one of my favorite poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins, to do so:

It could be that a bird sings I am sparrow, sparrow, sparrow, as Gerard Manley Hopkins suggests: 'myself it speaks and spells, Crying What I do is me: for that I came.' (Dillard)

Dillard goes on to clarify that she believes the proper question we should ask is not what the birdsong means, but why it is so beautiful. To Dillard, "beauty is something objectively performed" - in other words, it exists whether we see it or not, and its existence is not subject to the feelings of those who look at it. However, she also claims that beauty is a "language to which we have no key"; we cannot figure out what the "code" of beauty is attempting to communicate.

Strange supposition for a person writing a theodicy. I think Dillard's unspoken thesis of this passage is that the answer to the question "Why is birdsong beautiful" is that God exists, He is beautiful, and He created birds. The answer is implied, or else Dillard is remaining agnostic on this point. Maybe my own strong views on the subject are leading me astray in my reading of the passage. In any case, why would a woman setting out to defend God's goodness claim that beauty is indecipherable? Especially, why would she claim this just after bringing up a poem like "As Kingfishers Catch Fire," one that clearly supposes quite a particular key to the mystery of beauty and spells out what that key is?

Dillard quotes only just under two lines from Hopkins' poem, and fails to reference the major point that Hopkins is making with the entire poem, though his point could be taken as a direct answer to Dillard's question about the meaning of the beauty of birdsong (or any other beauty). The poem reads:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; 

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 dó is me: for that I came. 

I say móre: the just man justices; 

Keeps 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.

Hopkins lists several things in the poem, each of which "speaks itself": kingfishers, dragonflies, stones, strings (perhaps instruments), bells. Indeed, "each mortal thing" exists to be itself, he says. In the second part of the poem, Hopkins extends the list to specifically include man, though of course humans already fall under the rubric of "each mortal thing." In the end, men exist to exhibit Christ, or, put another way, to reveal God. If men bear the image of God, as Hopkins believed, then this reflection of God "through the features of men's faces" makes sense. Men are like mirrors showing who God is to anyone who takes a moment to look and see.

I would argue that, for Hopkins, not only do the humans reveal God, but so do the animals and even inanimate objects listed earlier in the poem. First, as Hopkins moves from part one to part two of the poem, I believe he is getting more precise, adding more clarity, expounding ("I say more"). Second, taken with other poems of his, this one falls right in line with his frequent theme that the beauty in the natural, created world (and also in beautiful, man-made objects) reveals to us the nature of God. Take as one example a couple of lines from "God's Grandeur": "The world is charged with the grandeur of God" (1). Despite the mess humans have made of things (5-8), "There lives the dearest freshness deep down things" (10). Because God is still involved with his creation (13-14), His creation still reflects His beauty and reveals His nature. Take also the poem "Pied Beauty," in which Hopkins gives glory to God for the varied beauty He has created. After listing several things given by God to the earth and to man, including birds, fish, cows, landscapes, work, and even sounds and tastes, Hopkins concludes that all of these things "[God] fathers-forth whose beauty is past change" (10). Because God, with unchanging beauty, has created all of the beauty we experience in the world, we should "Praise Him" (11). It is clear from these and many other of Hopkins' poems that for Hopkins, beauty is from God, reveals to us God's beautiful nature, and therefore calls us to worship God.

Did Dillard miss this larger point in "As Kingfishers Catch Fire"? Or does she simply choose to ignore it and leave it out of her own writing? I am not sure. But to anyone looking for a clear defense of God's goodness and omnipotence despite the evil in the world, I suggest a reading of Hopkins. Dillard and Hopkins have something in common: both write with intensity in response to their observations of nature. However, while Dillard's defense of God is more elaborate and complex than Hopkins', it is also less direct, and I find that Hopkins' often exuberant language creates a sense of the thrill and awe we humans can experience when we observe nature with the Creator in mind.