The Divide Between God and Man Essay Example for Free

The Divide Between God and Man Essay Religion is a common theme in poetry. In the Norton anthology Modern Poems, several poems from many eras discuss or refer to religion. Six in particular show a progression of man’s slow destruction of his relationship with God and the world. â€Å"Imperial Adam† by A. D. Hope begins this sequence by the unique way sin is introduced into the world. William Butler Yeat’s â€Å"Second Coming† is an apocalyptic interpretation of what might be considered the antichrist. All together, these religious poems weave a tale of sadness and despair for mankind as they fall further and further from each other and from God. â€Å"Imperial Adam† introduces the Biblical Adam just as he has awakened from his â€Å"surgery† to find his companion. God has blessed him with a female because â€Å"It is not good for him to live alone† (line 8). However, instead of viewing her as a soul mate and companion for the glory of God, Adam sees Eve in an immediately sexual light. The poem makes use of sexual imagery such as â€Å"golden breasts,† â€Å"plump gourd,† â€Å"virile root,† and â€Å"delicious pulp of the forbidden fruit,† (lines 13, 17, 19). The sexual experience is described in stanza’s seven and eight, but instead of being treated in beautiful terms, it is described as animalistic, loud and overly passionate. Just as the Bible story goes, Eve gets pregnant and gives birth. The child, Cain, in the Bible goes on to kill his brother out of jealousy and becomes the ancestral father of a lineage of outcasts banished and cursed by God and spurned by mankind. This outcome is the focus of the last stanza of the poem. The baby is not immediately seen as a darling expression of love, but his birth is described in less complimentary terms: â€Å"Between her legs a pigmy face appear,/And the first murderer lay upon the earth† (lines 43-44). The first attention paid to the baby, at this point a true innocent, is that he is the future murderer of his brother who creates the schism between God and man. Another Biblical story that is alluded to in poetry is the parable of the prodigal son. According to this parable, a wayward youth takes his inheritance, leaves his home, and frivolously wastes his money. He returns home to find the love of his father still strong in spite of his sins and despite other’s anger at him. In â€Å"The Prodigal Son† by Rudyard Kipling, the story is the same, but not exact. True, the son has gone off to lavish living; he says â€Å"I wasted my substance, I know I did,/On riotous living, so I did,/But there’s nothing on record to show I did/Worse than my betters have done† (lines 25-28). The young man realizes his faults, but also questions his treatment by his family. He feels that his sins are no worse than any other, and finds it his label as a â€Å"monster of moral depravity† (line 23) to be quite unfair. Indeed it seems his behavior is not as horrible as the consequent behavior of his family, specifically of his own brother. In this poem, the reader learns that despite the hard knocks the young man experienced, he did work to maintain himself. The young man, unlike the Biblical prodigal son, does not remain home. He finds their attitudes toward him more oppressive than the hear life he had lived. He leaves with a warm salutation to his parents, but cannot quite find the same feelings for his brother, whom he calls a â€Å"hound† (line 48). The rhythm and rhyme of the poem are a bit misleading, in that they suggest a less serious nature than, say, the Biblical story. However, the messages are eerily the same. Like the ultimate reality of the Biblical Cain and the son in â€Å"Imperial Adam,† family relationships are strained from the beginning, particularly, it seems, between brothers. The young man doubts the relationship he has with his father is worth putting up with his sulking, angry brother. This relationship has an obvious figurative meaning as well as a literal one. The young man doubting his father’s relationship can be read as a person doubting the existence of a kind and gently God. In Gerald Manley Hopkins’ â€Å"Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend,† the idea that man may doubt the nature of God or become infirm in his faith or religion is expressed in sonnet form. The poem begins with the speaker asserting that he knows God is just and fair with him and acknowledges that his own ways in the world are also just and fair. His question is, and this question has undoubtedly been repeated countless times throughout the years, â€Å"Why do sinners’ ways prosper? And why must/Disappointment all I endeavour end? † (lines 3-4). His problems are echoed throughout time: â€Å"Why do bad things happen to good people? † or â€Å"Why do bad things happen to me? † The speaker, through his own failures and disappointment comes to question if God treats everyone fairly and kindly, what is the point of being continually good? He points out that sinful behavior is much more prevalent than his own goodly works: â€Å"Oh, the sots and thralls of lust/Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,/Sir, life upon thy cause† (lines 7-9). He laments that his good words does not seem to â€Å"wake† or enlighten anyone. Ultimately, the speaker begs God to send his roots rain, this metaphor being that he wants God to send him proof that what he is doing is worthwhile. Of course, as most theologians will attest to, God is not in the business of proving himself; faith is the name of the game. The man, who can be representative of all mankind, is losing faith in God and in his own ability to see the benefit of a holy life and godly works. As man slowly seems to split from God, man is also splitting from mankind. God, in the Bible, loves all men and wants them to love one another. Unfortunately, almost from the beginning of time, this has not been the case. In Adrienne Rich’s â€Å"Yom Kippur, 1984,† the speaker, a Jew, reflects upon the loneliness and solitude she feels as the result of being a Jew in a sea of Christians. While this is not a holocaust poem per se (though some images may suggest this) and the date in the title does not suggest Hitler’s annihilation, a resonance of fear permeates the poem. The speaker asks, â€Å"What would it mean not to feel lonely or afraid/far from your own or those you have called your own? † (lines 2-3). Subsequent lines make it clear that many other people live solitary existences for reasons other than religion. She names women and homosexuals as groups that have also been persecuted by people, and sadly, by religion and churches. The spirited narrator urges all feeling solitary to â€Å"Find someone like yourself. Find others. /Agree you will never desert each other/Understand that any rift among you/means power to those who want to do you in† (lines46-49). Unfortunately, the world has not achieved this. She mentions the modern crisis between the Arabs and the Jews in the last stanza as an example of how â€Å"souls crash together† (line 120). The speaker constantly expresses her fear of solitude, which can be interpreted as meaning solitude from others or even solitude from God. Though Rich is not necessarily known as a religious poet, the message rings true. Men divided from one another will fall, and God seems nowhere in this chaos. Furthering the idea that God seems lost from man and the world is Philip Larkin’s poem â€Å"A Poem for Sunday. † This poem is a first person monologue of a person who is drawn to a quiet and empty church. His journey through the silent place is, thus, shared step-by-step with the reader. He listens to the sounds of the heavy door shutting and observes the heavy brown and polished brass colors of the sanctuary. Ultimately, though he visits the church often, he stops to â€Å"reflect the place was not worth stopping for† (line 18) and that his visits seem to all end in this way. He wonders about a time when people stop going to churches or places of worship at all. This speaker and his thoughts seem to represent the feeling that many hold in his society. He sees little interest in the church as a religious house of worship, but more as an oddity the architecture of a bygone era. He surmises that â€Å"†¦we shall keep/a few cathedrals chronically on show,† (lines 23-24) only for a spectacle, but clearly separated from their holy purpose. The fifth stanza shows the gradual decline of the importance of the church as the speaker wonders who will be the last to ever enter its doors for worship: â€Å"A shape less recognizable each week,/A purpose more obscure. I wonder who/Will be the last, the very last, to seek this place for what it was;† (lines 37-40). The tone of the poem seems sad and remorseful, as if the speaker recognizes the sadness and futility of an age in which people do not seek God or have use for ore even remember the use for churches or cathedrals. The last poem in this series marks a specific time of the beginning of the end of the world. Many future seekers try to pinpoint the end of the world. While nobody has been successful, it is clear that many religions agree on some type of coming or second coming of the diety. â€Å"The Second Coming† by William Butler Yeats is an apocalyptic interpretation of the coming of not God, but Evil. The speaker begins by discussing a world out of balance in which â€Å"Things fall apart†¦Ã¢â‚¬  and â€Å"The ceremony of innocence is drowned;/† (lines 3, 6). It seems to warn of a time in which society is so far from God and in which things are so bad, that nothing can be reversed or saved. â€Å"Surely the Second Coming is at hand! † (line 10). Unfortunately, the speakers’ joyful words turn to fear as he envisions not the return of Christ, but of the Sphinx, the mythological beast that taunted and killed many men. This second coming is a beast that has â€Å"A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun† (line 15). This beast has been awakened and â€Å"its hour come round at last,/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? † (lines 21-22). This fearful question hints at a world that will be destroyed by evil instead of reclaimed by God. It suggest that mankind now has no hope of salvation. The poems in this paper all show a progression of man away from God and towards evil. Beginning with Adam, the father of murderous Cain, this symbolic journey moves through the dissolution of the family, the man’s disillusionment and loss of faith in God, the separation of man from each other, the decay of the church, and finally the birth of ultimate evil. Human beings have, indeed, fallen from God in each of these ways. The poems presented here are the attempts of the poets to capture these feelings and emotions and express them to the reader. The body of religious poetry includes far more poems on a similar theme. Because the poems hail from many time periods and from many authors, it can be assumed that the fears and suggestions in these poems are not limited to one era or to one author or country. Unfortunately, the six poems, â€Å"Imperial Adam† by A. D. Hope, â€Å"The Prodigal Son† by Rudyard Kipling, â€Å"Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend† by Gerald Hanley Hopkins, â€Å"Yom Kippur, 1984† by Adrienne Rich, â€Å"A Poem for Sunday† by Phillip Larkin, and â€Å"The Second Coming† by William Butler Yeats all paint a bleak outlook for mankind and his relationship with his God and with mankind.