ABSTRACT
The sonnet is the clearest statement in all Hopkins's poems of Duns Scotus's belief in the fulfilling of individuality, in 'selving'. All created things, animate and even inanimate, exist to fulfill their own distinctive natures; in this way they praise God; and man's fulfillment of his nature finds perfection in Christ's Incarnation. In the first four lines visual beauty passes to sound; and Hopkins uses all his skills of alliteration, 'chiming' and assonance, to vary the individual vibrations of ringing stones, plucked strings and swinging bells. In the first line of the sestet justices have a special theological sense: 'acts in a godly manner, lives fully energized by grace, justness, and sanctity'. In this way 'the just man' is 'being Christ', as Hopkins put it in his spiritual note, just as, through the Incarnation, Christ expressed the perfect beauty attainable by all men.
