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Difficulty: HardPoetic Diction and Syntax

Read the following lines from Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem 'The Windhover' (written 1877):

1 I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
2 dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
3 Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
4 High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
5 In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
6 As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
7 Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
8 Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

In lines 2–3, the syntax of the phrase 'the rolling level underneath him steady air' deviates from standard grammatical word order. Which of the following best describes the primary function of this syntactical deviation?

  1. A
    To establish the line break between 'riding' and 'Of' as a definitive grammatical pause that signals a sudden shift in the speaker's mood.
  2. B
    To label the air as a 'rolling level' using metaphoric imagery without contributing to the reader's understanding of the bird's physical trajectory.
  3. To delay the arrival of the noun 'air' through a series of accumulated modifiers, thereby mirroring the falcon’s suspended, hovering movement and the speaker's sensory immersion.Answer
  4. D
    To reflect the biographical details of Hopkins' personal observations of birds rather than illustrating the speaker's aesthetic appreciation of the scene.
  5. E
    To emphasize the literal, static definition of 'steady' to show that the falcon is flying through completely calm, motionless weather.

Answer

The syntactical deviation delays the arrival of the noun 'air' through a series of accumulated modifiers, thereby mirroring the falcon’s suspended, hovering movement and the speaker's sensory immersion.
The correct answer is correct because the syntax of the phrase places a cumulative series of adjectives ('rolling,' 'level,' 'steady') and a prepositional phrase ('underneath him') before the noun 'air.' This inversion delays the grammatical resolution of the sentence, replicating the hovering, suspended motion of the falcon in flight and conveying the speaker's intense sensory engagement with the atmosphere.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the normal word order of the phrase in lines 2–3.
In standard English prose syntax, the adjectives and prepositional phrase would follow the noun (e.g., 'the steady air that is rolling and level underneath him').
Establishing the baseline grammar is necessary to understand how the poet departs from it.
2
Identify the structural effect of placing the modifiers before the noun.
By stringing 'rolling,' 'level,' 'underneath him,' and 'steady' before 'air,' the reader experiences a delay before the noun resolving the phrase is reached.
This delay creates a suspended state in the reading experience, matching the theme of the bird's flight.
3
Connect this syntactical effect to the poem's thematic focus.
The hovering falcon ('minion,' 'dauphin') is suspended in the air. The delayed syntax mimics this hovering physical state, drawing the reader into the speaker's dynamic perception of the bird's motion.
Syntactical analysis in AP Lit must connect form to meaning and tone.

Key Concept

Syntactical inversion and its function in delaying grammatical resolution to mirror physical action and thematic suspension.
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Topics

Poetic Diction and Syntax

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