Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and
JesuitThe Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets. His experimental explorations in
prosodyIn poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
(especially
sprung rhythmSprung rhythm is a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. It is constructed from feet in which the first syllable is stressed and may be followed by a variable number of unstressed syllables...
) and his use of imagery established him as a daring innovator in a period of largely traditional verse.
Early life and family
Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in
StratfordStratford is a place in the London Borough of Newham, England. It is located east northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically an agrarian settlement in the ancient parish of West Ham, which transformed into an industrial suburb...
, East of London,
[Gardner, W. H. (1963) Gerard Manly Hopkins: Poems and Prose Penguin pxvi] as the first of nine children to Manley and Catherine (Smith) Hopkins. His father founded a marine insurance firm and, at one time, was the British consul general in Hawaii. He was also, for a time, the church warden at
St John-at-HampsteadSt John-at-Hampstead is a Church of England church dedicated to St John the Evangelist in Church Row, Hampstead, London.-History:...
and a published writer whose works included
A Philosopher's Stone and Other Poems (1843),
Pietas Metrica (1849), and
Spicelegium Poeticum, A Gathering of Verses by Manley Hopkins (1892). He reviewed poetry for
The TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and wrote one novel. Catherine (Smith) Hopkins was the daughter of a London physician, particularly fond of music and of reading, especially German philosophy, literature and the novels of Dickens. Both parents were deeply religious High Church Anglicans. Catherine's sister, Maria Smith Giberne, taught her nephew Gerard to sketch. The interest was supported by his uncle, Edward Smith, his great-uncle, the professional artist
Richard James LaneRichard James Lane was a prolific English Victorian engraver and lithographer. The National Portrait Gallery has some 850 lithographs of his portraits and figure studies, done between 1825 and 1850. The images include portraits of royalty, society notables and theatre personalities.-Life:The elder...
and many other family members.
Hopkins' first ambitions were to be a painter, and he would continue to sketch throughout his life, inspired, as an adult, by the work of
John RuskinJohn Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
and the Pre-Raphaelites.
Hopkins became a skilled draughtsman and found that his early training in visual art supported his later work as a poet.
His siblings were greatly inspired by language, religion and the creative arts. Milicent (1849–1946) joined an Anglican sisterhood in 1878. Kate (1856–1933) would go on to help Hopkins publish the first edition of his poetry. Hopkins' youngest sister Grace (1857–1945) set many of his poems to music. Lionel (1854–1952) became a world-famous expert on archaic and colloquial Chinese. Arthur (1847–1930) and Everard (1860–1928) were both highly successful artists. Cyril (1846–1932) would join his father's insurance firm.
.
Manley Hopkins moved his family to Hampstead in 1852, near to where
John KeatsJohn Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
had lived thirty years before and close to the wide green spaces of
Hampstead HeathHampstead Heath is a large, ancient London park, covering . This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band of London clay...
. At ten years old Gerard Manley Hopkins was sent to board at
Highgate School-Notable members of staff and governing body:* John Ireton, brother of Henry Ireton, Cromwellian General* 1st Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, owner of Kenwood, noted for judgment finding contracts for slavery unenforceable in English law* T. S...
(1854–1863)
and, while studying Keats' poetry, composed "The Escorial" (1860), his earliest poem extant. Here he practised early attempts at asceticism. He once argued that most people drank more liquids than they really needed and bet that he could go without drinking for a week. He persisted until his tongue was black and he collapsed at drill. On another occasion, he abstained from salt for a week.
Oxford and the priesthood
At
Balliol College, OxfordBalliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....
(1863–67) he studied classics.
[Gardner, W. H. (1963) Gerard Manly Hopkins: Poems and Prose Penguin pxvii] Hopkins was an unusually sensitive student and poet, as witnessed by his class-notes and early poetic pieces. It was at Oxford that he forged a lifelong friendship with
Robert BridgesRobert Seymour Bridges, OM, was a British poet, and poet laureate from 1913 to 1930.-Personal and professional life:...
(eventual Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom) which would be of importance in his development as a poet, and his posthumous acclaim.
Hopkins was deeply impressed with the work of
Christina RossettiChristina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems...
and she became one of his greatest contemporary influences, meeting him in 1864.
During this time he studied with the prestigious writer and critic
Walter PaterWalter Horatio Pater was an English essayist, critic of art and literature, and writer of fiction.-Early life:...
, who tutored him in 1866 and who remained a friend till September 1879 when Hopkins left Oxford. Hopkins began his time in Oxford as a keen socialite and prolific poet, but he seemed to have alarmed himself with the changes in his behaviour that resulted, and he became more studious and began recording his "sins" in his diary. As an undergraduate he engaged in friendships that may be viewed as romantic, though they tended to be idealised and spiritualised. In particular, he found it hard to accept his sexual attraction to other men, including a deep infatuation for
Digby Mackworth DolbenDigby Augustus Stewart Mackworth Dolben was an English poet who died young from drowning. He owes his poetic reputation to his cousin, Robert Bridges, poet laureate from 1913 to 1930, who edited a partial edition of his verse, Poems, in 1911.He was born in Guernsey, and brought up at Finedon Hall...
. There is nothing to suggest, however, any physical consummation and indeed he seems to have remained celibate throughout his life. He exercised a strict self-control in regard to his homosexual desire, especially after he became a follower of
Henry Parry LiddonHenry Parry Liddon was an English theologian.- Biography :The son of a naval captain, he was born at North Stoneham, near Eastleigh, Hampshire. He was educated at King's College School, and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated, taking a second class, in 1850...
and of Edward Pusey, the last member of the original
Oxford MovementThe Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy...
.
[Gardner, W. H. (1963) Gerard Manly Hopkins: Poems and Prose Penguin pxviii] It was during this time of intense scrupulosity that Hopkins seems to have especially begun confronting his strong homoerotic impulses and began to consider choosing the cloister.
On 18 January 1866 Hopkins composed his most ascetic poem,
The Habit of Perfection. On 23 January he included poetry in the list of things to be given up for Lent. In July he decided to become a Catholic, and he traveled to Birmingham in September to consult the leader of the Oxford converts, John Henry Newman.
Newman received him into the Church on 21 October 1866. On 5 May 1868 Hopkins firmly "resolved to be a religious." Less than a week later, he made a bonfire of his poems and gave up poetry almost entirely for seven years. The decision to convert estranged him from both his family and a number of his acquaintances. After his graduation in 1867 Hopkins was provided a teaching post at the Oratory in Birmingham by Newman. While there he was inspired to begin teaching himself the violin. He also felt the call to enter the ministry and decided to become a Jesuit, pausing only to visit
SwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, which officially forbade Jesuits to enter.
Hopkins began his novitiate in the
Society of JesusThe Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
at Manresa House,
RoehamptonRoehampton is a district in south-west London, forming the western end of the London Borough of Wandsworth. It lies between the town of Barnes to the north, Putney to the east and Wimbledon Common to the south. The Richmond Park golf courses are west of the neighbourhood, and just south of these is...
, in September 1868 and moved to St. Mary's Hall,
StonyhurstStonyhurst is the name of a rural estate owned by the Society of Jesus near Clitheroe in Lancashire, England. It is dominated by Stonyhurst College, its preparatory school Stonyhurst Saint Mary's Hall and the parish Church of St Peter's.-The Estate:...
, for his philosophical studies in 1870, taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience on 8 September 1870.
Writing would remain something of a concern for him as he felt that his interest in poetry prevented him from wholly devoting himself to his religion. However, after reading
Duns ScotusBlessed John Duns Scotus, O.F.M. was one of the more important theologians and philosophers of the High Middle Ages. He was nicknamed Doctor Subtilis for his penetrating and subtle manner of thought....
in 1872, he saw that the two did not necessarily conflict. He continued to write a detailed prose journal between 1868 and 1875. Unable to suppress his desire to describe the natural world, he also wrote music, sketched, and for church occasions he wrote some "verses," as he called them. He would later write sermons and other religious pieces.
In 1874 he returned to Manresa House to teach classics. While he was studying in the Jesuit house of theological studies,
St Beuno'sSt Beuno's Ignatian Spirituality Centre, known locally as St Beuno's College is a grade II* listed building and Jesuit college in Tremeirchion, Denbighshire, Wales. It was the home of the Victorian poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins.- Origins :...
, near
St AsaphSt Asaph is a town and community on the River Elwy in Denbighshire, Wales. In the 2001 Census it had a population of 3,491.The town of St Asaph is surrounded by countryside and views of the Vale of Clwyd. It is situated close to a number of busy coastal towns such as Rhyl, Prestatyn, Abergele,...
in
North WalesNorth Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
, he was asked by his religious superior to write a poem to commemorate the foundering of a German ship in a storm. So in 1875 he was moved to take up poetry once more and write a lengthy poem,
The Wreck of the DeutschlandThe Wreck of the Deutschland is a long poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins with Christian themes, composed in 1875 and 1876, though not published until 1918. The poem depicts the shipwreck of the SS Deutschland...
. This work was inspired by the
DeutschlandDeutschland was an iron passenger steamship of the Norddeutscher Lloyd line, built by Caird & Company of Greenock, Scotland in 1866.-History:...
incident, a maritime disaster in which 157 people died including five
FranciscanMost Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
nuns who had been leaving Germany due to harsh anti-Catholic laws (see
KulturkampfThe German term refers to German policies in relation to secularity and the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, enacted from 1871 to 1878 by the Prime Minister of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck. The Kulturkampf did not extend to the other German states such as Bavaria...
). The work displays both the religious concerns and some of the unusual
meterIn poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
and rhythms of his subsequent poetry not present in his few remaining early works. It not only depicts the dramatic events and heroic deeds but also tells of the poet's reconciling the terrible events with God's higher purpose. The poem was accepted but not printed by a Jesuit publication, and this rejection fuelled his ambivalence about his poetry. Most of his poetry remained unpublished until after his death.
Hopkins chose the austere and restrictive life of a Jesuit and was at times gloomy. The brilliant student who had left Oxford with a first class honours degree failed his final theology exam. This failure almost certainly meant that, though ordained in 1877, Hopkins would not progress in the order. In 1877 he wrote
God’s Grandeur, an array of sonnets including
The Starlight Night and finished
The Windhover"The Windhover" is a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins . It was written on May 30, 1877, but not published until 1918, when it was included as part of the collection Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins dedicated the poem "to Christ our Lord"."Windhover" is another name for the Common Kestrel ...
only a few months before his ordination. Though rigorous, isolated and sometimes unpleasant, his life during Jesuit training had at least some stability; the uncertain and varied work after ordination was even harder on his sensibilities. In October 1877, not long after he completed “The Sea and the Skylark” and only a month after he had been ordained as a priest, Hopkins took up his duties as subminister and teacher at Mount St. Mary’s College, Chesterfield. In July 1878 he became curate at the Jesuit church in Mount Street, London. In December he became curate at St. Aloysius’s Church, Oxford, then moving to Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. Whilst ministering in Oxford he became a founding member of
Oxford University Newman SocietyFor Newman Centers around North America see Newman Centre.The Oxford University Newman Society is Oxford University's oldest Roman Catholic organisation, named as a tribute to Cardinal Newman, who advanced the cause of Catholicism at Oxford both as an Anglican striving to recover Anglicanism's...
, a society established in 1878 for the Catholic members of Oxford University. He taught Greek and Latin at
Mount St Mary's CollegeMount St Mary's College is an independent coeducational boarding school situated at Spinkhill, Derbyshire, near Sheffield, England. It was founded in 1842 by Fr Randal Lythgoe, the Provincial Superior of the Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic religious order commonly known as the Jesuits. The...
, Sheffield, and
Stonyhurst CollegeStonyhurst College is a Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition. It is located on the Stonyhurst Estate near the village of Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley area of Lancashire, England, and occupies a Grade I listed building...
, Lancashire.
In 1884 he became professor of Greek literature at
University College DublinUniversity College Dublin ) - formally known as University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin is the Republic of Ireland's largest, and Ireland's second largest, university, with over 1,300 faculty and 17,000 students...
. His English roots and his disagreement with the Irish politics of the time, as well as his own small stature (5'2"), unprepossessing nature and personal oddities meant that he was not a particularly effective teacher. This as well as his isolation in Ireland deepened his gloom and his poems of the time, such as
I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, reflected this. They came to be known as the "terrible sonnets," not because of their quality but because according to Hopkins's friend Canon Dixon, they reached the "terrible crystal," meaning that they crystallized the melancholy dejection which plagued the later part of Hopkins' life.
Final years
Several problems conspired to depress Hopkins's spirits and restrict his poetic inspiration during the last five years of his life.
[Gardner, W. H. (1963) Gerard Manly Hopkins: Poems and Prose Penguin pxxvii] His work load was extremely heavy. He disliked living in Dublin, away from England and friends. His general health deteriorated as his eyesight began to fail. He felt confined and dejected. As a devout Jesuit, he found himself in an artistic dilemma. To subdue any egotism which would violate the humility required by his religious position, he decided never to publish his poems. But Hopkins realized that any true poet requires an audience for criticism and encouragement. This conflict between his religious obligations and his poetic talent caused him to feel that he had failed them both.
After suffering ill health for several years and bouts of diarrhoea, Hopkins died of
typhoid feverTyphoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...
in 1889 and was buried in
Glasnevin CemeteryGlasnevin Cemetery , officially known as Prospect Cemetery, is the largest non-denominational cemetery in Ireland with an estimated 1.5 million burials...
, following his funeral in
Saint Francis Xavier ChurchSaint Francis Xavier Church, popularly known as Gardiner Street Church, is a Roman Catholic Church on Upper Gardiner Street, near Mountjoy Square. The church is run by the Jesuits.-History:...
on
Gardiner StreetGardiner Street is in Dublin, Ireland and stretches from the River Liffey at its southern end via Mountjoy Square to Dorset Street at its northern end...
, located in Georgian
Dublin. He is thought to have suffered throughout his life from what today might be diagnosed as either
bipolar disorderBipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...
or chronic unipolar depression, and battled a deep sense of melancholic anguish. However, on his death bed his last words were "I am so happy, I am so happy. I loved my life"
Sprung rhythm
Much of Hopkins's historical importance has to do with the changes he brought to the form of poetry, which ran contrary to conventional ideas of metre. Prior to Hopkins, most
Middle EnglishMiddle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
and
Modern EnglishModern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
poetry was based on a rhythmic structure inherited from the Norman side of English literary heritage. This structure is based on repeating groups of two or three syllables, with the stressed syllable falling in the same place on each repetition. Hopkins called this structure "running rhythm", and though he wrote some of his early verse in running rhythm he became fascinated with the older rhythmic structure of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, of which
BeowulfBeowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
is the most famous example. Hopkins called his own rhythmic structure
sprung rhythmSprung rhythm is a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. It is constructed from feet in which the first syllable is stressed and may be followed by a variable number of unstressed syllables...
. Sprung rhythm is structured around feet with a variable number of syllables, generally between one and four syllables per foot, with the stress always falling on the first syllable in a foot. It is similar to the "rolling stresses" of
Robinson JeffersJohn Robinson Jeffers was an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. Most of Jeffers' poetry was written in classic narrative and epic form, but today he is also known for his short verse, and considered an icon of the environmental movement.-Life:Jeffers was born in...
, another poet who rejected conventional metre. Hopkins saw sprung rhythm as a way to escape the constraints of running rhythm, which he said inevitably pushed poetry written in it to become "same and tame." In this way, Hopkins can be seen as anticipating much of
free verseFree verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free Verse displays some elements of form...
. His work has no great affinity with either of the contemporary Pre-Raphaelite and
neo-romanticismThe term neo-romanticism is used to cover a variety of movements in music, painting and architecture. It has been used with reference to very late 19th century and early 20th century composers such as Gustav Mahler particularly by Carl Dahlhaus who uses it as synonymous with late Romanticism...
schools, although he does share their descriptive love of nature and he is often seen as a precursor to
modernist poetryModernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1950 in the tradition of modernist literature in the English language, but the dates of the term depend upon a number of factors, including the nation of origin, the particular school in question, and the biases of the critic setting the...
or as a bridge between the two poetic eras.
Use of language
The language of Hopkins’s poems is often striking. His imagery can be simple, as in
Heaven-Haven, where the comparison is between a nun entering a convent and a ship entering a harbour out of a storm. It can be splendidly metaphysical and intricate, as it is in
As Kingfishers Catch Fire, where he leaps from one image to another to show how each thing expresses its own uniqueness, and how divinity reflects itself through all of them.
He uses many archaic and dialect words, but also coins new words. One example of this is
twindles, which seems from its context in
Inversnaid to mean a combination of
twines and
dwindles. He often creates compound adjectives, sometimes with a hyphen (such as
dapple-dawn-drawn falcon) but often without, as in
rolling level underneath him steady air. This concentrates his images, communicating the instress of the poet’s perceptions of an inscape to his reader.
Hopkins took time to learn Old English, which became a major influence on his writing. Hopkins held the language in such high regard that in an 1882 letter to
Robert BridgesRobert Seymour Bridges, OM, was a British poet, and poet laureate from 1913 to 1930.-Personal and professional life:...
, Hopkins opines that Old English is "a vastly superior thing to what we have now".
Added richness comes from Hopkins’s extensive use of
alliterationIn language, alliteration refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of Three or more words or phrases. Alliteration has historically developed largely through poetry, in which it more narrowly refers to the repetition of a consonant in any syllables that, according to...
,
assonanceAssonance is the repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences, and together with alliteration and consonance serves as one of the building blocks of verse. For example, in the phrase "Do you like blue?", the is repeated within the sentence and is...
,
onomatopoeia and
rhymeA rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...
, both at the end of lines and internally as in:
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;
Hopkins was influenced by the
Welsh languageWelsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
that he acquired while studying theology at
St Beuno's CollegeSt Beuno's Ignatian Spirituality Centre, known locally as St Beuno's College is a grade II* listed building and Jesuit college in Tremeirchion, Denbighshire, Wales. It was the home of the Victorian poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins.- Origins :...
near
St AsaphSt Asaph is a town and community on the River Elwy in Denbighshire, Wales. In the 2001 Census it had a population of 3,491.The town of St Asaph is surrounded by countryside and views of the Vale of Clwyd. It is situated close to a number of busy coastal towns such as Rhyl, Prestatyn, Abergele,...
. The poetic forms of
Welsh literatureAfter literature written in the classical languages literature in the Welsh language is the oldest surviving literature in Europe. The Welsh literary tradition stretches from the 6th century to the twenty-first. Its fortunes have fluctuated over the centuries, in line with those of the Welsh...
and particularly
cynghaneddIn Welsh language poetry, Cynghanedd is the basic concept of sound-arrangement within one line, using stress, alliteration and rhyme. The various forms of cynghanedd show up in the definitions of all formal Welsh verse forms, such as the awdl. Though of ancient origin, cynghanedd and variations of...
with its emphasis on repeating sounds accorded with his own style and became a prominent feature of his work. This reliance on similar sounding words with close or differing senses mean that his poems are best understood if read aloud. An important element in his work is Hopkins's own concept of "
inscapeInscape is a concept derived by Gerard Manley Hopkins from the ideas of the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus.[Hopkins] felt that everything in the universe was characterized by what he called inscape, the distinctive design that constitutes individual identity. This identity is not static but...
" which was derived, in part, from the medieval theologian
Duns ScotusBlessed John Duns Scotus, O.F.M. was one of the more important theologians and philosophers of the High Middle Ages. He was nicknamed Doctor Subtilis for his penetrating and subtle manner of thought....
. The exact detail of "inscape" is uncertain and probably known to Hopkins alone but it has to do with the individual essence and uniqueness of every physical thing. This is communicated from an object by its "instress" and ensures the transmission of the item's importance in the wider creation. His poems would then try to present this "inscape" so that a poem like
The Windhover"The Windhover" is a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins . It was written on May 30, 1877, but not published until 1918, when it was included as part of the collection Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins dedicated the poem "to Christ our Lord"."Windhover" is another name for the Common Kestrel ...
aims to depict not the bird in general but instead one instance and its relation to the breeze. This is just one interpretation of Hopkins's most famous poem, one which he felt was his best.
During his lifetime, Hopkins published few poems. It was only through the efforts of Robert Bridges that his works were seen. Despite Hopkins burning all his poems on entering the Jesuit novitiate, he had already sent some to Bridges who, with a few other friends, was one of the few people to see many of them for some years. After Hopkins's death they were distributed to a wider audience, mostly fellow poets, and in 1918 Bridges, by then
poet laureateA poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
, published a collected edition; an expanded edition, prepared by
Charles WilliamsCharles Walter Stansby Williams was a British poet, novelist, theologian, literary critic, and member of the Inklings.- Biography :...
, appeared in 1930, and a greatly expanded edition by W. H. Gardiner appeared in 1948 (eventually reaching a fourth edition, 1967, with N. H. Mackenzie).
Notable collections of Hopkins's manuscripts and publications are in
Campion Hall, OxfordCampion Hall is one of the Permanent Private Halls of the University of Oxford in England. It is one of the smallest constituent institutions of the university, consisting of under forty members....
; the
Bodleian LibraryThe Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
,
OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
; and the Foley Library at
Gonzaga UniversityGonzaga University is a private Roman Catholic university located in Spokane, Washington, United States. Founded in 1887 by the Society of Jesus, it is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and is named after the young Jesuit saint, Aloysius Gonzaga...
in
Spokane, WashingtonSpokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...
.
Erotic influences
Some contemporary critics believe that Hopkins's suppressed erotic impulses played an important role in the tone, quality and even content of his works. These impulses seem to have taken on a degree of specificity after he met
Robert BridgesRobert Seymour Bridges, OM, was a British poet, and poet laureate from 1913 to 1930.-Personal and professional life:...
's distant cousin, friend, and fellow Etonian
Digby Mackworth DolbenDigby Augustus Stewart Mackworth Dolben was an English poet who died young from drowning. He owes his poetic reputation to his cousin, Robert Bridges, poet laureate from 1913 to 1930, who edited a partial edition of his verse, Poems, in 1911.He was born in Guernsey, and brought up at Finedon Hall...
, "a Christian
Uranianframe|right|From [[John Addington Symonds]]' 1891 book A Problem in Modern Ethics.Uranian is a 19th century term that referred to a person of a third sex — originally, someone with "a female psyche in a male body" who is sexually attracted to men, and later extended to cover homosexual gender...
". The Hopkins biographer Robert Bernard Martin asserts that when Hopkins first met Dolben, on Dolben's 17th birthday, in Oxford in February 1865, it "was, quite simply, the most momentous emotional event of [his] undergraduate years, probably of his entire life".
Hopkins was completely taken with Dolben, who was nearly four years his junior, and his private journal for confessions the following year proves how absorbed he was in imperfectly suppressed erotic thoughts of him
Hopkins kept up a correspondence with Dolben, wrote about him in his diary and composed two poems about him, "Where art thou friend" and "The Beginning of the End." Robert Bridges, who edited the first edition of Dolben's poems as well as Hopkins's, cautioned that the second poem "must never be printed," though Bridges himself included it in the first edition (1918). Another indication of the nature of his feelings for Dolben is that Hopkins's High Anglican confessor seems to have forbidden him to have any contact with Dolben except by letter. Their relationship was abruptly ended by Dolben's drowning in June 1867, an event which greatly affected Hopkins, although his feeling for Dolben seems to have cooled a good deal by that time. "Ironically, fate may have bestowed more through Dolben’s death than it could ever have bestowed through longer life ... [for] many of Hopkins’s best poems — impregnated with an elegiac longing for Dolben, his lost belovèd and his muse — were the result."
Some of his poems, such as
The Bugler's First Communion and
Epithalamion, arguably embody homoerotic themes, although this second poem was arranged by Robert Bridges from extant fragments. One contemporary literary critic, M.M. Kaylor, has argued for Hopkins' inclusion with the
Uranian poetsThe Uranians were a small and somewhat clandestine group of male pederastic poets who published works between 1858 and 1930...
, a group whose writings derived, in many ways, from the prose works of
Walter PaterWalter Horatio Pater was an English essayist, critic of art and literature, and writer of fiction.-Early life:...
, Hopkins's academic coach for his Greats exams, and later his lifelong friend.
Some critics have argued that homoerotic readings are either highly tendentious, or, that they can be classified under the broader category of "homosociality," over the gender, sexual-specific "homosexual" term. Hopkins’s journal writings, they argue, offer a clear admiration for feminized beauty. In his book
Hopkins Reconstructed (2000) Justus George Lawler critiques Robert Martin’s controversial biography
Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Very Private Life (1991) by suggesting that Martin "cannot see the heterosexual beam... for the homosexual biographical mote in his own eye... it amounts to a slanted
eisegesisEisegesis is the process of misinterpreting a text in such a way that it introduces one's own ideas, reading into the text. This is best understood when contrasted with exegesis. While exegesis draws out the meaning from the text, eisegesis occurs when a reader reads his/her interpretation into...
". The poems that elicit homoerotic readings can be read not merely as exercises in sublimation but as powerful renditions of religious conviction, a conviction that caused strain in his family and even led him to burn some of his poems that he felt were unnecessarily self-centered. Julia Saville’s book
A Queer Chivalry views the religious imagery in the poems as Hopkins’s way of expressing the tension with homosexual identity and desire. The male figure of Christ allows him to safely express such feelings, which mitigates the political implications.
Cultural Influences
One example of Hopkins' influence can be heard in the song "Bright Wings" by the industrial-metal-hyper-soul band
MortalMortal was a Christian industrial/dance band fronted by Jerome Fontamillas and Jyro Xhan. Both members went on to found the alternative rock group Fold Zandura, and for a time were members of both bands simultaneously...
on their 1993 CD release
FathomFathom is the second album by Christian dance rock band Mortal, and is generally considered the band's best album. The band produced the album along with Terry Scott Taylor of Daniel Amos. It peaked at No...
. The song is an abbreviated version of Hopkins' poem "God's Grandeur".
Selected poems
Audio
- Richard Austin reads Hopkins' poetry in Back to Beauty's Giver.
See also
- Caudate sonnet
A caudate sonnet is an expanded version of the sonnet. It consists of 14 lines in standard sonnet forms followed by a coda .The invention of the form is credited to Francesco Berni...
- Curtal sonnet
The curtal sonnet is a form invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and used in three of his poems.It is an eleven-line sonnet, but rather than the first eleven lines of a standard sonnet it consists of precisely ¾ of the structure of a Petrarchan sonnet shrunk proportionally...
(invented by G. M. Hopkins)
- Sprung rhythm
Sprung rhythm is a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. It is constructed from feet in which the first syllable is stressed and may be followed by a variable number of unstressed syllables...
- Inscape
Inscape is a concept derived by Gerard Manley Hopkins from the ideas of the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus.[Hopkins] felt that everything in the universe was characterized by what he called inscape, the distinctive design that constitutes individual identity. This identity is not static but...
- Inscape (visual art)
Inscape, in visual art, is a term especially associated with certain works of Chilean artist Roberto Matta, but it is also used in other senses within the visual arts. Though the term inscape has been applied to stylistically diverse artworks, it usually conveys some notion of representing the...
External links