Difference between revisions of "Gerard Manley Hopkins" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
Line 1: Line 1:
{{Paid}}{{Approved}}{{Images OK}}{{submitted}}{{Contracted}}
+
{{Copyedited}}{{Paid}}{{Approved}}{{Images OK}}{{Submitted}}{{Contracted}}
  
 
[[Image:GerardManleyHopkins.jpg|right|250px]]
 
[[Image:GerardManleyHopkins.jpg|right|250px]]
  
  
'''Gerard Manley Hopkins''' (July 28, 1844 - June 8, 1889) was a [[United Kingdom|British]] [[Victorian era|Victorian]] [[poet]] and [[Society of Jesus|Jesuit]] priest. Hopkins sought and struggled to unite his spiritual yearnings with his love of poetry, and the resulting verse is some of the most unique in the language. Hopkins struggled to reveal what he called the "inscape" of ordinary things—the hidden world within the world, what [[William Blake]] elsewhere would call "infinity in a grain of sand / and eternity in an hour" — and the resulting poems are charged with wild, almost incantatory power that are unlike anything else in [[England|English]] literature.
+
'''Gerard Manley Hopkins''' (July 28, 1844 June 8, 1889) was a [[United Kingdom|British]] [[Victorian era|Victorian]] [[poet]] and [[Society of Jesus|Jesuit]] priest. Hopkins sought and struggled to unite his spiritual yearnings with his love of poetry, and the resulting verse is some of the most unique in the language. Hopkins struggled to reveal what he called the "inscape" of ordinary things—the hidden world within the world, what [[William Blake]] elsewhere would call "infinity in a grain of sand / and eternity in an hour"—and the resulting poems are charged with wild, almost incantatory power that are unlike anything else in [[English literature]].
  
  
Line 10: Line 10:
 
==Life==
 
==Life==
  
Hopkins was born in Stratford, Essex. He was the eldest of nine children, the son of Catherine and Manley Hopkins, an insurance agent and consul-general for Hawaii based in London. He was educated at Highgate grammar school and then Balliol College, [[Oxford]], where he studied [[classics]]. It was at Oxford that he forged the friendship with Robert Bridges which would be of importance both to his development as a poet, and to his posthumous acclaim. He began his time at Oxford as a keen socialiser and prolific poet but something about his youthful behavior suddenly alarmed Hopkins, and he became devoutly studious and recorded his sins obsessively in his diary. In 1866, following the example of [[John Henry Newman]], he converted from [[Anglicanism]] to [[Roman Catholic]]ism. After his graduation in 1867 Newman found him a teaching post but the following year he decided to enter the priesthood, pausing only to visit [[Switzerland]].
+
Hopkins was born in Stratford, Essex. He was the eldest of nine children, the son of Catherine and Manley Hopkins, an insurance agent and consul-general for Hawaii based in London. He was educated at Highgate grammar school and then Balliol College, [[Oxford]], where he studied [[classics]]. It was at Oxford that he forged the friendship with Robert Bridges that would be of importance both to his development as a poet, and to his posthumous acclaim. He began his time at Oxford as a keen socializer and prolific poet but something about his youthful behavior suddenly alarmed Hopkins, and he became devoutly studious and recorded his sins obsessively in his diary. In 1866, following the example of [[John Henry Newman]], he converted from [[Anglicanism]] to [[Roman Catholic]]ism. After his graduation in 1867, Newman found him a teaching post but the following year he decided to enter the priesthood, pausing only to visit [[Switzerland]].  
  
Influenced by his father who also wrote poetry, Hopkins began his writing while still young, winning a prize for his poetry while at grammar school. His decision to become a Jesuit led him to burn much of his early poetry, which he felt was incompatible with his vocation. Writing would remain something of a painful concern for him as he felt that his interest in poetry prevented him from wholly devoting himself to his religion. He continued to write a detailed journal until 1874. Unable to suppress his desire to describe the natural world, he also continued to write occasional poems. He would later write sermons and other religious pieces. In 1875 he was moved, once more, to write a lengthy poem, ''The Wreck of the Deutschland''. This work was inspired by the [[Deutschland (1866)|Deutschland]], a naval disaster in which 157 people, including five [[Franciscan]] nuns who had been leaving Germany due to harsh anti-[[Catholic]] laws, died. The work displays both the religious concerns and some of the unusual [[meter (poetry)|meter]] and rhythms of his subsequent poetry not present in his few extant early works. It not only depicts 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. This rejection fueled his ambivalence about his poetry. The poem, though not as "sprung" (see below) as some of Hopkins late great works, is an excellent example of his budding style:
+
Influenced by his father who also wrote poetry, Hopkins began his writing while still young, winning a prize for his poetry while at grammar school. His decision to become a Jesuit led him to burn much of his early poetry, which he felt was incompatible with his vocation. Writing would remain something of a painful concern for him as he felt that his interest in poetry prevented him from wholly devoting himself to his religion. He continued to write a detailed journal until 1874. Unable to suppress his desire to describe the natural world, he also continued to write occasional poems. He would later write sermons and other religious pieces. In 1875, he was moved, once more, to write a lengthy poem, ''The Wreck of the Deutschland.'' This work was inspired by the [[Deutschland (1866)|Deutschland]], a naval disaster in which 157 people, including five [[Franciscan]] nuns who had been leaving [[Germany]] due to harsh anti-[[Catholic]] laws, died. The work displays both the religious concerns and some of the unusual [[meter (poetry)|meter]] and rhythms of his subsequent poetry not present in his few extant early works. It not only depicts 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. This rejection fueled his ambivalence about his poetry. The poem, though not as "sprung" (see below) as some of Hopkins late great works, is an excellent example of his budding style:
  
 
:THOU mastering me
 
:THOU mastering me
Line 18: Line 18:
 
:World’s strand, sway of the sea;
 
:World’s strand, sway of the sea;
 
:Lord of living and dead;
 
:Lord of living and dead;
:Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh,        
+
:Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh,
 
:And after it almost unmade, what with dread,
 
:And after it almost unmade, what with dread,
 
:Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?
 
:Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?
Line 24: Line 24:
 
   
 
   
 
:I did say yes
 
:I did say yes
:O at lightning and lashed rod;        
+
:O at lightning and lashed rod;
 
:Thou heardst me truer than tongue confess
 
:Thou heardst me truer than tongue confess
 
:Thy terror, O Christ, O God;
 
:Thy terror, O Christ, O God;
 
:Thou knowest the walls, altar and hour and night:
 
:Thou knowest the walls, altar and hour and night:
 
:The swoon of a heart that the sweep and the hurl of thee trod
 
:The swoon of a heart that the sweep and the hurl of thee trod
:Hard down with a horror of height:        
+
:Hard down with a horror of height:
 
:And the midriff astrain with leaning of, laced with fire of stress.
 
:And the midriff astrain with leaning of, laced with fire of stress.
 
   
 
   
Line 35: Line 35:
 
:Before me, the hurtle of hell
 
:Before me, the hurtle of hell
 
:Behind, where, where was a, where was a place?
 
:Behind, where, where was a, where was a place?
:I whirled out wings that spell      
+
:I whirled out wings that spell
 
:And fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host.
 
:And fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host.
 
:My heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell,
 
:My heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell,
Line 41: Line 41:
 
:To flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace to the grace.
 
:To flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace to the grace.
  
During Hopkins' austere and restrictive life as a Jesuit he was, at times, gloomy, even grim. The brilliant student who left Oxford with a first class honors degree failed his final theology exam. This failure meant that, although ordained, Hopkins, would not likely progress in the order. While he wasn't always happy in his studies he at least had stability there. The uncertain and varied work after ordination was much less to his liking. He served in various parishes in England and Scotland and taught at [[Mount St Mary's College]], Sheffield, and [[Stonyhurst College]], Lancashire. In 1884 he became professor of Greek literature at [[University College Dublin]]. His Englishness and his disagreement with the Irish politics of the time, as well as his own small stature (5'2"), unprepossessing nature and own 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'' and ''Carrion Comfort'', reflected his emotional state. He called them "terrible sonnets". These terrible sonnets are some of the most powerful dark poems ever written, and reflect the strong, superb sound of Hopkins' mature verse:
+
During Hopkins' austere and restrictive life as a Jesuit he was, at times, gloomy, even grim. The brilliant student who left Oxford with a first class honors degree failed his final theology exam. This failure meant that, although ordained, Hopkins, would not likely progress in the order. While he wasn't always happy in his studies he at least had stability there. The uncertain and varied work after ordination was much less to his liking. He served in various parishes in England and Scotland and taught at [[Mount St. Mary's College]], Sheffield, and [[Stonyhurst College]], Lancashire. In 1884 he became professor of Greek literature at [[University College Dublin]]. His Englishness and his disagreement with the Irish politics of the time, as well as his own small stature (5' 2"), unprepossessing nature, and own 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'' and ''Carrion Comfort,'' reflected his emotional state. He called them "terrible sonnets." These terrible sonnets are some of the most powerful dark poems ever written, and reflect the strong, superb sound of Hopkins' mature verse:
  
 
:I WAKE and feel the fell of dark, not day.
 
:I WAKE and feel the fell of dark, not day.
Line 47: Line 47:
 
:This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
 
:This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
 
:And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.
 
:And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.
:With witness I speak this. But where I say        
+
:With witness I speak this. But where I say
 
:Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
 
:Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
 
:Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
 
:Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
Line 53: Line 53:
 
   
 
   
 
:I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree
 
:I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree
:Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;        
+
:Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
 
:Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
 
:Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
 
:Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
 
:Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
Line 63: Line 63:
 
== Poetry==
 
== Poetry==
  
Much of Hopkins' historical importance has to do with the changes he brought to the form of poetry, which ran contrary to conventional ideas of [[meter (poetry)|meter]]. Prior to Hopkins, most [[Middle English]] and [[Modern English]] poetry was based on a rhythmic structure inherited from the Norman side of English's 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 ''[[Beowulf]]'' is the most famous example. Hopkins called this rhythmic structure "sprung rhythm". 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. 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." Like the [[Old English]] songs he imitated, Hopkins' "sprung rhythm" allowed him to write poems with a sense of urgency not possible in traditionl meter, and the result are poems' whose sound is explosive and, though written, seem to be booming out of the page when read, with every new word and rhyme bursting out to the reader as a surprise. The last line of ''God's Grandeur'' is, perhaps, one of the most memorable instances of this:
+
Much of Hopkins' historical importance has to do with the changes he brought to the form of poetry, which ran contrary to conventional ideas of [[meter (poetry)|meter]]. Prior to Hopkins, most [[Middle English]] and [[Modern English]] poetry was based on a rhythmic structure inherited from the Norman side of English's 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 ''[[Beowulf]]'' is the most famous example. Hopkins called this rhythmic structure "sprung rhythm." 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. 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." Like the [[Old English]] songs he imitated, Hopkins' "sprung rhythm" allowed him to write poems with a sense of urgency not possible in traditional meter, and the result are poems whose sound are explosive and, though written, seem to be booming out of the page when read, with every new word and rhyme bursting out to the reader as a surprise. The last line of ''God's Grandeur'' is, perhaps, one of the most memorable instances of this:
  
 
:THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
 
:THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
Line 69: Line 69:
 
:It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
 
:It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
 
:Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
 
:Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
:Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;        
+
:Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
 
:And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
 
:And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
 
:And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
 
:And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Line 75: Line 75:
 
   
 
   
 
:And for all this, nature is never spent;
 
:And for all this, nature is never spent;
:There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;        
+
:There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
 
:And though the last lights off the black West went
 
:And though the last lights off the black West went
 
:Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
 
:Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Line 81: Line 81:
 
:World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
 
:World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
  
Hopkins is notoriously difficult to classify. Due to his innovations toward meter, Hopkins can be seen as anticipating much of free verse, although unlike true free verser poets Hopkins retained a (loosened) adherence to rhyme and measure. His work has no great affinity with either the Pre-Raphaelite or Neo-Romanticism schools of his time, although he does share with them a descriptive love of nature. He is often seen as a precursor to [[Modernism|modernist poetry]] or as a bridge between the two poetic eras. He is unique in his own time or any other.
+
Hopkins is notoriously difficult to classify. Due to his innovations toward meter, Hopkins can be seen as anticipating much of free verse, although unlike true free verse poets, Hopkins retained a (loosened) adherence to rhyme and measure. His work has no great affinity with either the Pre-Raphaelite or Neo-Romanticism schools of his time, although he does share with them a descriptive love of nature. He is often seen as a precursor to [[Modernism|modernist poetry]] or as a bridge between the two poetic eras. He is unique in his own time or any other.
  
  
Another major influence on Hopkins' verse was the [[Welsh language]] he learned while studying theology at St. Beuno's College in [[Wales]]. The poetic forms of Welsh literature, particularly ''cynghanedd'' with its emphasis on repeating sounds, accorded with his own style and became a prominent feature of Hopkins' work. This reliance on similar sounding words with close or differing senses means that his poems are best understood when read aloud. An important element in Hopkins' work was his concept of "inscape," which was derived, in part, from the medieval theologian, [[Duns Scotus]]. 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. He attempted in his poems to present this "inscape," so that a poem like ''The Windhover'' aims to depict not the bird in general but instead one instance and its relation to the breeze. This is just one interpretation to probably Hopkins' most studied poem and one which he called his best:
+
Another major influence on Hopkins' verse was the [[Welsh language]] he learned while studying theology at St. Beuno's College in [[Wales]]. The poetic forms of Welsh literature, particularly ''cynghanedd'' with its emphasis on repeating sounds, accorded with his style and became a prominent feature of Hopkins' work. This reliance on similar sounding words with close or differing senses means that his poems are best understood when read aloud. An important element in Hopkins' work was his concept of "inscape," which was derived, in part, from the medieval theologian, [[Duns Scotus]]. 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. He attempted in his poems to present this "inscape," so that a poem like ''The Windhover'' aims to depict not the bird in general but instead one instance and its relation to the breeze. This is just one interpretation to probably Hopkins' most studied poem and one that he called his best:
  
 
:I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
 
:I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
:dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding  
+
:dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
 
:Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
 
:Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
 
:High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
 
:High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
:In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,        
+
:In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
 
:As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
 
:As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
 
:Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
 
:Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Line 96: Line 96:
 
   
 
   
 
:Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
 
:Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
:Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion        
+
:Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
 
:Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
 
:Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
 
   
 
   
Line 103: Line 103:
 
:Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
 
:Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
 
   
 
   
During his lifetime Hopkins published few poems. It was only through the efforts of Robert Bridges that his works were preserved and made public. Hopkins burned all his poems upon entering the priesthood, but he had already sent some to Bridges who, with a few other friends, were the only people to see many of them for some years. After Hopkins' death they were distributed to a wider audience, mostly fellow poets, and in 1918 Bridges, by then [[poet laureate]], published a collected edition.
+
During his lifetime Hopkins published few poems. It was only through the efforts of Robert Bridges that his works were preserved and made public. Hopkins burned all his poems upon entering the priesthood, but he had already sent some to Bridges who, with a few other friends, were the only people to see many of them for some years. After Hopkins' death they were distributed to a wider audience, mostly fellow poets, and in 1918, Bridges, by then [[poet laureate]], published a collected edition.
  
 
==Bibliography of Poems==
 
==Bibliography of Poems==
  
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/4.html The Wreck of the Deutschland]
+
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/4.html “The Wreck of the Deutschland”]
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/7.html God's Grandeur]
+
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/7.html “God's Grandeur”]
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/34.html As Kingfishers Catch Fire]
+
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/34.html “As Kingfishers Catch Fire”]
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/13.html Pied Beauty] (a [[curtal sonnet]])
+
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/13.html “Pied Beauty”] (a [[curtal sonnet]])
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/40.html Carrion Comfort]
+
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/40.html “Carrion Comfort”]
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/12.html The Windhover: To Christ our Lord]
+
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/12.html “The Windhover: To Christ our Lord”]
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/31.html Spring and Fall, To a Young Child]
+
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/31.html “Spring and Fall, To a Young Child”]
* [http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=3161&poem=28028 The Habit of Perfection]
+
* [http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=3161&poem=28028 “The Habit of Perfection”]
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/11.html The Sea and the Skylark]
+
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/11.html “The Sea and the Skylark”]
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/33.html Inversnaid]
+
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/33.html “Inversnaid”]
  
 
'''Audio'''
 
'''Audio'''
  
*Catholic singer-songwriter Sean O'Leary (b.1953) has produced a collection of contemporary settings of Hopkins' poems titled ''The Alchemist: Gerard Manley Hopkins Poems In Musical Adaptations'' [48 page booklet with accompanying double album - 2CD - 120 minutes], ISBN 0-9550649-0-2, 2005. The 22 poems include: The Wreck Of The Deutschland, God's Grandeur, Spring, The Windhover, Felix Randal, and the 'Terrible Sonnets'.
+
*Catholic singer-songwriter Sean O'Leary (b. 1953) has produced a collection of contemporary settings of Hopkins' poems titled ''The Alchemist: Gerard Manley Hopkins Poems In Musical Adaptations'' [48 page booklet with accompanying double album – 2 CDs – 120 minutes], ISBN 0-9550649-0-2, 2005. The 22 poems include: “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” “God's Grandeur,” “Spring,” “The Windhover,” “Felix Randal,and the “Terrible Sonnets.
  
*Richard Austin reads Hopkins' poetry in BACK TO BEAUTY'S GIVER [Audio book- CD], ISBN 0-9548188-0-6, 2003. 27 poems, including: The Wreck Of The Deutschland, God's Grandeur, The Windhover, Pied Beauty and Binsley Poplars, and the 'Terrible Sonnets'.
+
*Richard Austin reads Hopkins' poetry in ''BACK TO BEAUTY'S GIVER'' [Audio book CD], ISBN 0-9548188-0-6, 2003. 27 poems, including: “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” “God's Grandeur,” “The Windhover,” “Pied Beauty and Binsley Poplars,and the “Terrible Sonnets.
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
  
 
* [http://www.gerardmanleyhopkins.org/ Gerard Manley Hopkins Society]
 
* [http://www.gerardmanleyhopkins.org/ Gerard Manley Hopkins Society]
* [http://www.gerardmanleyhopkins.net/ Gerard Manley Hopkins Poems In Musical Adaptations]
+
* [http://www.gerardmanleyhopkins.net/ Gerard Manley Hopkins Poems in Musical Adaptations]
 
* [http://hopkinsquarterly.com/ The Hopkins Quarterly]
 
* [http://hopkinsquarterly.com/ The Hopkins Quarterly]
 
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/ Online texts of Hopkins Poems: First Edition (1918)]
 
* [http://www.bartleby.com/122/ Online texts of Hopkins Poems: First Edition (1918)]
 
* [http://www.dundee.ac.uk/english/wics/gmh/framconc.htm Web Concordance of Hopkins Poems]
 
* [http://www.dundee.ac.uk/english/wics/gmh/framconc.htm Web Concordance of Hopkins Poems]
 
* [http://www.richard.austin.sh/ Readings of Hopkins' Poetry]
 
* [http://www.richard.austin.sh/ Readings of Hopkins' Poetry]
* [http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hopkins/gmhov.html The Victorian Web - Gerard Manley Hopkins - An Overview]
+
* [http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hopkins/gmhov.html The Victorian Web Gerard Manley Hopkins An Overview]
* [http://www.gerardmanleyhopkins.net/demo/audio/06_56.mp3 That Nature Is A Heraclitean Fire - Excerpt - Musical adaptation by Sean O'Leary (MP3)]
+
* [http://www.gerardmanleyhopkins.net/demo/audio/06_56.mp3 That Nature Is A Heraclitean Fire Excerpt Musical adaptation by Sean O'Leary (MP3)]
* [http://www.gerardmanleyhopkins.net/demo/audio/05_56.mp3 The Wreck Of The Deutschland - Verse 1 - Musical adaptation by Sean O'Leary (MP3)]
+
* [http://www.gerardmanleyhopkins.net/demo/audio/05_56.mp3 The Wreck of the Deutschland Verse 1 Musical adaptation by Sean O'Leary (MP3)]
*[http://www.gerardmanleyhopkins.net/demo/ 8 Song Samples from Musical Adaptations of Hopkins' Poetry]
+
* [http://www.gerardmanleyhopkins.net/demo/ 8 Song Samples from Musical Adaptations of Hopkins' Poetry]
* [http://librivox.org/ LibriVox] - Free Audio Recording of
+
* [http://librivox.org/short-poetry-collection-001/ Free Audio Recording of “As Kingfishers Catch Fire”]  
* [http://librivox.org/short-poetry-collection-001/ As Kingfishers Catch Fire].
 
  
 
[[Category:Art, music, literature, sports and leisure]]
 
[[Category:Art, music, literature, sports and leisure]]
 
{{credit|44031120}}
 
{{credit|44031120}}

Revision as of 17:53, 2 May 2006


GerardManleyHopkins.jpg


Gerard Manley Hopkins (July 28, 1844 – June 8, 1889) was a British Victorian poet and Jesuit priest. Hopkins sought and struggled to unite his spiritual yearnings with his love of poetry, and the resulting verse is some of the most unique in the language. Hopkins struggled to reveal what he called the "inscape" of ordinary things—the hidden world within the world, what William Blake elsewhere would call "infinity in a grain of sand / and eternity in an hour"—and the resulting poems are charged with wild, almost incantatory power that are unlike anything else in English literature.


Life

Hopkins was born in Stratford, Essex. He was the eldest of nine children, the son of Catherine and Manley Hopkins, an insurance agent and consul-general for Hawaii based in London. He was educated at Highgate grammar school and then Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied classics. It was at Oxford that he forged the friendship with Robert Bridges that would be of importance both to his development as a poet, and to his posthumous acclaim. He began his time at Oxford as a keen socializer and prolific poet but something about his youthful behavior suddenly alarmed Hopkins, and he became devoutly studious and recorded his sins obsessively in his diary. In 1866, following the example of John Henry Newman, he converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. After his graduation in 1867, Newman found him a teaching post but the following year he decided to enter the priesthood, pausing only to visit Switzerland.

Influenced by his father who also wrote poetry, Hopkins began his writing while still young, winning a prize for his poetry while at grammar school. His decision to become a Jesuit led him to burn much of his early poetry, which he felt was incompatible with his vocation. Writing would remain something of a painful concern for him as he felt that his interest in poetry prevented him from wholly devoting himself to his religion. He continued to write a detailed journal until 1874. Unable to suppress his desire to describe the natural world, he also continued to write occasional poems. He would later write sermons and other religious pieces. In 1875, he was moved, once more, to write a lengthy poem, The Wreck of the Deutschland. This work was inspired by the Deutschland, a naval disaster in which 157 people, including five Franciscan nuns who had been leaving Germany due to harsh anti-Catholic laws, died. The work displays both the religious concerns and some of the unusual meter and rhythms of his subsequent poetry not present in his few extant early works. It not only depicts 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. This rejection fueled his ambivalence about his poetry. The poem, though not as "sprung" (see below) as some of Hopkins late great works, is an excellent example of his budding style:

THOU mastering me
God! giver of breath and bread;
World’s strand, sway of the sea;
Lord of living and dead;
Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh,
And after it almost unmade, what with dread,
Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?
Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.
I did say yes
O at lightning and lashed rod;
Thou heardst me truer than tongue confess
Thy terror, O Christ, O God;
Thou knowest the walls, altar and hour and night:
The swoon of a heart that the sweep and the hurl of thee trod
Hard down with a horror of height:
And the midriff astrain with leaning of, laced with fire of stress.
The frown of his face
Before me, the hurtle of hell
Behind, where, where was a, where was a place?
I whirled out wings that spell
And fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host.
My heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell,
Carrier-witted, I am bold to boast,
To flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace to the grace.

During Hopkins' austere and restrictive life as a Jesuit he was, at times, gloomy, even grim. The brilliant student who left Oxford with a first class honors degree failed his final theology exam. This failure meant that, although ordained, Hopkins, would not likely progress in the order. While he wasn't always happy in his studies he at least had stability there. The uncertain and varied work after ordination was much less to his liking. He served in various parishes in England and Scotland and taught at Mount St. Mary's College, Sheffield, and Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. In 1884 he became professor of Greek literature at University College Dublin. His Englishness and his disagreement with the Irish politics of the time, as well as his own small stature (5' 2"), unprepossessing nature, and own 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 and Carrion Comfort, reflected his emotional state. He called them "terrible sonnets." These terrible sonnets are some of the most powerful dark poems ever written, and reflect the strong, superb sound of Hopkins' mature verse:

I WAKE and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

Hopkins health turned considerably for the worse while teaching in Dublin. Although he attempted to write, he only managed to produce fragments. For several years he convalesced, suffering from typhoid fever. He died in 1889 and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.

Poetry

Much of Hopkins' historical importance has to do with the changes he brought to the form of poetry, which ran contrary to conventional ideas of meter. Prior to Hopkins, most Middle English and Modern English poetry was based on a rhythmic structure inherited from the Norman side of English's 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 Beowulf is the most famous example. Hopkins called this rhythmic structure "sprung rhythm." 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. 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." Like the Old English songs he imitated, Hopkins' "sprung rhythm" allowed him to write poems with a sense of urgency not possible in traditional meter, and the result are poems whose sound are explosive and, though written, seem to be booming out of the page when read, with every new word and rhyme bursting out to the reader as a surprise. The last line of God's Grandeur is, perhaps, one of the most memorable instances of this:

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Hopkins is notoriously difficult to classify. Due to his innovations toward meter, Hopkins can be seen as anticipating much of free verse, although unlike true free verse poets, Hopkins retained a (loosened) adherence to rhyme and measure. His work has no great affinity with either the Pre-Raphaelite or Neo-Romanticism schools of his time, although he does share with them a descriptive love of nature. He is often seen as a precursor to modernist poetry or as a bridge between the two poetic eras. He is unique in his own time or any other.


Another major influence on Hopkins' verse was the Welsh language he learned while studying theology at St. Beuno's College in Wales. The poetic forms of Welsh literature, particularly cynghanedd with its emphasis on repeating sounds, accorded with his style and became a prominent feature of Hopkins' work. This reliance on similar sounding words with close or differing senses means that his poems are best understood when read aloud. An important element in Hopkins' work was his concept of "inscape," which was derived, in part, from the medieval theologian, Duns Scotus. 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. He attempted in his poems to present this "inscape," so that a poem like The Windhover aims to depict not the bird in general but instead one instance and its relation to the breeze. This is just one interpretation to probably Hopkins' most studied poem and one that he called his best:

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

During his lifetime Hopkins published few poems. It was only through the efforts of Robert Bridges that his works were preserved and made public. Hopkins burned all his poems upon entering the priesthood, but he had already sent some to Bridges who, with a few other friends, were the only people to see many of them for some years. After Hopkins' death they were distributed to a wider audience, mostly fellow poets, and in 1918, Bridges, by then poet laureate, published a collected edition.

Bibliography of Poems

Audio

  • Catholic singer-songwriter Sean O'Leary (b. 1953) has produced a collection of contemporary settings of Hopkins' poems titled The Alchemist: Gerard Manley Hopkins Poems In Musical Adaptations [48 page booklet with accompanying double album – 2 CDs – 120 minutes], ISBN 0-9550649-0-2, 2005. The 22 poems include: “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” “God's Grandeur,” “Spring,” “The Windhover,” “Felix Randal,” and the “Terrible Sonnets.”
  • Richard Austin reads Hopkins' poetry in BACK TO BEAUTY'S GIVER [Audio book – CD], ISBN 0-9548188-0-6, 2003. 27 poems, including: “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” “God's Grandeur,” “The Windhover,” “Pied Beauty and Binsley Poplars,” and the “Terrible Sonnets.”

External links

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.