GERALD MANLEY HOPKINS

BIOGRAPHY

Gerard Manley Hopkins,(bornJuly

28, 1844,Stratford, Essex, Eng.
diedJune 8, 1889,Dublin),English poet
andJesuitpriest, one of the most
individual of Victorian writers. His work
was not published in collected form
until 1918, but it influenced many
leading 20th-century poets.

Hopkins was the eldest of the nine children of Manley

Hopkins, an Anglican, who had been British consul general
in Hawaii and had himself published verse. Hopkins won
thepoetryprize at the Highgate grammar school and in
1863 was awarded a grant to study at Balliol College,
Oxford, where he continued writing poetry while studying
classics. In 1866, in the prevailing atmosphere of the
Oxford Movement, which renewed interest in the
relationships between Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism,
he was received into the Roman Catholic Church by John
Henry (later Cardinal) Newman. The following year, he left
Oxford with such a distinguished academic record that
Benjamin Jowett, then a Balliol lecturer and later master of
the college, called him the star of Balliol. Hopkins decided
to become a priest. He entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1868
and burned his youthful verses, determining to write no
more, as not belonging to my profession.

In 1874 Hopkins went to St. Beunos College in North Wales

to study theology. There he learned Welsh, and, under the
impact of the language itself as well as that of the poetry
and encouraged by his superior, he began to write poetry
again. Moved by the death of five Franciscan nuns in a
shipwreck in 1875, he broke his seven-year silence to write
the long poemThe Wreck of the Deutschland,in which he
succeeded in realizing the echo of a new rhythm that had
long been haunting his ear. It was rejected, however, by the
Jesuit magazineThe Month.He also wrote a series of
sonnets strikingly original in their richness of language and
use of rhythm, including the remarkable The Windhover,
one of the most frequently analyzed poems in the language.
He continued to write poetry, but it was read only in
manuscript by his friends and fellow poets,Robert Bridges
(later poet laureate), Coventry Patmore, and the Rev.
Richard Watson Dixon. Their appreciation of the strangeness
of the poems (for the times) was imperfect, but they were,
nevertheless, encouraging.

Ordained to the priesthood in 1877, Hopkins served

as missioner, occasional preacher, and parish priest
in various Jesuit churches and institutions in London,
Oxford, Liverpool, and Glasgow and taught classics
atStonyhurst College, Lancashire. He was
appointed professor of Greekliteratureat University
College, Dublin, in 1884. But Hopkins was not happy
in Ireland; he found the environment uncongenial,
and he was overworked and in poor health. From
1885 he wrote another series of sonnets, beginning
withCarrion Comfort.They show a sense of
desolation produced partly by a sense of spiritual
aridity and partly by a feeling of artistic frustration.
These poems, known as the terrible sonnets,
reveal strong tensions between his delight in the
sensuous world and his urge to express it and his
equally powerful sense of religious vocation.

After suffering ill health for several

years and bouts ofdiarrhoea, Hopkins
died oftyphoid feverin 1889 and was
buried inGlasnevin Cemetery, following
his funeral in
Saint Francis Xavier Churchon
Gardiner Street, located in Georgian
Dublin.

STYLE OF WRITING

Hopkins wrote most frequently in the sonnet form. He

generally preferred the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, which
consists of an octave followed by a sestet, with a turn in
argument or change in tone occurring in the second part.
Hopkins typically uses the octave to present some account of
personal or sensory experience and then employs the sestet
for philosophical reflection. While Hopkins enjoyed the
structure the sonnet form imposes, with its fixed length and
rhyme scheme, he nevertheless constantly stretched and
tested its limitations. One of his major innovations was a new
metrical form, called sprung rhythm. In sprung rhythm, the
poet counts the number of accented syllables in the line, but
places no limit on the total number of syllables

. As opposed to syllabic meters (such as the

iambic), which count both stresses and syllables,
this form allows for greater freedom in the position
and proportion of stresses. Whereas English verse
has traditionally alternated stressed and
unstressed syllables with occasional variation,
Hopkins was free to place multiple stressed
syllables one after another (as in the line All
felled, felled, are all felled from Binsey Poplars),
or to run a large number of unstressed syllables
together (as in Finger of a tender of, O of a
feathery delicacy fromWreck of the Deutschland).
This gives Hopkins great control over the speed of
his lines and their dramatic effects.

Another unusual poetic resource

Hopkins favored is consonant
chiming, a technique he learned from
Welsh poetry. The technique involves
elaborate use of alliteration and
internal rhyme; in Hopkinss hands this
creates an unusual thickness and
resonance. This close linking of words
through sound and rhythm
complements Hopkinss themes of
finding pattern and design
everywhere.

SPRING
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS [1844-1899]

Relevant Background
Hopkins was a priest who wrote Nature Poetry.
He celebrated beauty in the natural world. He loved the freshness of spring.
In many of his poems, like Spring, he linked beauty in nature to prayer.
He thought that beauty in nature was a reminder of Gods love and
greatness.
He thought that beauty in nature was a reminder of the innocence and
purity of childhood.
He wrote this poem more than a hundred years ago.
Hopkins wrote in a beautiful style that was sometimes difficult. He liked to
express his feelings and views in new ways. He left out words such as like
in line three and changed the normal word order like in line eight.
He often used striking and dramatic comparisons like in line three.
Hopkins put a lot of sound effects into his poetry.
He wrote many of his poems in the sonnet form.
He enjoyed the unique shape, colours, beauty and inner energy of nature.

Spring by Gerald Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and
lush;
Thrushs eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?

A strain of the earths sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maids child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Spring is a sonnet. A sonnet is a rhyming fourteen-line poem. The

poem is divided into two clearly different parts. The first part, of eight
lines, is known as the octave. The second part, of six lines, is known as
the sestet.
Nothing is so beautiful as spring is the first line of the poem.
This line clearly summarises the meaning of the first eight lines or
octave of the poem Spring. A lot of this part of the poem, the octave,
is easier to understand than the sestet. In the octave, Hopkins mentions
many of the details of spring that impress him. He gives a series of
images one after the other that are typical of the season of spring.
In the second line he pictures fresh weeds growing through a wheel in a
yard.
In the third line he praises the speckled colours on a thrushes egg.
In the fourth and fifth lines he shows his delight at the wonderful sound
of the thrushes song in the woods and compares its effect to lightning.
In the sixth line he portrays the shiny leaves and blossoms of the peartree.
In the seventh line he describes the fast moving and richly coloured
blue sky.
In the eighth line he shows his delight at the playful lambs.

In the sestet, the last six lines, Hopkins looks for the real meaning that lies
behind the happiness and energy of nature in springtime. Therefore the
sestet develops the thought of the poem. It looks for the meaning behind
the beauty. Hopkins finds that natures beauty reflects Gods perfect beauty.
He then expresses a wish to shelter the beauty and innocence of childhood
from sin.
In line nine Hopkins asks the following basic question:
What is all this juice and all this joy?
In line ten, Hopkins quickly answers that it all goes back to the Garden of
Eden from the bible. As a priest he believes in the stories of the bible.
Spring is like an echo or a reminder of Paradise.
In line eleven he begins a prayer. He prays God will preserve beauty before
it loses its wholesomeness or purity.
In line twelve he appeals to Christ and asks him to protect beauty from sin.
In line thirteen he identifies the aspect of beauty he most wishes to see
preserved. He is referring to childhood innocence. He obviously sees this as
the springtime or Mayday of human life.
In line fourteen he appeals to Jesus as the child of Mary to win innocent
children to his side and save them from sin.
This is unusual because normally people who pray to Jesus want to be
cleansed of sin after it happens. Jesus is normally the saviour of sinners.
Hopkins wants Jesus to save the innocent.
Overall it seems Hopkins changes the subject of the octave, nature, and
introduces a new subject, religion, in the sestet.

THEMES

Hopkins praises the beauty of nature in springtime:

Nothing is so beautiful as spring. He calls it all this juice and
all this joy.
Hopkins celebrates energy in the natural world:
weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush. Note how
thewandlsounds are musical and add to the feeling of
energy.
Hopkins celebrates colour in the natural world:
that blue is all in a rush with richness. Note how the
repeatedrsound deepens the meaning.
Hopkins regards natures beauty as a memory of Paradise:
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning in Eden
garden
Hopkins feels despair at the way maturity spoils childhood
innocence:
sour with sinning. He worries for the future of innocent
minds. He tells Jesus to preserve childrens perfect innocence.