"The Best ideal is the true/ And other truth is none./All glory be ascribèd to/The holy Three in One."

Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889), was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose 20th-century fame established him posthumously among the leading Victorian poets. His experimental explorations in prosody (especially sprung rhythm) and his use of imagery established him as a daring innovator in a period of largely traditional verse. Image File history File links GerardManleyHopkins. ... Image File history File links GerardManleyHopkins. ... is the 209th day of the year (210th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Jan. ... is the 159th day of the year (160th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1889 (MDCCCLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... Sappho and Alcaeus of Mytilene, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1881). ... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... Seal of the Society of Jesus. ... In poetry, the meter or metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse. ... Sprung rhythm is a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. ... Imagery is any of the five senses (sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste). ...

Life

Hopkins was born in Stratford, Essex, into a family that encouraged his artistic ability. He was the eldest of eight children, the son of Catherine and Manley Hopkins, a marine insurance adjuster^[1]. He was educated at Highgate School and then Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied classics. 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 the friendship with Robert Bridges (eventual Poet Laureate of England) which would be of importance in his development as a poet, and his posthumous acclaim. , Stratford, historically Stratford Langthorne, is a place in the London Borough of Newham in East London. ... Sir Roger Cholmeleys School at Highgate (Highgate School) is a British Independent School in London, England. ... and of the Balliol College College name Balliol College Named after John de Balliol Established 1263 Sister college St Johns College, Cambridge Master Andrew Graham JCR President Helen Lochead Undergraduates 403 MCR President Chelsea Payne Graduates 228 Location of Balliol College within central Oxford , Homepage Boatclub Balliol College (pronounced... Bridges on the cover of Time in 1929 Robert Seymour Bridges, OM, (October 23, 1844 – April 21, 1930) was an English poet, holder of the honour of poet laureate from 1913. ... A Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events. ...

Hopkins began his time in Oxford as a keen socialiser and prolific poet, but he seems to have alarmed himself with the changes in his behavior that resulted, and he became more studious and began recording his sins in his diary. In particular, he found it hard to accept his sexuality; hence, he began to exercise strict self-control in regard to it, especially after he became a follower of Henry Parry Liddon and of Edward Pusey, the last, lingering member of the original Oxford Movement. It was during this time of intense scrupulosity that Hopkins seems to have begun confronting his strong homoerotic impulses. (See section below on Erotic influences) Henry Parry Liddon (August 20, 1829 - September 9, 1890) was an English theologian. ... Edward Bouverie Pusey (August 22, 1800 - September 16, 1882), was an English churchman, one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. ... The Oxford Movement was a loose affiliation of High Church Anglicans, most of them members of the University of Oxford, who sought to demonstrate that the Church of England was a direct descendant of the Christian church established by the Apostles. ... Scrupulosity is obsessive concern with ones personal sins, including sinful acts or thoughts usually considered minor or not sins at all within ones religious tradition. ... Homosexuality refers to sexual interaction and / or romantic attraction between individuals of the same sex. ...

In 1866, following the example of John Henry Newman, he converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. After his graduation in 1867 Hopkins was provided a teaching post by Newman, but the following year he decided to enter the priesthood, pausing only to visit Switzerland, which officially forbade Jesuits to enter. 1866 (MDCCCLXVI) is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ... J H Newman age 23 when he preached his first sermon. ... This box:      Anglicanism most commonly refers to the beliefs and practices of the Anglican Communion, a world-wide affiliation of Christian Churches, most of which have historical connections with the Church of England. ... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... Year 1867 (MDCCCLXVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ...

Hopkins's attempts at poetry began at an early age, influenced by his father's own attempts at the art. His decision to become a Jesuit led him to burn much of his early poetry as he felt it incompatible with his vocation. 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. He continued to write a detailed journal until 1874. 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.

While he was studying in the Jesuit house of theological studies in St Beuno's, 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 Deutschland. This work was inspired by the Deutschland incident, a naval disaster in which 157 people died including five Franciscan nuns who had been leaving Germany due to harsh anti-Catholic laws (see Kulturkampf). The work displays both the religious concerns and some of the unusual meter 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 fueled his ambivalence about his poetry. Most of his poetry remained unpublished until after his death. Deutschland was a passenger steamship of the Norddeutscher Lloyd line, built by Caird & Co. ... The Order of Friars Minor and other Franciscan movements are disciples of Saint Francis of Assisi. ... The neutrality of this article is disputed. ... The German term Kulturkampf (literally, culture struggle) refers to German policies in relation to secularity and the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, enacted from 1871 to 1878 by the Chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck. ... In poetry, the meter or metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse. ...

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 meant that, although ordained in 1877, Hopkins would not likely progress in the order. Though rigorous 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 1874 he returned to Manresa House to teach classics. He then went to St. Beuno's College in North Wales for 3 years of theological studies. He served in various parishes in London, Chesterfield, Oxford, Liverpool and Glasgow. He taught Greek and Latin at Mount St Mary's College, Sheffield, and Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. In 1884 he became professor of Greek literature at University College Dublin. 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 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, reflected this. They came to be known as the "terrible sonnets," not because of their quality but because according to Hopkins' friend Canon Dixon, they reached the "terrible crystal," meaning that they crystallized the melancholy dejection which plagued the latter part of this life. 1877 (MDCCCLXXVII) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Mount St. ... Stonyhurst College is an independent, Roman Catholic school in the Jesuit tradition. ... University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin - more commonly University College Dublin (UCD) - is Irelands largest university, with over 20,000 students. ...

Final years

Blue plaque commemorating Hopkins in Roehampton, London

After suffering ill health for several years and bouts of diarrhea, Hopkins died of typhoid fever in 1889 and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. Glasnevin Cemetery The round tower (centre) stands over the tomb of Daniel OConnell Glasnevin gravestones Glasnevin Cemetery, also known as Prospect Cemetery, is the main Catholic cemetery in Dublin, the capital of Ireland. ...

Though he suffered from what today might be diagnosed as manic depression, and battled a deep sense of anguish throughout his life, upon his death bed, he evidently overcame some of his feelings of despondency, at times stygian in their intensity. His last words were "I am so happy, I am so happy."

Hopkins is commemorated by a blue plaque in Roehampton, London.^[2] A blue plaque showing information about The Spanish Barn at Torre Abbey in Torquay. ...

Poetry

Sprung rhythm

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 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 his own 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. In reality, it more closely resembles the "rolling stresses" of Robinson Jeffers, another poet who rejected conventional meter. 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 verse. His work has no great affinity with either of the contemporary Pre-Raphaelite and neo-romanticism schools, although he does share their descriptive love of nature and he is often seen as a precursor to modernist poetry or as a bridge between the two poetic eras. In poetry, the meter or metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse. ... Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of 1066 and the mid-to-late 15th century, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... This article is about the epic poem. ... Sprung rhythm is a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. ... John Robinson Jeffers (January 10, 1887–January 20, 1962) was an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. ... For the software company, see Freeverse. ... The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets and critics, founded in 1848 by John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt. ... The term neo-romanticism is used to cover a variety of movements in music and painting. ... Mountebanks ...

Last Poems

Several problems conspired to depress Hopkins' spirits and restrict his poetic inspiration during the last five years of his life. 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.

Use of language

The language of Hopkins’ 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.

Added richness comes from Hopkins’ extensive use of alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia and rhyme, both at the end of lines and internally as in: Alliteration is the repetition of a leading consonant sound in a phrase. ... Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in non-rhyming words, for example Do you like blue?. Here the oo sound is repeated within the sentence. ... For the supervillain, see Onomatopoeia (comics). ... A rhyme is a repetition of identical or similar sounds in two or more different words and is most often used in poetry. ...

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;

One more influence on him was the Welsh language he learnt while studying theology at St. Beuno's College near St Asaph, in North Wales. The poetic forms of Welsh literature and particularly cynghanedd 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' own 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. His poems would then try 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.[2] Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ... The term Welsh literature may be used to refer to any literature originating from Wales or by Welsh writers. ... Cynghanedd (literally harmony), in Welsh language poetry, is the basic concept of sound-arrangement within one line. ... Please wikify (format) this article as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Blessed John Duns Scotus (c. ...

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' death they were distributed to a wider audience, mostly fellow poets, and in 1918 Bridges, by then poet laureate, published a collected edition; an expanded edition, prepared by Charles Williams, 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). 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... A Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events. ... There have been a number of notable people named Charles Williams: Sir Charles Hanbury Williams (1708–1759), a British Member of Parliament and satirist. ... Year 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Notable collections of Hopkins's manuscripts and publications are in Campion Hall, Oxford; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; and the Foley Library at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.

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 Bridges' distant cousin, friend, and fellow Etonian Digby Mackworth Dolben, "a Christian Uranian"^[3] Hopkins's biographer Robert Bernard Martin asserts that Hopkins’s meeting with Dolben – on the occasion of the boy's seventeenth birthday – at Oxford in February 1865, "was, quite simply, the most momentous emotional event of [his] undergraduate years, probably of his entire life" ^[4]. Digby Augustus Stewart Mackworth Dolben (8 February 1848 - 28 June 1867) was an English poet who died young in an accident. ... From John Addington Symonds 1891 book A Problem in Modern Ethics. ...

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^[5]

He pursued Dolben during the course of their correspondence, writing about him in his diary and composing two poems about the youth, "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', cautioned that the second poem "must never be printed," though Bridges finally decided to include it in the first edition (1918).^[6] Another indication of the nature of his feelings for Dolben is that Hopkins' High Anglican confessor seems to have forbidden him to have any contact with Dolben except by letter. Their relationship was abruptly interrupted by Dolben's drowning in June 1867, an event from which Hopkins never fully recovered: "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."^[7]

Notes

Bibliography of Poems

• The Wreck of the Deutschland
• The May Magnificat
• Moonrise
• Spring
• God's Grandeur
• The Caged Skylark
• Hurrahing in Harvest
• As Kingfishers Catch Fire
• In the Valley of the Elwy
• Pied Beauty (a curtal sonnet)
• Carrion Comfort
• The Windhover: To Christ our Lord
• Spring and Fall, To a Young Child
• The Habit of Perfection
• The Sea and the Skylark
• Inversnaid
• That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection
• Felix Randal

Audio The curtal sonnet is a form invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and used in three of his poems. ...

• Catholic singer-songwriter Sean O'Leary (b.1953) has produced a collection of contemporary settings of Gerard Manley 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 Gerard Manley Hopkins' poems set as songs by Sean O'Leary 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'.

Bibliography

• Martin, Robert Bernard, 1992. Gerard Manley Hopkins - A Very Private Life (London: Flamingo/HarperCollins Publishers)
• White, Norman, 1992. Hopkins - A literary Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
• Abbot, Claude Coller (Ed.), 1955. The Correspondence of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Richard Watson Dixon (London: Oxford University Press.)
• Abbot, Claude Coller (Ed.), 1955. The Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins to Robert Bridges (London: Oxford University Press.)
• Norman H. MacKenzie. (Ed.), 1989. The Early Poetic Manuscripts and Note-books of Gerard Manley Hopkins in Facsimile. (New York and London: Garland Publishing.)
• Norman H. MacKenzie. (Ed.), 1991 The Later Poetic Manuscripts of Gerard Manley Hopkins in Facsimile (New York: Garland Publishing.)

See also

• Caudate sonnet
• Curtal sonnet (invented by G. M. Hopkins)
• Sprung rhythm
• Inscape
• Inscape (visual art)

A caudate sonnet is an expanded version of the sonnet. ... The curtal sonnet is a form invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and used in three of his poems. ... Sprung rhythm is a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. ... Please wikify (format) this article as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Roberto Mattas Psychological Morphology, (painted in about 1938), with its landscape-like blue sky and horizon, combined with biomorphically suggestive and fluidly interacting figures, is a good example of what Prof. ...

External links

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Gerard Manley Hopkins

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Gerard Manley Hopkins

• Gerard Manley Hopkins at Project Guttenberg
• Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins at PoetryFoundation.org
• Gerard Manley Hopkins Society
• Gerard Manley Hopkins' Grave
• Gerard Manley Hopkins Poems In Musical Adaptations
• The Hopkins Quarterly
• Online texts of Hopkins Poems: First Edition (1918)
• Web Concordance of Hopkins Poems
• Readings of Hopkins' Poetry
• The Victorian Web - Gerard Manley Hopkins - An Overview
• 2004 essay by Jim Boushay about Gerard Manley Hopkins and the ‘pain’ of deep gratitude titled To give prayerful thanks with a grateful heart
• That Nature Is A Heraclitean Fire - Excerpt - Musical adaptation by Sean O'Leary (MP3)
• The Wreck Of The Deutschland - Verse 1 - Musical adaptation by Sean O'Leary (MP3)
• 8 Song Samples from Musical Adaptations of Hopkins' Poetry
• LibriVox - Free Audio Recording of As Kingfishers Catch Fire
• Michael Matthew Kaylor, Secreted Desires: The Major Uranians: Hopkins, Pater and Wilde (2006), a 500-page scholarly volume that situates Hopkins among the Victorian writers of Uranian Poetry - Free, open-access, PDF version.
• Religious Crisis in Hopkins' Terrible Sonnets
• Dark Night of the Soul

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is one of a family of wiki-based projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation, running on MediaWiki software. ... Image File history File links Wikisource-logo. ... The original Wikisource logo. ... The Uranians were a relatively obscure group of pederastic poets who flourished between 1870 and 1930, particularly among the graduates of Oxford and Cambridge. ...