Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) was born in Stratford, Essex. He attended Oxford University, where he found much inspiration for his writing. During his time in Oxford, he converted to Catholicism – his strong belief in Catholicism dominates a majority of his poems. In this transition stage to Catholicism, he burned some of his poems and vowed never to write again to fully follow his religious callings – of course, we know now that he could not fulfill his vow.
After graduating Oxford he served as a teacher and a priest. Interestingly, he never published any of his works during his life time. This was perhaps because he believed his poetry combated his religious stance – that he could not be both a poet and a priest.
Hopkins created what he called “sprung rhythm,” a jazzy, jaunty kind of rhythm in his sonnets and other works. It is hard to explain what exactly sprung rhythm is or how he creates it, but he was ahead of his time – moving towards free verse with this style. By the early 1940s, Hopkins became revered as a major English poet. He was also discovered be a homosexual, which was probably a reason for his suffering and self-loathing that became apparent in his later years.
All information taken from:
Poetry Criticism. Ed. Christine Slovey and Christine Slovey. Vol. 15. Detroit: Gale, 1997. p122-177.
Personal Note:
I very much enjoyed reading Hopkins this week. His sprung rhythm and beautiful internal rhyme is inspirational and I hope it will influence my poems.
The fact that Hopkins was a gay priest interested me the most. He played with the rigid structure of the sonnet, adding extra syllables and giving it life through his jumpy rhythm. I feel as if his writing embodies his struggle in life. He lived in the 19th century, a time when he could not express his homosexuality, and so the only place where he could break through the structures that repressed him was in his poetry. By defying the structured sonnet, he defied the rules that condemned him.
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The Blessed Virgin Compared To The Air We Breathe
Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that 's fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing's life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life's law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God's infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess's
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God's glory through,
God's glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.
I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms' self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.
If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man's beating heart,
Laying, like air's fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God's and Mary's Son.
Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.
So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man's mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God's love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.
This is a beautiful poem. I find it especially refreshing to read Hopkins’ playful, uneven, jazz-like rhythm after a week of Wordsworth. Hopkins expresses his piety through this poem, saying that he loves Mary like he loves the air he breathes – life. She is everywhere around him. His keen use of alliteration and rhyme sequence of AAABBBCCC (etc.) make this poem a pleasure to read. I very much look forward to reading more this week.
Rosa Mystica
The Rose is a mystery' - where is it found?
Is it anything true? Does it grow on the ground?
It was made of the earth's mould, but it went from men's eyes,
And its place is a secret, and shut in the skies.
In the Gardens of God, in the daylight divine
Find me a place by thee, Mother of mine.
But where was it formerly? Which is the spot
That was blest in it once, though now it is not?
It is Galilee's growth; it grew at God's will
and broke into bloom upon Nazareth Hill.
In the Gardens of God, in the daylight divine
I shall look on thy loveliness, Mother of mine.
What was its season, then? How long ago?
When was the summer that saw the Bud blow?
Two thousands of years are near upon past
Since its birth, and its bloom, and its breathing its last.
I shall keep time with thee, Mother of mine.
Tell me the name now, tell me its name:
The heart guesses easily, is it the same?
Mary, the Virgin, well the heart knows,
She is the Mystery, she is that Rose.
In the Gardens of God, in the daylight divine
I shall come home to thee, Mother of mine.
Is Mary that Rose then? Mary, the tree?
But the Blossom, the Blossom there, who can it be?
Who can her Rose be? It could be but One:
Christ Jesus, our Lord - her God and her Son.
In the Gardens of God, in the daylight divine
Shew me thy son, Mother, Mother of mine.
What was the color of that Blossom bright?
White to begin with, immaculate white.
But what a wild flush on the flakes of it stood,
When the Rose ran in crimsoning down the Cross wood.
In the Gardens of God, in the daylight divine
I shall worship the Wounds with thee, Mother of mine.
How many leaves had it? Five they were then,
Five like the senses, and members of men;
Five is the number by nature, but now
They multiply, multiply, who can tell how.
In the Gardens of God, in the daylight divine
Make me a leaf in thee, Mother of mine.
Does it smell sweet, too, in that holy place?
Sweet unto God, and the sweetness is grace;
The breath of it bathes the great heaven above,
In grace that is charity, grace that is love.
To thy breast, to thy rest, to thy glory divine
Draw me by charity, Mother of mine.
The rhythm of the poem – and especially the hypnotic refrain – is entertaining to read. From what I understand, Hopkins compares the beauty of a rose to the beauty of heaven. The metaphor becomes so powerful by the end – “Does it smell sweet, too, in that holy place?” – that the rose is heaven, and when going back to read the poem through, the reader can discover that he is talking about heaven the entire time – the rose is a very minor concrete symbol in the poem. From the very first line, he is already referring to heaven – “The Rose is a mystery' – where is it found?”
Just like in the last poem about air, he is comparing a concrete object to something very abstract – heaven. It is pleasant to watch the two – the rose and heaven – combine into one through the poem.
As Kingfishers Catch Fire
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;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves -- goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is --
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
The sound of every syllable alone in this poem is impressive. Hopkins pays extraordinary attention to every detail in the poem. Each line, each syllable is well tuned to sound beautiful. His jazzy “sprung rhythm” is also a pleasure to read. This poem is beautiful and shows Hopkins’ complete mastery and ability to play with the limits of the sonnet.
Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things--
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.
Hopkins once again plays with his mastery of sound. Sounds of syllables echo throughout the poem – “rose-moles”, “fallow”, “adazzle” – and makes it enjoyable to read.
Hopkins thanks God for creating strange, or abnormal, things. He finds beauty especially in the strange colors of the cow, the finches’ wings, etc. I feel that he is, on one level, writing about himself. He does not fit within society, being a closeted homosexual, but he still tries to justify his existence through this poem.
The Windhover
To Christ our Lord
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-vermilion.
Hopkins himself said that this was his best poem, so it’s only fair for me to include it in my reading. What impresses me the most is his beautiful alliteration – “dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon” – and internal rhyme, which can be quite subtle – “swing”, “gliding”, “wind” sound similar (lines 5, 6, and 7 respectively). This poem, without even considering what it means yet, is already a mastery of sound.
The narrator explains that he saw a windhover hovering in the air, majestically like a skater. He is in awe of this beautiful creature – the bird of course symbolizes Christ – and he actually catches it. when he catches it, blue fire comes “gashing” out. He writes of his conversion to Catholicism , how he has found salvation in its “gold-vermilion” flames.
Fire, though, can be read in two ways. He could also be implying that he was burned by the flames of Catholicism, that it hurt him just as it helped him – a double-edged sword. If the poem is read from that lens, then this is a poem about pain, not of salvation.
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