Table Of Content

;r A Reader’s Guide to Gerard Manley Hopkins A Reader’s Guide to Gerard Manley Hopkins Norman H. MacKenzie CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca, New York ]ÿ]Thamesfind Hudson Ltd. London Alt righls reserved. Exccpl far brief qualaHons jn a review. Lhi& book, or parts 1hereof, musi nnt be reproducedinp.nyformwithoutpermissioninwriung.from the publisher. For informalLon addressCornell University Ptess. 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca, New York I4E50. J-srsi published byCornell University Press Firmpriming. CtfjrieM Paperbacks, i98i InternrdionalSiJindartl Honk N'umher(clnlh)l*-K0|4-l34M-4 InternalinmilStandard Book Number(paper)P-8Hl4-y22L-1 Libraryoi CongressCaUilne Card NumberHi—t\9275 3hramuJ.and bound tn Great Britain Contents Preface pm 7 Abbreviated TitJes of Hopkins's Works 12 SomeNoteson Hopkins'sLifeand Interests n Pan One EARLY POEMS The Escorial’ to Rosa Mystica" (Nos 1-27) m Part Two THE MATURE POEMS The Wreck of the Deutschland’ to Dublin Sonnets (Nos 28-76) lb Pan Three FIRST EXPERIMENTS - THE APPRENTICE-POET 11 Mystico’ to ‘St Theda’ (Nos77-136) 210 Part Four QUENCHED FLAMES ‘Moonrise’ to ‘Epithalamion’ {Nos 137-59) 221 Reference Section 226 Select Bibliography of Books 24| Indexes 245 Preface The ‘Hopkins Country1, famous for its unique organic inscapes. continues to at(Tact numerous new readers every year. To enrich their experience many books of varying excellence have been - written theoretical analyses, organizinghim intosuch regionsas Ignatian and Scotist, or historical surveys, tracing the broad features of his syntax and concepts intoareas before or after his own. But to the man on foot, healthily determined to follow the poet’s trail, such historical or linguistic ‘geographies1 seldom supply the milc-by-mile directions he needs. It is for him that A /tender's Guide to Gerard Manley Hopkins is intended, designed likeits predecessors in thisseries toaccompanytheauthorthrough his poems in more or less chronological sequence. The territory, too rugged for the taste of his own contemporaries, is on that account all the more inviting to us today.Among the fullyfinished mature poems there are many still curiously underestimated and comparatively neglected. Others again offer an exhilaratingchal¬ lenge to the experienced anti for them special aid has been here provided. To keep this book within general reach (another objective of these Header’s Guides), the less frequented early and unfinished pieces have been mapped on a smaller scale. Yet by recom¬ mending little known ways of approach and drawing attention to aspects easily overlooked these more cursory notes should still serve a useful purpose. As theonly full edition of the Poems(the Oxford Pourth edition) is published in an inexpensive paperback, a Preface this Guide, which refers to all Hopkins’sorigins] pieces, has been keyed to its numbering.Those with other collectionsof the major poems, however, should have no difficulty in using iL Besides the textualcommentary there isan introductory outline of Ilopkins’s lifeand interests, while in an alphabeticalappendixa Reference Section provides brief sketches of people (the poet's main correspondents and Duns Scotus), along with compressed interpretations of his coinages or prosodic innovations (e,g., counterpoint’, ‘curtal sonnets', 'outrides’, ‘overreaving’), where the accepted definitions are re-examined in the light of actual practice revealed bythe manuscripts. Italso includesdefinitionsof other terms relating to poetry. Hopkins shares with the moresensitiveof the Victorians many of that age’s virtues. He contends for the preservation of the wilderness, theenvironment then being 'seared with trade’around him as England grew smokiiy rich. He shows genuine astonish¬ ment over the infinitelyvaried adaptations tobe found amongthe distinctive species of plant and animal life (a wonder which we, with our greater though insufficient biological knowledge, can readily appreciate). The artist-naturalist alternates and co-exists with the priest throughout his poems in a balanced polarity. His sonnets often lead us from an octave of delight in nature to its corollary of reverence for the Maker, but he does not wine-cliphis windhover into a merely symbolic theological bird. These things we can spontaneously enjoy with him. More consciousbutequallyrewardingeffort is required in matterswhere this Guide should assist- in recognizing the heritage of wisdom anti literary grace from the Greek and Roman writers whom he studied and taught;the Biblical, liturgical, and devotional classics whichshaped his phrases; lhe ideas, customs and even landscapes of Victorian Britain which echo in hisworks, ff we ignore these in favour of some updated reassessment we may be substituting our own passing values for his in a sort of trans-cultural myopia. Yet where wc ourselves most differ outwardly from our predecessors Hopkinsoften anticipates our recoil,1fe is nol as impressed as his fellow-Victorians arc bysheer hulk or surface decoration, in that period of three-volume novels and multi-volume poems, over¬ stuffed furniture and hooped petticoats. His phrases and verse- structurescombinecompactnesswithstrength,concentratingupon weight-bearing words and avoiding loose grammatical till. He can