Hopkins was man who led a very admirable life. He was a poet who was Oxford educated. While attending Oxford, he converted to Catholicism and decided to become a priest. This decision had a tremendous impact on Hopkins and can definitely be seen in his poetry. Apparently, Hopkins had a lot of personal issues with his decision to become a priest, but it wasn't about the religion itself. It dealt more with what came with being a priest. For starters, not being allowed to engage in sexual activity. The obvious implications of this rule is that Hopkins was without a wife and children. This was painful for him, and you can feel his pain in a lot of his poetry. Some of his works focused a lot on death, and how he wished he was dead.
In his poem, "Spring and Fall: to a young child", we can see Hopkins discuss death through the eyes of a young girl. The young girl in the poem is sad and depressed because she is watching leaves fall from a tree. The symbol of death is very disturbing, but Hopkins points out the following:
"Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for." (p. 776)
The young girl, Margaret, is who the reader should care about. She is looking at the leaves falling and it's a reminder to her that she is going to die. So, in essence, Hopkins is pointing out that when we mourn someone's death, we are subconsciously mourning our own future death.
Hopkins also focuses on nature, but more in how he sees God in it. In his work, "Pied Beauty", he seems to be making the point that you can see God's love for the individual in nature. The poem discusses God's love of the unique and how he enjoys things being different. Regardless of how something looks, whether similar of different, it is beautiful in God's eyes. We see this when he writes,
"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." (p. 776)
The cool thing about Hopkins is that he didn't gain recognition until around 40 years after his death. He is considered one of the best writers of the Victorian age, and he wasn't even published until 1918. It appears that the World War I crowd was a big fan of his content and writing style. Needless to say, his works spoke to many people and his legacy continues.
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2 comments:
Daniel,
Good focus and discussion of this challenging poet. I like the way you set up the quotations and comment on them. Your intro sets up a discussion of different poems than the ones you actually talk about, though.
I suppose I missed the idea that Hopkins joined the church in order to console himself over lack of family! I initially thought that he was troubled with a lack of stability/purpose in his life and found himself solving both problems (only to be disappointed) with the church. His poetry often seems like a front for his unhappiness, which is a horrible thought to entertain. His story is not necessarily one of success, but you're right, his poems are something to be appreciated.
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