Gerard Manley Hopkins

                                                                                         

Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in England in respective family with successful business of his father. It gave him the opportunity to gain very good education which improved and perfected his natural talent. Being very delicate person in nature Hopkins began writing as early as his study at college. His early poetry was easy and light and assessed well by college teachers. The Hopkins’ life greatly changed after his converting into Catholicism under the influence of John Henry Newman in 1866. He was completely devoted to the Catholic Church and decided to become a priest. By that time he burnt out all his poetry.

The poem “Spring and Fall” was written in 1880 after four years of starting new writing in 1875. His last poetry is not as aesthetic and beautiful as the early one and that is why it is not so easy to understand. The poems of the 1880s are the author’s philosophical attempts to cognize and describe the only immortal thing in the world – human soul. All the poems are full of religious ideas which Hopkins uses as basis of life sense understanding and instrument of getting prepared to meet the God.

The answer to the question of what we live for is the main idea of Hopkins’ poetry. His last poems answer this question through belief in human affiliation with the Christ deeds, prove of human body mortality and mind and expression of human soul as the only thing to be cared for because it will never die and always be the concurrent part of our God. Hopkins’ origin is in unusual use of words and their combinations which change the initial and usual meaning of the words: “just…justices”, “plays…places”. The words and phrases repetitions make the poem sound like a song. Such technique is widely used by Hopkins in many poems. The perfect example of like song poem is “Spring and Fall” which from the first reading is perceived as nursery child’s song due to specific rhythm and use of questions.

This poem is not a usual child’s song that is aimed to console; it is a lesson to direct the young person to immortal thing. Hopkins was unsatisfied with his poem. His great talent and deep ideas could not be caught even by original techniques and rhythm invented by him. May be Hopkins’ ideas about human life sense were so bright and limitless that he could not express them with the help of words born in mortal mind…

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