Gerald Manley Hopkins
Gerald Manley Hopkins
BIOGRAPHY
STYLE OF WRITING
SPRING
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS [1844-1899]
Relevant Background
Hopkins was a priest who wrote Nature Poetry.
He celebrated beauty in the natural world. He loved the freshness of spring.
In many of his poems, like Spring, he linked beauty in nature to prayer.
He thought that beauty in nature was a reminder of Gods love and
greatness.
He thought that beauty in nature was a reminder of the innocence and
purity of childhood.
He wrote this poem more than a hundred years ago.
Hopkins wrote in a beautiful style that was sometimes difficult. He liked to
express his feelings and views in new ways. He left out words such as like
in line three and changed the normal word order like in line eight.
He often used striking and dramatic comparisons like in line three.
Hopkins put a lot of sound effects into his poetry.
He wrote many of his poems in the sonnet form.
He enjoyed the unique shape, colours, beauty and inner energy of nature.
In the sestet, the last six lines, Hopkins looks for the real meaning that lies
behind the happiness and energy of nature in springtime. Therefore the
sestet develops the thought of the poem. It looks for the meaning behind
the beauty. Hopkins finds that natures beauty reflects Gods perfect beauty.
He then expresses a wish to shelter the beauty and innocence of childhood
from sin.
In line nine Hopkins asks the following basic question:
What is all this juice and all this joy?
In line ten, Hopkins quickly answers that it all goes back to the Garden of
Eden from the bible. As a priest he believes in the stories of the bible.
Spring is like an echo or a reminder of Paradise.
In line eleven he begins a prayer. He prays God will preserve beauty before
it loses its wholesomeness or purity.
In line twelve he appeals to Christ and asks him to protect beauty from sin.
In line thirteen he identifies the aspect of beauty he most wishes to see
preserved. He is referring to childhood innocence. He obviously sees this as
the springtime or Mayday of human life.
In line fourteen he appeals to Jesus as the child of Mary to win innocent
children to his side and save them from sin.
This is unusual because normally people who pray to Jesus want to be
cleansed of sin after it happens. Jesus is normally the saviour of sinners.
Hopkins wants Jesus to save the innocent.
Overall it seems Hopkins changes the subject of the octave, nature, and
introduces a new subject, religion, in the sestet.
THEMES