THE BRILLIANT AND INTENSE POET | KAIROS GLOBAL | JULY 2024

Author: Gerard Manley Hopkins

Intro : Gerard Manley Hopkins is well-known for his poems, rich in imagery and artful use of language. Neha Antony Akkara writes about the poet and his conversion to the Catholic Church. 

But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ (Philippians 3:7).

Gerard Manley Hopkins was born into a middle-class family of Anglicans. He was the eldest son of Manley Hopkins – a writer and an insurer who at one time was an Anglican Sunday School teacher – and Catherine Smith, a deeply religious woman. Hopkins grew up reading the New Testament every day at school. Both of his paternal uncles chose religious life. Gerard was very close to his family, and most of his writings reflect this. His father had a huge impact on Gerard’s life – Gerard inherited Manley's love of shipping and shipwrecks, evident in his poems ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’ and ‘The Loss of the Eurydice’. 

Hopkins was drawn to visual arts, particularly painting. Initially, his ambition was to be a painter, and he sketched all his life. This fondness for visual arts is evident in the majority of his written works, and it inspired him to attend Oxford University. In his pursuit of aesthetics and natural beauty, Hopkins went beyond his Anglican roots, which led him to get acquainted with Catholicism. His poem ‘Half-Way House’ elaborated the religious turmoil he faced during that period of his life. In the poem, Hopkins clearly recorded his need to approach God in this world: ‘I must o’ertake Thee at once and under heaven/If I shall overtake Thee at last above.’

In his search for true Christian faith he came across St John Henry Newman’s book Apologia Pro Vita Sua, which discussed Newman's reasons for converting into Catholicism. At the time, John Henry Newman’s conversion kick started an exodus of Anglican intellectuals to the Catholic Church. Newman’s book helped Hopkins to explore the beauty of Catholicism and eventually led him to embrace it. It was Newman who received Hopkins into the Church on 21 October 1866. Hopkins converted to Catholicism to be able to embrace the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence. 

Following his conversion to Catholicism, Hopkins grew distant from his family. He wrote to Newman: ‘I have been up at Oxford just long enough to have heard from my father and mother in return for my letter announcing my conversion. Their answers are terrible: I cannot read them twice.’ He was given a job as an orator by Newman. However Hopkins felt a strong vocation to priesthood as a member of the Society of Jesus. 

Upon attaining priesthood he felt a strong personal conflict between his religious vocation and his poetry. He felt that his poetry had to give way to a greater cause, religion. Finally Hopkins decided to burn all his poems. He did not write for approximately seven years. Hopkins feared that his poetry would bring forth a pride in him which would disturb his religious vocation. Hopkins mentions this dilemma in his poem ‘The Windhover’. The poem was written a few months prior to his ordination as a Jesuit priest. The poem expresses his unwavering commitment and sacrifice of worldly ambitions. Hopkins' poem 'Windhover' concludes with the lines ‘My heart in hiding/stirred for a bird’. One biographical interpretation of this line is that he was hiding from his ambitions to become a great painter and poet. Instead of ostentatiously pursuing fame in that way, wearing his heart on his sleeve, he had chosen to be the ‘hidden man of the heart’. 

In a journal entry from 6 November 1865, Hopkins declared an ascetic intention for his life and work: ‘On this day by God's grace I resolved to give up all beauty until I had His leave for it.’ After reading the works of John Duns Scotus, a Scottish Catholic priest and philosopher-theologian of the Middle Ages, Hopkins realised there was no real conflict between religion and poetry and that there was no reason for him to stop writing poetry altogether. 

Gerard Manley Hopkins was one of the best poets of the Victorian era. He aimed at blending poetry and religion. Hopkins is perhaps more famous for his 1877 nature sonnets which focus on God in nature. He had a writing style completely different from that of his contemporaries. Hopkins faced a lot of criticism for deliberately narrowing his poems to a range too limited like religious convictions. Hopkins was mainly criticised for allowing religion to take precedence over poetry, or for actually impairing the creative gift itself. 

Hopkins said, ‘What I had written I burnt before I became a Jesuit and resolved to write no more, as not belonging to my profession, unless it were by the wish of my superiors; so for seven years I wrote nothing but two or three little presentation pieces which occasion called for. But when in the winter of ’75 the Deutschland was wrecked in the mouth of the Thames and five Franciscan nuns, exiles from Germany by the Falck Laws, aboard of her were drowned. I was affected by the account and happening to say so to my rector he said that he wished someone would write a poem on the subject. On this hint I set to work and, though my hand was out at first, produced one. I had a long haunting in my ear the echo of a new rhythm which now I realised on paper.’ 

Thus with a spiritual intervention the poem ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’ was born. (Hopkins writes about a maritime disaster, where the passenger steamship Deutschland suffered shipwreck killing 157 people, including five Franciscan nuns who had been leaving Germany due to harsh anti-Catholic laws). 

Gerard Manley Hopkins invokes God's kingship, sovereignty, and mastery throughout his poem 'Wreck of the Deutschland'. Only by surrendering to that mastery could he find peace. Hopkins finds the reality of human suffering and God's allowing it to occur almost incomprehensible. He compares human suffering to Christ's suffering on the cross. The poem explores the central paradox of God's mercy and grace being most present when he appears to be absent. The poem draws parallels between the Eucharist and Christ's suffering, highlighting the transformative power of his sacrifice. This shipwreck poem is full of spiritual advice for those in doubt and danger. Hopkins also wrote other poems, such as 'The Pied Beauty', which glorifies God. The poem begins by praising God with the line ‘Glory be to God for dappled things.’ This work also discusses the laws and order of the Jesuit priests.

His health began deteriorating around the age of forty. He died at the age of forty-four from typhoid fever. Hopkins was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery following a funeral at St Francis Xavier Church in Georgian Dublin, having suffered all his life from a deep sense of melancholy. His final words on his deathbed, however, were, ‘I am so happy, I am so happy.’ Hopkins spent his entire life wanting his audience to understand and experience the sacred joy and brimming love of the Holy Eucharist. He was a man so filled with love for God that it overflowed into his poetry. Hopkins teaches us how to use our talents to honour and admire the Creator and his creations.

Hopkin used his poetic creativity to remind his readers of God's glory and the beauty of his creation. God sent us into the world to praise and spread his love. This month, let us take inspiration from this renowned English poet and dedicate our arms, legs, hearts, and talents to magnifying his love.

Neha Antony Akkara lives in Kerala, India. She is a literature enthusiast who is currently pursuing her master’s.