Gerard Manley Hopkins
(1844 - 1889)
English poet
Hopkins was born near London and educated at Oxford in 1863 - his professor of poetry and tutor was Mathew Arnold. Although Hopkins was brought up into a comfortable and cultured family; he later chose to be an ordained Jesuit in 1877. He eventually abandoned all writing of poetry. Nevertheless, he was motivated to write again when he learned of the sinking in 1875 of a German ship carrying five Franciscan nuns, exiles from Germany. “The Wreck of the Deutschland†was produced from this tragedy and later, other works and poems followed: “Godâ€ââ€Â¢s Grandeur,†“The Windhover,†“The Leaden Echo,†and “The Golden Echo.†Twenty nine years after his death, his poems were published and made accessible to the public in 1918.
His purpose to write poetry alludes to a unique creation, a design. Hopkins wrote:
“ But as air, melody, is what strikes me most of all in music and design, in painting, so design , pattern or what I am in the habit of calling 'inscape' is what I above all aim at poetry.â€ÂÂ
Selected work~
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