Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Innovative poet that posthumously inspired T S Eliot , Dylan Thomas, W H Auden & others
    The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Innovative poet that posthumously inspired T S Eliot , Dylan Thomas, W H Auden & others
    The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Innovative poet that posthumously inspired T S Eliot , Dylan Thomas, W H Auden & others
    Audiobook1 hour

    The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Innovative poet that posthumously inspired T S Eliot , Dylan Thomas, W H Auden & others

    Written by Gerard Manley Hopkins

    Narrated by Richard Mitchley, Ghizela Rowe and Gideon Wagner

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in Stratford, then part of Essex on 28th July, 1844, to deeply religious parents?the first of nine children.

    The family moved to Hampstead in 1852, near to where John Keats had lived thirty years before. At age ten the young Gerard was sent to school in nearby Highgate and afterwards to Balliol College, Oxford.

    Hopkins was unusually shy and reserved and prone to bizarre ideas. He once argued that most people drank more liquids than they really needed and bet that he could go without drinking for a week. He persisted until his tongue was black and he collapsed.

    In January 1866 Hopkins composed his most ascetic poem, The Habit of Perfection but a few days later he included poetry in the list of things to be given up for Lent. In July he decided to become a Catholic and by May 1868 Hopkins firmly "resolved to be religious." Less than a week later, he made a bonfire of his poems and ceased to write for almost seven years.

    In 1874 Hopkins returned to the Society of Jesus at Manresa House, Roehampton to teach classics. While he was studying in the Jesuit house of theological studies in North Wales, he was asked to write a poem to commemorate the foundering of a German ship in a storm. So in 1875 he was moved to take up poetry once more and write a lengthy poem, The Wreck of the Deutschland, inspired by the Deutschland maritime disaster in which 157 people died, including five nuns. The poem was accepted but not printed by a Jesuit publication. This rejection fed his ambivalence about his poetry. Most of his poetry remained unpublished until after his death.

    Hopkins chose the austere and restrictive life of a Jesuit and was at times gloomy. The brilliant student who had left Oxford with a first-class honours degree failed his final theology exam and although ordained in 1877, Hopkins would not progress in the order. That same year he wrote God’s Grandeur, and sonnets including The Starlight Night and finished The Windhover.

    In 1884 he became professor of Greek and Latin at University College Dublin. His English roots, his disagreement with current Irish politics, as well as his own small stature (5'2"), shy nature and personal foibles meant that he was not an effective teacher. This and his isolation in Ireland deepened his gloom.

    The final years of his life continued to find him in a depressed state and to restrict his poetic inspiration. His extremely heavy work load coupled with the dislike of living in Dublin, away from England and friends meant his health further deteriorated, even his eyesight began to fail. As a devout Jesuit, he found himself in an artistic dilemma. To subdue any egotism which would violate the humility required by his religious position, he decided never to publish his poems.

    After suffering several bouts of diarrhoea, Gerard Manley Hopkins died of typhoid fever on 8th June, 1889 at the early age of 44. On his death bed, his last words were, "I am so happy, I am so happy. I loved my life."

    This volume comes to you from Portable Poetry, a specialized imprint from Deadtree Publishing. Our range is large and growing and covers single poets, themes, and many compilations.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe Copyright Group
    Release dateJan 1, 2023
    ISBN9781787809185
    The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Innovative poet that posthumously inspired T S Eliot , Dylan Thomas, W H Auden & others
    Author

    Gerard Manley Hopkins

    Born in England in 1844, Gerard Manley Hopkins began writing poetry at an early age. In his early twenties, Hopkins converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism and in 1868 joined the Society of Jesuits. Hopkins continued to write poems thereafter, while serving as a priest and university teacher, but he burned most of his early poems out of a deep sense of conflict between his art and his faith, and he published very little in his lifetime."God's Grandeur" appeared in the first collection of his poems, edited by his friend Robert Bridges and published in 1918, long after the poet's death in 1889.

    More audiobooks from Gerard Manley Hopkins

    Related to The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins

    Related audiobooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      To Hell And Back

      Sep 1, 2022

      The first complete English translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy appeared in 1802, and over the past two centuries, new versions have proliferated beyond count, like Beatles covers or Sherlock Holmes movies. A diverting literary parlor game is to imag

      4 min read

    • Article

      Harold Bloom’s Immortality

      Oct 16, 2019

      Harold Bloom’s Immortality
      4 min read

    • Article

      Freud the Essayist

      Jun 1, 2023

      Freud the Essayist
      15 min read

    • Article

      Far Out

      Nov 10, 2019

      OF ALL THE CURIOUS careers led by expats, few can have been more curious than that of Gisborne-born John Esam (1934-2011). Esam was an actor, writer and the first person to be arrested in the UK on LSD charges. Obscure to the point of invisibility he

      2 min read

    • Article

      LITERARY HOUSE lessons

      Dec 18, 2021

      LITERARY HOUSE lessons
      11 min read

    • Article

      A Back In Time

      Apr 5, 2019

      A Back In Time
      4 min read

    • Article

      Rewriting Her World

      Feb 18, 2021

      Rewriting Her World
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Great Escape

      Sep 9, 2020

      The Great Escape
      4 min read

    • Article

      Stalking Wolfskehl

      Aug 23, 2021

      Stalking Wolfskehl
      6 min read

    • Article

      Samuel Johnson’s Defining Moments

      Feb 17, 2022

      Samuel Johnson was a published author, poet, essayist and biographer by the 1740s, but his career had not taken off or made him money. Certainly the reputation he holds today as a central literary figure of the 18th century, famed for his control of

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Late Bloomer

      Sep 1, 2023

      “An eccentric woman deserves an eccentric biography.” So writes Willard Spiegelman in this first biography of the poet Amy Clampitt. If there was anything eccentric about the genteel bohemian Amy Clampitt, it was that she was extremely private about

      5 min read

    • Article

      Pioneering Women

      May 18, 2023

      Professional housekeeper, cook, confectioner, teacher, author; Elizabeth Raffald could be described by many job titles, but the most fitting is probably entrepreneur. Having spent some years working around Yorkshire, Raffald made her name in Manchest

      3 min read

    • Article

      Songs of Farewell Hubert Parry

      May 13, 2021

      Hubert Parry’s six choral Songs of Farewell were first performed as a complete set on 23 February 1919, in the chapel of Exeter College, Oxford. The occasion was a memorial service for the composer, an alumnus of the college, who had died less than s

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Old Un's Notes

      Mar 8, 2023

      Happy 75th birthday, Shakin' Stevens! He was born Michael Barratt in Cardiff on 4th March 1948. It's over 40 years since his first number one, This Ole House, in 1981, followed up with Green Door and Merry Christmas Everyone. The Welsh Elvis was born

      5 min read

    • Article

      Robert Burns

      Nov 30, 2018

      Robert Burns
      2 min read

    • Article

      A Poet for the Age of Brexit

      Sep 12, 2017

      A Poet for the Age of Brexit
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Uses of Laughter

      Aug 11, 2021

      The Uses of Laughter
      19 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins

    4/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words