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Written by: Frank Zapatka, St. Ann DC Parishioner
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844- 1889) was one of the great English poets of the 19th century. Brought up an Anglican, he suffered a crisis of faith at Oxford, and converted to Catholicism. Received into the Church in 1866 by Saint John Henry Newman, he was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1887. During his short life, he wrote an important body of highly esteemed and influential poetry. He has even been said to have “remade English poetry.” However, most of his poetic output was not known to the public until 1918 when it was first published by a close friend, the poet, Robert Bridges (1844—1930). As a result, Hopkin’s work is found in modern 19th century anthologies and in 20th Century anthologies.
Hopkins had an extraordinarily keen appreciation of nature and some would consider him just that: a nature poet. However, it would be more accurate to call him a Creation poet like some of the psalmists and Saint Francis of Assisi. In fact, he has been associated with the first surviving English poem, “a masterpiece to the Creator,” by the unlettered 7th century poet, Caedmon. The poem is known as “Caedmon’s Hymn.” It can be said that Hopkins “remakes modern English poetry” by going back to its Anglo-Saxon culture in which Old English was spoken and used for writing roughly from the 5th century until the Middle English period in the 14th century.
As a result of Hopkin’s interest in Anglo-Saxon culture, he very often uses its poetic conventions and techniques in his own poems. Additionally, he uses the literary and rhetorical conventions of Ancient Greek and Roman writing and speaking. That he did so, is not surprising, since he excelled in Classics at Oxford and later was a professor of Greek at University college, in Dublin. Moreover, many of these conventions are found in our current speech, their origin mostly unnoticed.
Much of the above can be illustrated by examining some of the 12 four-line stanzas of one of several Hopkin’s Marian poems, “May Magnificat.” To do that, we draw in part, on a partial overview of the poem found in Bishop Robert Barron’s 2014 companion book to his brilliant 10-part TV documentary that began airing in 2011 — both titled Catholicism, accompanied by quotations. In addition, my comments on the poem appear in square brackets. The poem is bolded.
In May Magnificat, the poet “wonders aloud in the first few stanzas [of 12] why May should be a month dedicated to Mary and he provides Mary’s own answer.” [This is called a rogation in classical rhetoric.] Ask of her, the mighty mother:/ Her reply puts this other/ Question: What is Spring?— / Growth in every thing. “Then with typical verbal dexterity and spiritual enthusiasm, he illustrates Mary’s reply: Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,/ Grass and greenworld all together. [The initial repetition of F’s and G’s, called alliteration, is constantly used in Old English poetry.] Forms and warms the life within;/ And bird and blossom swell/ In sod or sheath or shell. [Hopkins often uses internal rhyme as in ‘forms/warms.’ The liberal use of coordinate conjunctions like the ‘and/or’ in classical rhetoric is called polysyndeton]. “And, he imagines Mary the Mother of God surveying all of this life with limitless pleasure”: All things rising, all things sizing/ Mary sees, sympathizing/ With that world of good/ Nature’s motherhood. [In classical rhetoric, the omission of conjunctions is called asyndeton: ‘sizing/sympathizing.’] “Mary’s utter willingness to magnify the Lord made of her a matrix of life. The Spring itself, in all its wild fecundity, is but a hint of the vitality that she unleashes.” [And in the last stanza, we read:] “This ecstasy all through Mothering earth/ Tells Mary her mirth till Christ’s birth/ To remember and exultation/ In God who was her salvation. [We close by noting that Hopkins “regularly placed familiar words into new contexts”: i.e. ‘mothering earth’ as opposed to ‘Mother Earth.’]
Listen to a live reading of "The May Magnificat" by Jonathan Roumie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DptaCQtfsE
Read the poem in full: https://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/Classic%20Poems/Hopkins/the_may_magnificat.htm
Sources:
Barron, Robert, Rev: Catholicism, Image Books, 2011.
Gardner, W.H.: Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Penguin Books, 1960.
Internet, S.V., “Gerard Manley Hopkins” et passim.
Kirsh, Adam, “Back to Basics: How Gerard Manley Hopkins Remade English Poetry,” The New Yorker, May 11, 2009. Pick, John, Gerard Manley Hopkins: Priest and Poet, Oxford University Press, 1966.