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Although a plethora of Hopkin's friends and close relations were able to enjoy Hopkin's writing, his poems were not made accessible to the world of readers until 1981, twenty-nine years after his death, when his poems were published. Hopkins was born close to London into a well off family that encouraged his artistic and creative pursuits. After an extensive career at Highgate School, he entered Oxford in 1863, where he was exposed to Victorian thoughts and ideals. He also became increasingly attracted to first the High Church movement and then eventually to Catholicism. After much deliberation, Hopkins entered the Roman Catholic Church in 1866, and decided to become a Jesuit priest. This conversation greatly separated him from his family, and completely estranged him from the majority of his relations. (Stephen Greenblatt, 1546). Although he wrote poems during his time at Oxford based off of John Keat's style, he decided to burn these writings because he believed his vocation prohibited from indulging in such self pleasing actions, such as writing. However, with the encouragement of his superiors at church, he decided to return to writing, except this time Hopkins introduced a "new rhythm." This, in turn, led to the rhapsodic lyric narrative, "The Wreck of Deutschland," which was a ode about the wreck of a ship in which five Franciscan nuns were drowned. The style was so distinctive that the editor of the Jesuit magazine "dared not to print it," as Hopkins reported. Although Hopkins continued to write poetry, he was reluctant to publish anything because he was convinced that his poetic fame did not align with his religious vocation. (Stephen Greenblatt, 1547). In 1874, Hopkins then went on to study theology in North Wales and later adapted Welsh poetic rhythm to fit his own work. In 1875, Hopkins began to write again after a German ship, the Deutschland, was wrecked during a storm at the mouth of the Thames River. Most of the passengers were lost, among them five Franciscan nuns who were religious exiles from Germany. Hopkins was deeply moved by the martyrdom of the nuns, and after his rector in passing expressed the idea that someone should write a poem about it, Hopkins felt relieved of his vow of silence and wrote, "The Wreck of the Deutschland," which is initially addressed to god but celebrates the Franciscan notes. As a whole, Hopkin's unique style results from the theology of Duns Scotus, who was a medieval philosopher, who felt that everything in the universe was characterized by inscape, which an be described as the ideal that design equates to dynamic individual identity. For Hopkins, this led to a clear devotion to Christ, for the individual identity of one object is the stamp of divine creation on it. Through this, the individual becomes a celebrant of the divine, both recognizing god's creation and then enacting his or her own God-given identity with it.(Stephen Greenbelt, 1547). It is evident that for Hopkins poetry enacts this type of celebration. He 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 in poetry." To create inscape, Hopkins endeavored to give each poem a unique design that captures the initial inspiration when is enraptured by the subject. A myriad of Hopkin's strategies- such as his disruption of conventional syntax, his coining and compounding of words, his use of ellipsis and reputation- represent an active brain that just has been inspired by a certain event or idea. He also creates puns to suggest how God's creation rhymes and chimes in a divine patterning. He violates conventional syntactic order to represent the shape of mental experience. In the moment of such imaginative execution, a language of its own comes to be. (Stephen Greenbelt, 1547). In addition, Hopkins also uses a new rhythm to give each poem a unique feature, called sprung rhythm. These are lines that have a given number of stresses, but the number and placement of unstressed syllables is highly variable. In this form, the number of unstressed syllables varies from line to line. He does not mark every single intended stress but instead emphasizes the ones that readers might anticipate. To indicate which syllables are stressed, Hopkins uses both the stress (') and the "great stress ("). Its intended effect was to reflect the dynamic quality and variations of common speech, in contrast to the monotony of iambic pentameter. As an entity, it is the bridge between regular mere and free verse. Hopkins argued that sprung rhythm was the natural rhythm of both common speech and written prose, as well as music. By not limiting the number of “slack” or unaccented syllables, Hopkins allowed for more flexibility in his lines and created new acoustic possibilities. After this, Hopkins spent nine years in training at various Jesuit houses throughout England and was ordained in 1877. For the next seven years Hopkins carried out his duties teaching and preaching in London, Oxford, Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester and Stonyhurst. Although this work was stimulating, he found it extremely exhausting.His appointment in 1884 as Professor of Greek and Latin at University College, Dublin, left him in prolonged depression. This resulted partly from the examination papers he had to read as Fellow in Classics for the Royal University of Ireland. The exams occurred five or six times a year, might produce 500 papers, each one several pages of mostly uninspired student translations (in 1885 there were 631 failures to 1213 passes). More important, however, was his sense that his prayers no longer reached God; and this doubt produced the "terrible" sonnets. Still, his last words as he lay dying on June 8, 1889, were, "I am happy, so happy," before he died of Typhoid fever.

"The Windhover" I caught this morning morning's minion, king- dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimping wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird,- the achieve of, the mastery of the thing! Brute beauty and valor and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! No wonder of it: she'er plo'd makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

Essentially, this is a love poem that is not devoted a single individual, even though it is dedicated "To Christ our Lord", but to life as a whole. A cornerstone of the English canon, it bridges the ideals of the Victorian Age and early 20th century modernism. Hopkins believed that it was one of his best works, and from the first few lines, the reader can see that the density and emotion of this poem seemed to come from someone full of pent-up longing, who had just found a release in impersonal joy. It starts off slow and heavy in the first four and a half lines because of its rich reputation of sounds. The repetition of "morning" forces us to pause between the lines. In addition to that, by having the word kingdom extend into the next line, it makes the reader feel like the word is rolling off of their tongue into the next section. Hopkin's mimetic language turns from describing the kestrel's flight in the first portion of this sonnet (the eight-line octet) to describing how other dynamics are immersed with other things, ultimately his own soul. When the plow turns up the dull clods of earth, the new earth glints with minerals. When a "blue-bleak" ember falls from a log, it flares up again with the new light. And thus when the spirit falls against the opaque materiality of the world, it breaks open with an insight, or illumination. From this poem, we can see that although Hopkins is describing a bird, the much bigger picture is that he is thankful for his creator for producing that bird. He writes, "my heart in hiding//stirred for a bird." (Hopkins, 7-8). From this, we can see that Hopkins is grateful for the world around him, and longs to learn more about his creator. He had conflicting emotions in regard to writing because a part of him thoroughly enjoyed expressing himself through literature and the other part of him felt that it contradicted his occupation. The undertones of this line could be referring to his suppressed freedom of writing and now he is getting the opportunity to indulge in something that he loves to do. He then goes to to describe the bird as "brute beauty and valor and act," (Hopkins, 10). which shows his deep reverence to nature and the world around him. This also refers to the larger metaphor about him celebrating all the beauty that god placed on the earth. "The Windhover" emphasizes Hopkin's thoughts on poetry's purpose, for him the gift of being able to glimpse the inner form of things- such as the ashen ember breaking open and revealing the glowing gold- is a special gift of the poet, courtesy of God the maker.

Resources: [|http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/gerard-manley-Hopkins] [] [|http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gerard-manley-Hopkins] []

Marissa: this is a helpful analysis of the poem "The Windhover" below is the link. [|http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/182786#guide] [|http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/182786#guid]