Reflections on Gerard manley Hopkins

For many, the work of Romantic poet Gerard Manley Hopkins proves a true test of the "open mind." Enigmatic, thought-provoking, and incredibly dense, Hopkins’ experimental art inevitably provokes the reader to the sentiment expressed by his close friend and fellow poet, Robert Bridges: “Why can’t you just write a normal poem?” (translation mine). Certainly, the thinly-veiled request concealed therein—why can’t you just be a normal person?—must have haunted Hopkins throughout his brief, difficult life. A deeply spiritual man who struggled to inhabit this world, the poet’s own letters and secondhand accounts of his life reveal a soul estranged by its own perfectionism, longing to find a home but barely keeping a head above the waves. Perhaps because the ideas that come to rest in Hopkins and those he must express are simply too complex and far-reaching for plain language, his incessant attention to spirituality and the human condition find a nest in the natural world. 

My first exposure to GMH came with “As Kingfishers Catch Fire.” The poem continues to impact me and guide my later reading of his work. Hopkins’ strong impression of nature, aided by his hyper-attuned visual and auditory processing, allows him to see and express what others either can’t or choose not to, and what I find especially captivating is the poet’s clear eye. Tying in with another favorite of mine, Donne’s Meditation 17, Hopkins refuses to add glitter for artistic effect, and the true charm of “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” comes with the simple realization that everything is alive, being telling its name, as inseparable from the rest of creation as it is from itself. Experiencing the physical world doing what it was meant to do as an outsider, rather than a participant, is an incredibly humbling experience, leading some to a greater spiritual connection and self-knowledge. Seemingly capturing the awe that drives the poet’s religiosity, the manifestation of the physical world in a spiritual reality was an entirely new and eye-opening concept that wasn’t actually new at all. Simply put, finding our place in an order that has existed for millenia and will endure long after us can be a challenge, but there is also comfort to be found in the brevity of human experience. For Hopkins, as well as myself, a Christ that plays in ten thousand places inspires more than fear.

“He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:/Praise him.” “Pied Beauty” speaks to the beauty of God and creation, and of genuine gratitude for the perception of our world: a sort of getting high on oneself. Still, a very different Hopkins shows in his so-called terrible sonnets, where at once a man so overwhelmed by beauty and overwashed with peace finds himself utterly cast out of God’s garden. Hopkins’ lifelong struggle with acedia—which we would today term severe depression—offers a painful, but perhaps clarifying, impression of a mind unable to perceive God. Even in the depths of a deep, dark hole, Hopkins is still able to perceive his situation with clarity along with a very real sense of despair. His ability to pierce the self and see the heart of things guides realizations of the like: “The worst is not so long as we can say ‘this is the worst,’” certainly not alleviating the burden of mental illness but rather putting it into perspective. Besides these likely struggles with depression and anxiety, Hopkins is an excellent candidate for autism. His revolutionary wordplay is perhaps simply his unmasked self as it truly perceives the world: and while undoubtedly brilliant, he was forever a step away from his fellow men (as well as himself). Never quite understood, even after his religious conversion, Hopkins spent the majority of his life drifting from one poor fit to another—“To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life.” Yet I find it improbable that he felt abandoned by God for his many struggles. Indeed, God had rather made himself a demanding father than an absent one: “I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.” The luminous core Hopkins perceives at the heart of all human beings is one that must be uncovered, often with great personal effort, which he is quite willing to dispense even as he feels a hurt much deeper than most of us ever will. His ceaseless dedication to a spiritual calling in the absence of earthly support is one we might not understand, but perhaps we can at least accept with the same effort.

A lifetime of study would much better serve the understanding of this extraordinary man, but in my opinion—informed by very brief exposure—Hopkins’ poems make much less sense if you read the words.