Sárospataki Füzetek 18. (2014)

2014 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Frank Sawyer: Gerard Manley Hopkins: "Christ plays in ten thousand places"

Gerard Manley Hopkins

And indeed, the alliteration is always dominant in an almost enchanting way.

He uses ‘sprung rhythm'. This approach counterpoints the first rhythm with a secondary one, so that the reader notices both, as in music. Hopkins often adds accent marks to indicate the emphasis he wishes to make; this oddity he felt to be necessary to compensate for the fact that the sprung rhythm and elusive syntax are major hurdles to cross - and the desired emphasis of his thought would often be easily missed without the assisting accent marks. His constant use of alliteration helps the reader beat out the varying rhythm of his carefully crafted lines. When read aloud, his poems are hard to put aside. He aims at living speech, even if it is his own inventive one.

III. The Wreck of the Deutschland (1876)

An important longer poem is The Wreck of the Deutschland, written in 1876 in reference to the sinking of the ship in December 1875 at the mouth of the Thames. Among the drowned were five Franciscan nuns. This was a break-through time for Hopkins as he had ceased writing poetry when he took his priestly vows in 1868. Now he was inwardly compelled to the poetic voice again, and the result is striking. The poem is characterized by both a harsh starkness, suitable to the theme, and by a richly inventive style which was largely unknown. Theologically this long poem (35 stanzas, 280 lines) is a theodicy, a defense of Gods ways in the world.

Hopkins refers to Gods sovereignty as “giver of breath and bread/...Lord of living and dead”. The poet might seem to tend toward an absolute and heavy, sombre view; but this is tempered by references to Gods grace which allows us to see His goodness. Stronger: there is Christs self-sacrifice which puts all in a new light. There is a divine call toward humanity, asking for trust, for acceptance of God’s goodness in spite of suffering, and also asking for repentance. It is strong, heady stuff, comparable in its utter power to the poetry of Walt Whitman, however differently the two men thought in regards to the Christian faith. In fact, it can be argued that Whitman, concerned with the greatness of human possibilities, and Hopkins, concerned about the greatness of the Maker of the same, both needed a style that goes beyond the limits often imposed by more traditional poetic expression. The form and terminology, were stretched and plied by both poets to suit their message.3

In what follows we have selected a few stanzas from the poem, thereby illustrating some of Hopkins thoughts, but not presenting the whole poem. The selected stanzas are numbered.

1

Thou mastering me4 Sod! giver of breath and bread;

3 cf.Catherine Phillips, ed., Gerard Manley Hopkins (Oxford University Press, 1986).

4 cfJob 10:9-11; Psalm 139.

Sárospataki Füzetek 17. évfolyam | 2014 | 1

83