Great analysis. Perhaps I’m biased because it corresponds pretty well to what I thought Hopkins was getting at, although you bring more to the analysis. Pebbles fall and rattle; the just man justices. Nice.
Lovely piece about one of my all-time favorite poems. I recently wrote an essay on it myself, so I was delighted to read another perspective on it. Cheers and many thanks!
I have been starting into Hopkins just now, and finding the going rough (like many a reader of Flannery O'Connor, I guess). I trip over words like "roundy," where the '"y" doesn't even turn a noun into an adjective. Either it is (seems) amateurish, like a forced rhyme or (if I may use the expression) cutesy. But beyond such a detail, H strikes me as precious in his language--like someone with whom it would be impossivle to have a normal conversation. I suppose for some this would be no complaint, but for me (at this point, at least) it is offputting. It distracts me from H's remarkable insights and way of framing them. But I won't give up on him, I promise.
It might help to know (and I had to track this down) that Hopkins isn't just coining that word out of thin air. It was a true adjective, however obscure --- seems to have originated with Sir Philip Sidney, though I haven't traced where Sidney uses it, or who else might have used it in the centuries that intervened between Sidney and Hopkins. Anyway, Hopkins didn't make it up.
Hopkins, a classicist by formal training, was fascinated with language itself and, I think, with the act of revivifying it in various ways. Word origins and etymologies were fascinating to him, and I think he would have delighted in bringing up this old word out of poetic tradition, and in the serendipity of its making his iambic pentameter in that line exact (which he does a good bit --- sprinkling precisely metered lines among his more "sprung rhythm" lines -- to help the reader hear how the stresses in the sprung lines are supposed to fall).
I would imagine that he was so intense that it probably was hard to have a normal conversation with him, depending on your idea of "normal." His Jesuit brothers and superiors didn't get on with him very well, at any rate, nor did his Irish pupils in the last years of his life. He suffered greatly from loneliness, especially in those last years. But I don't think he actively chose to be precious or off-putting --- he was interested in things the people around him weren't interested in or even especially equipped to be interested in. And even so, I don't imagine that he spoke quite as he wrote, though he probably did delight in odd turns of phrase!
A favorite poet and poem of mine! Thank you for sharing. I recently wrote a poem called “To Hopkins” in honor of his life and work. If you feel so inclined, I’d love for you to read it!
Great analysis. Perhaps I’m biased because it corresponds pretty well to what I thought Hopkins was getting at, although you bring more to the analysis. Pebbles fall and rattle; the just man justices. Nice.
My favorite poem. Wonderful commentary; thank you, Sally.
Too filigreed and overwrought for us; like an overstuffed Victorian interior
Thank you, that has really helped me understand the poem, and take pleasure in reading it aloud.
Lovely piece about one of my all-time favorite poems. I recently wrote an essay on it myself, so I was delighted to read another perspective on it. Cheers and many thanks!
I have been starting into Hopkins just now, and finding the going rough (like many a reader of Flannery O'Connor, I guess). I trip over words like "roundy," where the '"y" doesn't even turn a noun into an adjective. Either it is (seems) amateurish, like a forced rhyme or (if I may use the expression) cutesy. But beyond such a detail, H strikes me as precious in his language--like someone with whom it would be impossivle to have a normal conversation. I suppose for some this would be no complaint, but for me (at this point, at least) it is offputting. It distracts me from H's remarkable insights and way of framing them. But I won't give up on him, I promise.
It might help to know (and I had to track this down) that Hopkins isn't just coining that word out of thin air. It was a true adjective, however obscure --- seems to have originated with Sir Philip Sidney, though I haven't traced where Sidney uses it, or who else might have used it in the centuries that intervened between Sidney and Hopkins. Anyway, Hopkins didn't make it up.
Hopkins, a classicist by formal training, was fascinated with language itself and, I think, with the act of revivifying it in various ways. Word origins and etymologies were fascinating to him, and I think he would have delighted in bringing up this old word out of poetic tradition, and in the serendipity of its making his iambic pentameter in that line exact (which he does a good bit --- sprinkling precisely metered lines among his more "sprung rhythm" lines -- to help the reader hear how the stresses in the sprung lines are supposed to fall).
I would imagine that he was so intense that it probably was hard to have a normal conversation with him, depending on your idea of "normal." His Jesuit brothers and superiors didn't get on with him very well, at any rate, nor did his Irish pupils in the last years of his life. He suffered greatly from loneliness, especially in those last years. But I don't think he actively chose to be precious or off-putting --- he was interested in things the people around him weren't interested in or even especially equipped to be interested in. And even so, I don't imagine that he spoke quite as he wrote, though he probably did delight in odd turns of phrase!
A favorite poet and poem of mine! Thank you for sharing. I recently wrote a poem called “To Hopkins” in honor of his life and work. If you feel so inclined, I’d love for you to read it!
What an interesting and helpful piece! I love being able to go more deeply into this beloved poem. Thank you!
I love Hopkins so much and never tire of writing about him. Thanks for reading!
Ahhh, 😌 one of my favorites!