I missed this when you posted it in October. I'm glad I found it today. Hopkins is my favorite poet of all. Thanks for your expert analysis.
I am just learning about the subtleties of meter, having recently taken Ryan Wilson's class on Mastering Poetic Sound and Meter. I have a question about your scansion of the first line:
"He heard, or imposed, an additional stress on the last syllable of the child’s name, so that the line as he intended it sounds more like an Old English four-stress line, with the accents falling on the alliterative r:
/ u / / u / u
Márgarét, áre you gríeving.
Same as:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same
I see those as a trimeter line with Trochee Spondee Amphibrach. Or Trochee Spondee Antibacchic.
Are you saying the Old English four-stress line is acceptable in the mostly tetrameter poem even though it isn't a tetrameter line?
“what that voice actually does is dismantle and recast Margaret’s fellow-feeling for those lost leaves” so well said! I love this poem much more now after reading this post. Thank you so much! Hopkins is the gift that just keeps on giving, isn’t he? Gah!
I've had this poem by memory since I encountered it in my teens, and I've always been bothered that my reading--whether aloud or in my head--doesn't accord with the poet's instructions. I always want more from writers about their work, never less--but I think I can be reconciled to the fact that more poets didn't follow Hopkins' path in providing performance instructions. Having heard recordings of Wallace Stevens' readings, for example, I shudder at the thought of printings with his diacritical marks! (In any case, thank you, as always, for your lovely interpretations.)
I like Sally's choice for today's illustration of a fall painting from the little-known Bruno Moras. His father, Walter Moras, was much more renowned as a painter of realistic rural scenes, and it would be interesting to figure out why. There's a gloss to the son's work that should have made the son more popular, but never quite did.
I wish I could say that my choice had been anything like that deliberate. I was trying not to use an autumn painting we'd already used, and I liked that this one a) showed something like a golden grove, and b) included a bare tree as well as still-leaved ones, to indicate what it is the child is mourning for.
I'll admit that I wasn't at all curious about Bruno Moras yesterday afternoon. Now I am.
This is the best explication I've heard of this poem and very good on the meter -- thank you, Sally. I taught a Hopkins course several times, and it was always fascinating to watch the students delve into Hopkins' meter and meanings. We listened to an excellent recording of many of them (the reader's name escapes right now; he is a Canadian gentleman with the perfect accent for these), and we read them aloud over and over. I had them each at the end of the term present a 10-minute reading of poems of their choice (most had to be from post-"Wreck" poems for obvious reasons), and they always said it was the reading aloud , attending to Hopkins' accents, that enlightened their understanding. This poem always makes me feel rather melancholy in its love for the child and its understanding that her own grief will be much deeper someday.
It's a marvelously tender poem, for all its corrective realism. Whatever pastoral gifts he might have possessed or lacked in his parish assignments, he marshalls it all in this poem.
I'm also really fascinated by the suggestion of the medieval manuscript as a source. That opens things up even wider, making this poem an object lesson in how to engage with tradition. He's managing to take on and correct Romantic notions by way of a thorougly medieval Catholic vision --- without ever for one second LARPing as a medieval figure (contra the Pre-Raphaelites, for example). He's managing to engage fully with a whole sweep of tradition --- repositioning some of it, rejecting none of it --- while being utterly himself, doing something that at the same time feels new (and would have felt even newer to him). It's a feat of genius --- one any poet can and should learn from, but also one that nobody else could possibly pull off in anything like the same way.
Indeed. The more I immerse myself in his work, the more I realize his genius. And how immersed he must have been in poetry across time to integrate all of it into his own unique vision -- I have a PhD and realize that I know nothing! I often wish I had given myself a much deeper education.
Love the important distinction you made between Hopkins’ profound sacramentality and the Romanticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge. I love all those poets and I love the Romantics, but in his sacramentality Hopkins surely does hit closer to the way things truly are. Interested in Francesca’s comment on his sacramentality as a Deeper Romanticism like Aslan’s Deeper Magic—what do you think?
I love that phrase and was just about to say to Francesca that I wish I had thought of it.
I read a good article in Ad Fontes sometime earlier this year by Anthony Cirilla, in which he argues, essentially, that the early Romanticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge isn't in opposition to the more normative Christianity both men later returned to, but part of a continuum (for lack of a better word first thing in the morning) of developing belief. This seems really plausible to me. That Romanticism has long struck me as a kind of incomplete grasp of sacramentality --- they almost get there, but in some profound ways don't get there.
So yes, this is the kind of thing I want to chew on further, the idea that Hopkins is knitting those things up together in a way that articulates the vision at its fullest. And again, I wish I had thought of Francesca's phrase, because it's perfect!
And like you, I really love the Romantics and feel a deep sympathy for them, despite their sentimentalism about nature, making it what they want it to be (human beings, too). And I think the reason for my sympathy is a fellow-feeling for the idea of nature as a subject for poetry, even if I think the "why" isn't entirely in focus for them.
And even though , like Hopkins, I believe in orginal sin, I can still enter with full, heartfelt sympathy into Coleridge's marveling at the child asleep at his knee in "Frost at Midnight." I'm not about to respond to that poem by saying, "Well, ACTUALLY, the sleeping baby isn't all THAT perfect." That might not be a failure of theology, but it sure would be a failure of imagination.
Thank you for the detailed analysis. I like reading Hopkins aloud. It seems to help me understand. But I never quite fully get it. The last line about Margaret in her maturity grieving for herself somehow conveys that the grief will be unsentimental - a clear-eyed view of one's own very human condition.
Which would make it slightly romantic, even given the anti romantic content. Its like the deeper magic. Hopkins gives us the deeper romanticism, believing like Newman that recognition of human fallenness is an ancient and primitive belief of human beings.
From your description of Hopkins’ own understanding of sprung rhythm, we should read the poem out loud in the accent of a Devonshire farmer ; I’m only partially joking! But that would mean that it’s a kind of dialect poem! But it doesn’t use regional words it uses an ancient regional accent!
That's interesting and helpful --- not to superimpose the idea of a dialect too heavily, but to hear at least the echo of the rhythms of that dialect . . . To my American ear, the rhythms seem really unnatural, but that's my limitation, not Hopkins's.
I think the dialect would affect the reading a bit, but sprung rhythm is simply....well, springy. Different than we would speak in normal conversation.
I missed this when you posted it in October. I'm glad I found it today. Hopkins is my favorite poet of all. Thanks for your expert analysis.
I am just learning about the subtleties of meter, having recently taken Ryan Wilson's class on Mastering Poetic Sound and Meter. I have a question about your scansion of the first line:
"He heard, or imposed, an additional stress on the last syllable of the child’s name, so that the line as he intended it sounds more like an Old English four-stress line, with the accents falling on the alliterative r:
/ u / / u / u
Márgarét, áre you gríeving.
Same as:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same
I see those as a trimeter line with Trochee Spondee Amphibrach. Or Trochee Spondee Antibacchic.
Are you saying the Old English four-stress line is acceptable in the mostly tetrameter poem even though it isn't a tetrameter line?
“what that voice actually does is dismantle and recast Margaret’s fellow-feeling for those lost leaves” so well said! I love this poem much more now after reading this post. Thank you so much! Hopkins is the gift that just keeps on giving, isn’t he? Gah!
I've had this poem by memory since I encountered it in my teens, and I've always been bothered that my reading--whether aloud or in my head--doesn't accord with the poet's instructions. I always want more from writers about their work, never less--but I think I can be reconciled to the fact that more poets didn't follow Hopkins' path in providing performance instructions. Having heard recordings of Wallace Stevens' readings, for example, I shudder at the thought of printings with his diacritical marks! (In any case, thank you, as always, for your lovely interpretations.)
I like Sally's choice for today's illustration of a fall painting from the little-known Bruno Moras. His father, Walter Moras, was much more renowned as a painter of realistic rural scenes, and it would be interesting to figure out why. There's a gloss to the son's work that should have made the son more popular, but never quite did.
I wish I could say that my choice had been anything like that deliberate. I was trying not to use an autumn painting we'd already used, and I liked that this one a) showed something like a golden grove, and b) included a bare tree as well as still-leaved ones, to indicate what it is the child is mourning for.
I'll admit that I wasn't at all curious about Bruno Moras yesterday afternoon. Now I am.
What I really wanted from Wikimedia Commons was "Paintings of Goldengrove, an Actual Place."
This is the best explication I've heard of this poem and very good on the meter -- thank you, Sally. I taught a Hopkins course several times, and it was always fascinating to watch the students delve into Hopkins' meter and meanings. We listened to an excellent recording of many of them (the reader's name escapes right now; he is a Canadian gentleman with the perfect accent for these), and we read them aloud over and over. I had them each at the end of the term present a 10-minute reading of poems of their choice (most had to be from post-"Wreck" poems for obvious reasons), and they always said it was the reading aloud , attending to Hopkins' accents, that enlightened their understanding. This poem always makes me feel rather melancholy in its love for the child and its understanding that her own grief will be much deeper someday.
It's a marvelously tender poem, for all its corrective realism. Whatever pastoral gifts he might have possessed or lacked in his parish assignments, he marshalls it all in this poem.
I'm also really fascinated by the suggestion of the medieval manuscript as a source. That opens things up even wider, making this poem an object lesson in how to engage with tradition. He's managing to take on and correct Romantic notions by way of a thorougly medieval Catholic vision --- without ever for one second LARPing as a medieval figure (contra the Pre-Raphaelites, for example). He's managing to engage fully with a whole sweep of tradition --- repositioning some of it, rejecting none of it --- while being utterly himself, doing something that at the same time feels new (and would have felt even newer to him). It's a feat of genius --- one any poet can and should learn from, but also one that nobody else could possibly pull off in anything like the same way.
Indeed. The more I immerse myself in his work, the more I realize his genius. And how immersed he must have been in poetry across time to integrate all of it into his own unique vision -- I have a PhD and realize that I know nothing! I often wish I had given myself a much deeper education.
Love the important distinction you made between Hopkins’ profound sacramentality and the Romanticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge. I love all those poets and I love the Romantics, but in his sacramentality Hopkins surely does hit closer to the way things truly are. Interested in Francesca’s comment on his sacramentality as a Deeper Romanticism like Aslan’s Deeper Magic—what do you think?
Me too. I found that helpful to have it stated that way.
I love that phrase and was just about to say to Francesca that I wish I had thought of it.
I read a good article in Ad Fontes sometime earlier this year by Anthony Cirilla, in which he argues, essentially, that the early Romanticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge isn't in opposition to the more normative Christianity both men later returned to, but part of a continuum (for lack of a better word first thing in the morning) of developing belief. This seems really plausible to me. That Romanticism has long struck me as a kind of incomplete grasp of sacramentality --- they almost get there, but in some profound ways don't get there.
So yes, this is the kind of thing I want to chew on further, the idea that Hopkins is knitting those things up together in a way that articulates the vision at its fullest. And again, I wish I had thought of Francesca's phrase, because it's perfect!
And like you, I really love the Romantics and feel a deep sympathy for them, despite their sentimentalism about nature, making it what they want it to be (human beings, too). And I think the reason for my sympathy is a fellow-feeling for the idea of nature as a subject for poetry, even if I think the "why" isn't entirely in focus for them.
And even though , like Hopkins, I believe in orginal sin, I can still enter with full, heartfelt sympathy into Coleridge's marveling at the child asleep at his knee in "Frost at Midnight." I'm not about to respond to that poem by saying, "Well, ACTUALLY, the sleeping baby isn't all THAT perfect." That might not be a failure of theology, but it sure would be a failure of imagination.
Thank you for the detailed analysis. I like reading Hopkins aloud. It seems to help me understand. But I never quite fully get it. The last line about Margaret in her maturity grieving for herself somehow conveys that the grief will be unsentimental - a clear-eyed view of one's own very human condition.
Which would make it slightly romantic, even given the anti romantic content. Its like the deeper magic. Hopkins gives us the deeper romanticism, believing like Newman that recognition of human fallenness is an ancient and primitive belief of human beings.
From your description of Hopkins’ own understanding of sprung rhythm, we should read the poem out loud in the accent of a Devonshire farmer ; I’m only partially joking! But that would mean that it’s a kind of dialect poem! But it doesn’t use regional words it uses an ancient regional accent!
Its like the speech rhythm of someone from the southwest of England, usually a farmer
That's interesting and helpful --- not to superimpose the idea of a dialect too heavily, but to hear at least the echo of the rhythms of that dialect . . . To my American ear, the rhythms seem really unnatural, but that's my limitation, not Hopkins's.
I think the dialect would affect the reading a bit, but sprung rhythm is simply....well, springy. Different than we would speak in normal conversation.