The Windhover - G M Hopkins
The Poet
Reverend Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest.
A Victorian: His life span is in the Victorian era: 1837-1901
A Painter-poet: Son of a poet, he had a passion in painting as well, a feature which was to help him in his poetic endeavours.
A Representative of Modernism: Hopkins’ poems were published posthumously, with initiative taken by Robert Bridges who decided to publish a few of Hopkins's mature poems in anthologies. The poems influenced many of the leading 20th-century poets: T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Cecil Day-Lewis
Homosexual inclinations: Hopkins found it hard to accept his own sexual attraction to other men. He developed an infatuation for Digby Mackworth Dolben, an English poet who died young from drowning.
Spiritual struggle: He exercised a strict self-control in regard to his homosexual desire. Confronting his strong homoerotic impulses must have nurtured the desire in him to consider choosing the cloister as an escape from sin.
In 1865, Hopkins declared his desire to be an ascetic: "On this day by God's grace I resolved to give up all beauty until I had His leave for it."
On 23 January 1866 he included poetry in the list of things to be given up for Lent.
Choosing Catholicism: In July he decided to become a Catholic, and he traveled to Birmingham in September to consult the leader of the Oxford converts, John Henry Newman. Newman received him into the Church on 21 October 1866.
Decision for cloistered life: 1868: Hopkins makes a bonfire of his poems. He joins the Jesuit congregation.
Duns Scotus:
An introduction to the works of Duns Scotus brought Hopkins to consider that religion and poetry did not necessarily conflict. Unable to suppress his desire to describe the natural world, he also wrote music, sketched, and for church occasions he wrote some "verses," as he called them.
The Wreck of the Deutschland: While he was studying in the Jesuit house of theological studies, St Beuno's, near St Asaph in North Wales, he was asked by his religious superior to write a poem to commemorate the foundering of a German ship in a storm. So in 1875 he was moved to take up poetry once more and write a lengthy poem, The Wreck of the Deutschland. This work was inspired by the Deutschland incident, a maritime disaster in which 157 people died, including five Franciscan nuns who had been leaving Germany due to harsh anti-Catholic laws
Influences on Hopkins
Religion: Conversion to Catholicism in his Oxford days; life as a Jesuit priest
Wordsworth: an influence that was even earlier; the influence of Nature upon him was enhanced further by the discipline of the Jesuit order.
Duns Scotus: 13 c. Philosopher-theologian. Hopkins adopted his thinking to consider how mortal beauty can become supernatural beauty to the beholder. Scotus emphasised the unique quality that characterises each individual and each object. This idea is reflected in Hopkins’ poems where we see in them the response of the human mind to what it sees or hears.
Plato: Plato’s ‘supernatural insight into Nature’ moved Hopkins. He may have in his mind Plato’s remark in “Phaedrus” that earthly beauty is a mirror of eternal beauty.
The Poem
The Windhover
Written on May 30, 1877 "The Windhover" was not published until 1918, when it was included as part of the collection Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Hopkins called "The Windhover" "the best thing [he] ever wrote".
‘Windhover’ is the name given to the bird called kestrel, falcon or hawk. It is called so because the best sight it offers is when it hovers in the wind high up in the sky.
The Windhover
To Christ our Lord
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 wimpling 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 valour 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: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
Analysis of the Poem
Dedication: Hopkins considered this poem to be his best and he felt
impelled to dedicate it to Christ himself.
How does
the kestrel remind him of Christ? (i. Shape of the flying bird, without moving
wings: the cross.)
Caught: here it means, ‘saw’. But, the impact of the word used here
is immense.
Minion: two meanings: favourite child, or servant. Christ is both to
God the father.
Dauphin: son and heir of France. Again, a parallel to Christ, the son
and heir of God.
Dappled
dawn drawn: the dawn of many colours (dappled) draws out
the bird.
in his
riding/ Of the rolling level underneath him steady air: The falcon appears to be like a
rider, who is on the steady air under him, which is the horse.
how he rung
upon the rein of a wimpling wing/ In his ecstasy!: Wimpling – quick beating. A sudden
movement. The poet senses this as a moment of ecstasy. Compare this with the
passion within the poet, who cannot refrain from writing verse, in spite of his
religious convictions.
then off,
off forth on swing: The
moment of ecstasy is not followed by dullness; there is a movement of vitality.
As a
skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: like the heels of a roller skate which takes a
quick turn (bow bend).
the hurl
and gliding: the
speedy movement of rush and ease
Rebuffed: resisted
My heart in
hiding:
cloistered life
Stirred for
a bird: a
passion. Compare to the ecstasy of the bird.
the achieve
of; the mastery of the thing!: the masterful control of the flight
Brute beauty
and valour and act: the
physical beauty, power and the act of flying
Air, pride,
plume: ‘air’
can be the air beneath, as mentioned in the earlier line, or can be a team that
indicates pride. Plume: feather (conveying majesty, as kings wear plumes on crowns.)
Buckle!: fasten together, engage in
combat with enemy – buckler stands for shield; collapse under pressure;
the electric joint which emits sparks when connections are brought in. The
bird’s flight brings together many elements, all of which combine together for
a powerful impact within the poet. How this happens is indescribable, just like
his religious experience.
AND: The capitalisation indicates a
shift to something greater: to Christ.
the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion/ Times
told lovelier, more dangerous,: The poet tries to express how much more the
power of Christ has impacted him. It is more beautiful, and more conquering
(dangerous).
O my
chevalier!: Knight.
Here, it points to Christ.
No wonder
of it: How can
the sight of a bird take one to think of Christ?
Sheer plod: mere mud
Sillion: furrow
blue-bleak
embers: burning
coal
gall
themselves: hurt themselves (here, rub one against the
other)
gash: cause a sudden flow (like blood from a wound)
The Poem as
a Sonnet
The poem is
a Sonnet, with an octet and a sestet, which in turn can be seen as a pair of
tercets. The octet is devoted to the description of the kestrel’s flight, and
its impact upon the poet. The onomatopoeiac feature in the octet suits the
description of something that is visible, like the flight of the bird. The
first tercet connects the bird to Christ, and the final tercet explains why
such a connection is valid and logical. There is a shift in the progression of
ideas between the octet and sestet.
Hopkins played on the Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet form, but liberated it from its mechanical mode. However, he did not reject its essentials, such as the octet-sestet divide. The variety of rhythm and length of lines were among his contributions of modification.
Sprung
Rhythm
Sprung
Rhythm is a form of accentual verse, which is stress-timed and not
syllable-timed. It is the number of accents in a line that are counted, and not
the number of syllables.
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 wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
This is a
poetical rhythm that is designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. The
first stressed syllable may be followed by a variable number of unstressed
syllables. Hopkins derived this partly from his knowledge of Welsh poetry.
Inscape and
Instress
Inscape
and Instress:
These two terms appear in Hopkins’ Journals. Inscape is an idea of “thisness” derived
from Duns Scotus. By "inscape" he means the unified complex of
characteristics that give each thing its uniqueness and that differentiate it
from other things. "Instress" is
the ability of recognizing this inscape or uniqueness of a being. A poet, when
he realises this, attempts to convey the idea into the mind of the beholder.
Hopkins
felt that everything in the universe was characterized by what he
called inscape, the distinctive design that constitutes individual
identity. This identity is not static but dynamic. Each being in the universe
'selves,' that is, enacts its identity. And the human being, the most highly
selved, the most individually distinctive being in the universe, recognizes the
inscape of other beings in an act that Hopkins calls instress, the
apprehension of an object in an intense thrust of energy toward it that enables
one to realize specific distinctiveness. Ultimately, the instress of inscape
leads one to Christ, for the individual identity of any object is the stamp of
divine creation on it.
[Source:
http://www.knowledge4africa.com/english/poetry/windhover-b.jsp ]
The idea
behind ‘inscape’ can be traced to Medieval philosophy: ‘Haecceity’ /hɛkˈsiːɪtɪ/ , a word of Latin origin, which can
be translated as ‘thisness’. First coined by Duns Scotus (?1266-?1308), the term denotes the discrete qualities,
properties or characteristics of a thing which make it a particular thing. Haecceity is a person or
object's "thisness", the individualising difference between
the concept 'a man' and the concept 'Socrates' (a specific person).
The
terms convey the uniqueness of each created thing or person, and how that
individuality is perceived or experienced by the observer. This idea was both
ancient, being expressed particularly in the writings of the medieval
theologian and philosopher, Duns Scotus, and modern, seen in the Romantic poets.
Hopkins,
through his journals, drew upon the concept of Scotus to formulate his idea of
‘inscape’, and the related idea of ‘instress’.
By
"inscape" he means the unified complex of characteristics that give
each thing its uniqueness and that differentiate it from other things. The
theological belief behind this is that God doesn’t repeat himself.
'Instress' means the actual experience
a reader has of inscape: how it is received into the sight, memory and
imagination. The poet's job is to find images that will ‘nail' the inscape down
for readers, so they can recapture the poet's perception and experience.
The concept of
inscape shares much with Wordsworth's "spots of time," Emerson's
"moments," and Joyce's "epiphanies,"showing it to be a characteristically
Romantic and post-Romantic idea. But Hopkins' inscape is also fundamentally
religious: a glimpse of the inscape of a thing shows us why God created it.
"Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:/ . . myself it speaks and
spells,/ Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came. "
Hopkins insists that inscape was the essence of poetry
("Poetry is in fact speech employed to carry the inscape of speech for the
inscape's sake") Consequently, what he called "Parnassian"
poetry (i.e., competent verse written without inspiration) was to be avoided.
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