Gerard Manley Hopkins

Ok Lets see what makes a Victorian. I guess you can say a person who questions religious faith, searches for “miracles, and dislikes writing in traditional poetic forms. All of which are things Mr. Hopkins exhibited in his life. He found at least a way to show God’s presence in nature. In order for him to do this he used these two terms: inscape and instress. Inscape is a term that means the unique, distinctive and inherent quality of a thing. Where Instress is the force that both unifies an object and arouses the senses of its beholder. These two terms are used very heavily in his writings. To look at “The Windhover” you can see how he wants you to at the smaller things in life as a miracle.

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….
….My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!….
….
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!…
(from The Windhover)

To appreciate something of such a small nature in itself is a beautiful thing if not a miracle. Too often people try to look at lottery winners, near fatal accidents, and celebrity stories as miracles. When in fact just you waking up in the morning is a miracle. Also this passage shows his complete disregard for the poetic readers flow. If you were to read this aloud to a neighbor it would sound much better than you reading to yourself. Gerard rebelled against poetic structure because he felt poetry should be spoken and not read. Since I do not have someone to read it to me, it is a pretty hard read for me. In saying this I will close with a question. As I read his material I was thinking is this why we call him a modern because of his complete disregard for structure? If so, would that not make him more of a Victorian?