The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

This guide to Hopkins' poetry presents extensive introductory comment on the contexts, critical history and interpretations of his work from composition to the present. Including twenty-nine unabridged texts of his most important poems, this sourcebook is invaluable reading for all those beginning a detailed study of Hopkins' work. Taking the form of a sourcebook, this guide to Hopkins’ poetry presents: extensive introductory comments on the contexts, critical history and interpretations of his work, from composition to the present annotated extracts from key contextual documents, reviews and critical works unabridged texts of twenty-nine of Hopkins’ most important poems, with detailed annotations cross-references between documents and sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism suggestions for futher reading. Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of Hopkins’s work and seeking not only a guide to the poems, but a way through the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds them.

Relatively unknown in his own lifetime, Gerard Manley Hopkins is the now accredited as the author of some of the finest and most complex poems in the English language. As a Victorian poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, Hopkins pioneered a revolutionary form of meter he termed "sprung rhythm" in his first major work, "The Wreck of the Deutschland." This poem, like most of Hopkins’ work, reflects both his belief in the doctrine that human beings were created to praise God as well as his commitment to the Jesuit practices of meditation and spiritual self-examination. Hopkins’ poetry is unconventional in its sensitivity to alliteration, assonance and consonance, as well as its characteristic diction and phrasing. This volume includes some of his most famous works: "Spring," "Pied Beauty," "God’s Grandeur," "The Starlight Night," "Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves," and his most famous sonnet, "The Windhover." This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.