Monday \u00a0September 8 \u00a0– \u00a0Gerard Manley Hopkins – \u00a0“The Holy Ghost over the bent world…”<\/p>\n
Last evening I had two poems queued up for this week, \u00a0both good ones and new to me. \u00a0This morning I found myself hankering for Gerard Manley Hopkins, sj. \u00a0 Like any great poet, Hopkins \u00a0takes the reader deep into beauty and the wear of living, using strong words to connect our imaginations to both realities.<\/p>\n
A reminder: \u00a0Hopkins prefers the Anglo-Saxon side of English and comes to it with respect for hard edged language. \u00a0I\u2019m including his explanation, writing to friend and later England\u2019s Poet Laureate, Robert Bridges, of how difficult his poetry can be. Actually, his explanation of the difficulty makes for demanding reading itself \u2014 \u201c. . . a subtle and recondite thought . . . ”<\/p>\n
Have a good day.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
john sj<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Post<\/b><\/p>\n
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844\u201389). Poems. 1918.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cGod\u2019s Grandeur”<\/p>\n THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God. And for all this, nature is never spent; <\/p>\n post-note<\/span><\/strong>;<\/p>\n Hopkins\u2019 poems are [in]famous for the density of their vocabulary. \u00a0If you want to catch all the descriptive meaning packed in these 16 sonnet lines, bring your dictionary. \u00a0Hopkins\u2019 life-long friend Robert Bridges often ground his aesthetic teeth at what seemed to him to be unnecessary complexity. \u00a0 \u00a0On November 6, 1887 Hopkins wrote Bridges, attempting to explain the density of his poetic language; \u00a0Try reading GMH\u2019s explanation out loud, for that matter, try reading The Windhover\u00a0out loud as the poet intended.<\/p>\n \u201cPlainly if it is possible to express a subtle and recondite thought on a\u00a0subtle\u00a0and\u00a0recondite subject in a subtle and recondite way and with great felicity and perfection in the end, something must be sacrificed, with so trying a task, in the process, and this may be the being at once, nay perhaps even the being without explanation at all, intelligible.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Monday \u00a0September 8 \u00a0– \u00a0Gerard Manley Hopkins – \u00a0“The Holy Ghost over the bent world…” Last evening I had two poems queued up for this week, \u00a0both good ones and new to me. \u00a0This morning I found myself hankering for … Continue reading
\nIt will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
\nIt gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
\nCrushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
\nGenerations have trod, have trod, have trod;
\nAnd all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
\nAnd wears man\u2019s smudge and shares man\u2019s smell: the soil
\nIs bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.<\/p>\n
\nThere lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
\nAnd though the last lights off the black West went
\nOh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs\u2014
\nBecause the Holy Ghost over the bent
\nWorld broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.<\/p>\n