The Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Paradoxically, Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose poetry was regarded as inaccessible and 'modern' long after his death, was in many ways a characteristic Victorian. Born in 1844, to prosperous and cultivated middle-class parents, he was to be much influenced by Ruskin, whose minuteness of observation Hopkins emulated, both in his drawings and in much of his later verse. His education at Highgate School had the traditional grounding in the classics. While he demonstrated his singularity by successfully wagering that he could go without drinking anything for three weeks, and in being threatened with expulsion for some trifling obstinacy, he also won a prize for a long and erudite poem. Arrived at Balliol College, Oxford, he continued to write poetry as well as having a busy and companiable social life. Although touchy and sometimes arrogant, he had great sweetness, and was loved by many, among them the future Poet Laureate, Robert Bridges, whose patient advocacy of Hopkins's poetry eventually secured its reputation. Oxford was seething with theological debate. Many of the devout, fearing rational agnosticism and repelled by the fervid, populist Protestantism which had followed Wesley's religious revival, were attracted by the beauty and mystery of Roman Catholic rituals and traditions; the