HOPKINS, GERARD MANLEY. - English Jesuit and poet, b. at Stratford on 11 June 1844, d. at Dublin on 8 June 1889. From 1863 to 1867 he studied at Oxford (Balliol College) and here he came into contact with the last representatives of the "Oxford Movement," principally with Edward B. Pusey; but in 1866 he converted to Catholicism. In his conversion a certain part was perhaps played at least by the example of Card. Newman (v.), with whom H. was in epistolary correspondence. In 1868 he entered the Society of Jesus and was ordained in 1877. He taught and preached in England and Wales, and in 1884 he received the chair of Greek at the University of Dublin. He is buried in the cemetery of Glasnevin.
H. had written verses during his youth, but he burned everything upon entering the Society, judging poetry a worldly occupation: however, on 7 Dec. 1875 the news of the shipwreck of the ship Deutschland, which carried five nuns expelled from Germany, moved his poet's soul; and then he asked for and obtained permission to write of it in verse. Thus was born The Wrech of the Deutschland ("The Wreck of the Deutschland"), a short poem of about 280 verses, after which H. began writing again. But in his lifetime he published nothing, except a poem at the age of twenty and some occasional verses; his poems came out in a single volume in 1918, edited by Robert Bridges, and since then his fame has been asserting itself ever more clearly. At first it was due above all to the metrical innovations, to those very formal questions that made him refuse the publication of the Wrech of the Deutschland in 1876; today a more thorough criticism recognizes that the syncopated musicality of the rhythm is the expression of a tormented feeling, which rarely finds peace in the contemplation of the beauty of the world and in the recognition of its divine meaning, but more often, instead, is anguished by the transitoriness and sinfulness of this same beauty loved to the point of feeling himself unworthy of it.
Bibliography11 worksTexts and translations: Poems of G. M. H., London 1948; The Letters of G. M. H. to Robert Bridges, ed. C. C. Abbott, ibid. 1935; The Corresp
BIBL.: Texts and translations: Poems of G. M. H., London 1948; The Letters of G. M. H. to Robert Bridges, ed. C. C. Abbott, ibid. 1935; The Correspondence of G. M. H. and Richard Watson Dixon, ed. C. C. Abbott, ibid. 1935; The Note-Books and papers of G. M., edited by H. House, ibid. 1937; Further Letters of G. M. H., ed. C. C. Abbott, ibid. 1938; Poesie di G. M. H., with facing text, trans. and preface by A. Guidi, s. n. 1. Studies: G. F. Lahey, G. M. H., London 1930; B. Croce, Un gesuita inglese poeta: G. H. M., in La critica, 35 (1937), pp. 81-100 (reprinted in B. Croce, Poesia antira e moderna, Bari 1941, pp. 412-46); S. Baldi, G. M. H., Brescia 1941; W. A. M. Peters, G. M. H., London 1948; W. H. Gardner, G. M. H. (1849-69). A study on poetic Tradition, 2 vols., ibid. 1948-49; various authors, Immortal Diamond: Studies in G. M. H., edited by N. Weyand, New York 1949.
Baldi, Sergio. “Hopkins, gerard manley.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI, coll. 1479–1480. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951. https://azioneromana.com/article/hopkins-gerard-manley.
MLA
Baldi, Sergio. “Hopkins, gerard manley.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951, coll. 1479–1480. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/hopkins-gerard-manley.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec6_hopkins_gerard_manley,
author = {Baldi, Sergio},
title = {Hopkins, gerard manley},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {VI},
pages = {1479--1480},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1951},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/hopkins-gerard-manley}
}
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