Status Updates From Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life

This biography is unique because it starts in media res (in the middle of things) with Hopkins as a student at Oxford wrestling with his decision to convert to Catholicism. I found this way of starting off putting at first (I have a linear-loving mind), but now I’m seeing how Hopkins’ conversion was a crucial burning-bush moment for him. It anchors the whole of his story.

Interesting passage in the middle of 51 on Hopkins’ view of poetry’s uniqueness from prose.

I’m seeing bits of crossover between this biography and my Bronte biography. For example, Hopkins mentions Blackwood’s newspaper, which the Bronte children loved and tried to imitate. Both Hopkins and Branwell/Charlotte were in touch with Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s son and grandson, respectively.

“Its consolations, its marvelous ideal of holiness, the faith and devotion of its children, its multiplicity, its array of saints and martyrs, its consistency and unity, its glowing prayers, the daring majesty of its claims…” (31)

Reading for Victober 2021, though will likely spill over into Nonfiction November. 😎