And for all this, nature is never spent;
   There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
   Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
   World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

— from Gerard Manley Hopkin's "God's Grandeur"

Scarcely published in his too-brief lifetime, nonconformist poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins is celebrated today as one of Anglophone poetry’s most passionate, dazzling, and disciplined technicians—a conductor of the English language’s distinctive tones and textures like none before or since.

Unrestrained by the prosodic norms of his Victorian contemporaries, Hopkins pushed the poetic medium to heights of ecstasy in praise of God’s immanence in nature, as well as to “cliffs of fall / frightful, sheer, no-man fathomed” in his profoundly moving anatomies of desolation and despair.
In this three-session course, we will explore how Hopkins’s personal history as a Jesuit convert and gradual exile from his prosperous High Anglican family—as well as his internal conflicts between earthly desire and spiritual longing, abandoned hopes of becoming a painter, deep study of the medieval theologian Duns Scotus, and readings of Keats, Rossetti, Ruskin, and others—informs his innovative poetic work.

Above all, we will engage with that extraordinary work (including a few excerpts from his letters and notebooks) as attentively as possible, attuned to what it says and how it says it, marveling at its extraordinary sonic and visual effects, and finding in its spiritual, ecological, and personal commitments a source of inspiration—and a model of hope—through our own complicated times.

Donnelly will be referencing Hopkins's The Major Works (Oxford University Press, 2009). The readings that will be most closely discussed (indicated by a ***triple asterisk) are likely to be available in any edition or online. Additionally, Donnelly will reference scans of Hopkins's journals and letters, which will be disseminated to the class via email.

Session 1

***Pied Beauty
***God’s Grandeur
***Duns Scotus’s Oxford
***Henry Purcell
***Harry Ploughman
Io
***Moonrise June 19, 1876
***Binsey Poplars
***Spring and Fall
The Alchemist in the City
***The Lantern Out of Doors
Hurrahing at Harvest
***from Letters, pp.170-78; from Journals, pp.

Session 2

***Wreck of the Deutschland
Spring
***The Sea and the Skylark
***The Windhover
***The Caged Skylark
Heaven-Haven
The Habit of Perfection
***The Half-way House
Myself Unholy
Let Me Be to Thee
The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe
***The May Magnificat

Session 3

Felix Randall
***No Worst
***Carrion Comfort
Patience
***I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day
***My Own Heart Let Me More Have Pity On
To Seem the Stranger
To What Serves Mortal Beauty
***Spelt from Sybil’s Leaves
***That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection
Thou Art Indeed
To R.B.

Class meets from 2:30–3:45 p.m. Thursdays, September 18, 25 and October 2.

This live, virtual class is structured to encourage active participation. Registrants will receive a Zoom link one week prior to each session, one day prior to each session, and the morning of the session. Recordings will be made available within forty-eight hours and will remain available for thirty days.

Scholarship applications must be submitted by  Wednesday, September 3, at 5 p.m. ET. 

For information on how to register, how to receive the member discount, how to apply for a scholarship, how to access recordings and course materials, and more, please visit our FAQ page.