As often happens, a book jumped out at me the other day in one of the many second hand bookshops I frequent. I was so exited I could hardly bear it! Gerard Manley Hopkins - A selection of his Poems and Prose by W.H. Gardner.
Inside these pages I would be able to get to know him better, as is befitting for one I feel to be a soul-friend even if he lived and died many years before I was even born.
The eldest of eight children, Gerard was born in 1844, into a Victorian family where art, literature and religion formed part of their daily diet. For many years, Gerard aspired to become a painter, and two of his brothers did. Gerard's talent in drawing is as evident as his genius in writing and poetry. He was a brilliant student and during his studies after his acceptance into the Catholic Church in 1866, he was proclaimed "the star of Balliol".
He was influenced greatly by the Discipline of the Society of Jesus as based on the Spiritual Exercises written by it's founder, St. Ingatius of Loyola. This led him to stop writing for a period of seven years. He then came across the writing of Duns Scotus which persuaded him otherwise. I thank God for Scotus!
Regarded as one of the three or four greatest poets of the Victorian era, and by many as the greatest of the nature and religious poets, he developed a very idiosyncratic style and it was only after his death in 1688 that his work were published.
As George highlighted the importance of humour this week, I thought it to be a lovely synchronicity when I came across a letter written by Gerard to his sister, Kate in 1871. She was the second daughter in the Hopkins family and was said to have considerable artistic gifts and that she was "a sort of humourist." This she apparently shared with her big brother.
I found it to be hilarious and so enlightening. I am quite sure God chuckled along with Kate as she read these words:
We were all vaccinated the other day. The next day a young Portugese came up to me and said 'Oh mister 'Opkins, do you feel the cows in yewer arm?' I told him I felt the horns coming through. I do I am sure. I cannot remember now whether one ought to say the calf of the arm or the calf of the leg. My shoulder is like a shoulder of beef. I dare not speak above a whisper for fear of bellowing - there now, I was going to say I am obliged to speak low for fear of lowing. I dream at night that I have only two of my legs in bed. I think there is a split coming in both of my slippers. Yesterday I could not think why it was that I would wander about on a wet grass-plot: I see now. I chew my pen a great deal. The long and short of it is that my left forequarter is swollen and painful (I meant to have written arm bout cowld not.) Besides the doctor has given us medicine, so that I am in a miserable way just now.
You could have fooled me, Gerard!
Matilda
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