Literary Birthday – 28 July – Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on 28 July 1844 and died on 8 June 1889.

Gerard Manley Hopkins Quotes

1. The poetical language of an age should be the current language heightened.
2. Your personal boundaries protect the inner core of your identity and your right to choices.
3. The effect of studying masterpieces is to make me admire and do otherwise.
4. It seems then that it is not the excellence of any two things (or more) in themselves, but those two things as viewed by the light of each other, that makes beauty.
5. Take breath and read it with the ears, as I always wish to be read, and my verse becomes all right.
6. What you look at hard seems to look at you.

Gerard Manley Hopkins was an English poet and Jesuit priest. Hopkins studied classics at Balliol College, Oxford from 1863 to 1867. He is considered to be one of the leading Victorian poets. Hopkins called his own rhythmic structure sprung rhythm. Sprung rhythm is structured around feet with a variable number of syllables, generally between one and four syllables per foot, with the stress always falling on the first syllable in a foot. His works are available in Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Major Works.

Source for image: Wikipedia page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

by Amanda Patterson
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