One of the most prominent aspects of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s language is how vibrating his poems are when recited. And this comes from using repetition, alliteration and assonance, a feature already touched upon here. (full overview and general thoughts about the book here)
Another linguistic element that frequently appears in his sonnets is represented by coined words, such as: “leafmeal”, “quickgold”, the verbs “justices”, “twindles”, and many more.… Read more
As I’ve mentioned here, Gerard Manley Hopkins was completely unknown to me, and reading his work was a challenge, but a very satisfying one. Here I talk about the poems that stuck with me the most. They might not be the happiest ones, but they were the most striking ones to me. “Spring and Fall” captured a moment in childhood that brought back memories, “The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo” is exploring desolation in an astonishing beautiful manner, while “I wake and feel” and “No worst” are the quintessence of how it feels to despair.
I have no clear idea how to start talking about this book, other than it was a peculiar journey reading it. “As kingfishers catch fire” is a poetry collection by Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Victorian English poet and a Jesuit priest. Given this unusual combination, I first proceeded to find out more about the author.