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readordie68's review against another edition
4.0
At his best, Hopkins speaks with thrilling freshness that opens to the reader the world anew. To use his taxonomy, Hopkins' "Poetry" is magnificent and vivid, while his "Parnassian" is at times a precocious and self-indulgent plod.
moniwicz's review against another edition
2.0
The bottom line - obscure and overly complex, even for straightforward descriptions. An exhausting glut of poems on “the natural world.”
Hopkins was one of those English poets and artists of the 19th Century who “followed Cardinal Newman into the Church.” I recently read The Toys by Coventry Patmore, who was identified as “the first important English poet to follow Cardinal Newman into the Church” (1864). I don’t know how many important English Poets there were in the day (or how many were left stranded in Anglicanism) but I am presuming that leaves Hopkins as the second or third.
: Emily Augusta Andrews (1824-1862), John Everett Millais, the wife of Patmore and the subject of his romantic lyrical poem “Angel in the House” after her death. The bachelor Coventry was left with 6 children.
A man of the senses - nothing escapes his notice. He described the beingness of things around them and wants to describe them to others, and exploits his invention of "inscape" and "instress" to the maximum. Cryptic, unintelligible - even in "Tom’s Garland", a poem where he is literally meant to just be describing this guy, Tom, is absolutely impossible.
This edition included not only Manley's poetry, but his prose, diary entries, and selected letters. This was much more enjoyable. When he signed off “believe me your affectionate son” I thought was this was in reference to some incredulity or anger of his parents (they were not fans of his conversion), but later came to realise, after his letters to his friends (“believe me, your affectionate friend”) that this was his style, and I am thinking of adopting it.
I will say, that apart from the drudgery of descriptions of trees (and spending much time figuring out that maybe, yes, it is a tree he is talking about) there is a letter addressed to (the later cardinal, then saint) Rev John Henry Newman from 1866, begging if he could be itroduced to him at The Birmingham Oratory. "His mind is made up" and he is “anxious to become a Catholic” with desperate fervour, nevertheless having “long foreseen where the only consistent position wd. lie")… etc etc. I am completely charmed by this letter! I read it at least three times!
I didn't get bored by all of the the poems. But in general this was my overall feeling. Of note was where he describes Christ with his habitus, his face, his personality. Of course, this is important. Christ was flesh. When we describe another man we usually start off with how he looks. Manley described the feeling of "being oneself" and rejoices in God’s creation.
Also Manley really really likes Purcell's music. Like really.
Hopkins was one of those English poets and artists of the 19th Century who “followed Cardinal Newman into the Church.” I recently read The Toys by Coventry Patmore, who was identified as “the first important English poet to follow Cardinal Newman into the Church” (1864). I don’t know how many important English Poets there were in the day (or how many were left stranded in Anglicanism) but I am presuming that leaves Hopkins as the second or third.
: Emily Augusta Andrews (1824-1862), John Everett Millais, the wife of Patmore and the subject of his romantic lyrical poem “Angel in the House” after her death. The bachelor Coventry was left with 6 children.
A man of the senses - nothing escapes his notice. He described the beingness of things around them and wants to describe them to others, and exploits his invention of "inscape" and "instress" to the maximum. Cryptic, unintelligible - even in "Tom’s Garland", a poem where he is literally meant to just be describing this guy, Tom, is absolutely impossible.
This edition included not only Manley's poetry, but his prose, diary entries, and selected letters. This was much more enjoyable. When he signed off “believe me your affectionate son” I thought was this was in reference to some incredulity or anger of his parents (they were not fans of his conversion), but later came to realise, after his letters to his friends (“believe me, your affectionate friend”) that this was his style, and I am thinking of adopting it.
I will say, that apart from the drudgery of descriptions of trees (and spending much time figuring out that maybe, yes, it is a tree he is talking about) there is a letter addressed to (the later cardinal, then saint) Rev John Henry Newman from 1866, begging if he could be itroduced to him at The Birmingham Oratory. "His mind is made up" and he is “anxious to become a Catholic” with desperate fervour, nevertheless having “long foreseen where the only consistent position wd. lie")… etc etc. I am completely charmed by this letter! I read it at least three times!
I didn't get bored by all of the the poems. But in general this was my overall feeling. Of note was where he describes Christ with his habitus, his face, his personality. Of course, this is important. Christ was flesh. When we describe another man we usually start off with how he looks. Manley described the feeling of "being oneself" and rejoices in God’s creation.
Also Manley really really likes Purcell's music. Like really.
jessen's review against another edition
5.0
Update: still a full 5 stars! His poems are undeniably rich and beautiful, certainly worthy of reading again and again.
Original review: I just finished this collection, and I've already started the book over to read through his poetry again. Needless to say, I have definitely found my new favorite poet. His writing is so vivid, beautiful, and unexpected that his meaning and the emotion his poetry elicits are even more effective, since you've had to ponder his words. I know the same could (should) be said for a lot of poetry, but his is distinctive in a way I haven't put my finger on yet- and it's refreshing. Hopkins himself said in a letter to his friend, "why, sometimes one enjoys and admires the very lines one cannot understand… " His poetry is full of awe at the created world, and often of sorrow, which to me is a marker of his personal experience of human nature and of God. His poetry reads like an excess of emotion which just bubbled out of him- his imagery is almost startlingly beautiful- so it was interesting at the end to read his notes on how precise he was with his sprung rhythm and the technical correctness of his poetry. It reads as though it was effortless. I absolutely recommend!
Original review: I just finished this collection, and I've already started the book over to read through his poetry again. Needless to say, I have definitely found my new favorite poet. His writing is so vivid, beautiful, and unexpected that his meaning and the emotion his poetry elicits are even more effective, since you've had to ponder his words. I know the same could (should) be said for a lot of poetry, but his is distinctive in a way I haven't put my finger on yet- and it's refreshing. Hopkins himself said in a letter to his friend, "why, sometimes one enjoys and admires the very lines one cannot understand… " His poetry is full of awe at the created world, and often of sorrow, which to me is a marker of his personal experience of human nature and of God. His poetry reads like an excess of emotion which just bubbled out of him- his imagery is almost startlingly beautiful- so it was interesting at the end to read his notes on how precise he was with his sprung rhythm and the technical correctness of his poetry. It reads as though it was effortless. I absolutely recommend!
livtredre's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.25
caterpillarnotebooks's review against another edition
5.0
i am sorry but hopkins is one of my favorite poets writing in english & "moonrise" is one of the best poems in history... "parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of slumber" are you seeing this shit nicki minaj
bartlebybleaney's review against another edition
1.0
People pretend to enjoy Hopkins because they're told to. They're told to because it serves certain schools that have to be propped up artificially because they cannot stand on their own. Hopkins could have been a good poet if he'd bothered writing poetry. Instead, he fuddled about with obscurity and novelty, making himself a cause for future destroyers to take up in order to bolster their own nonsense. Anyone who says they like this stuff can be safely ignored and their opinions on any other poet dismissed out of hand.
gh7's review against another edition
3.0
Hopkins' poems, especially when read aloud, are often astounding feats of musicality. Like the written equivalent of beads of light flickering to nature's pulse on the gossamer strands of a spiderweb. Apparently he pioneered a technique known as sprung rhythm and in his best poems every word does exactly that - springs rhythm, creating a kind of hypnotic ring of enchantment around his subject. Mostly he writes about nature and God. His nature poems had my full attention; his God poems rather less so.
Hopkins' prose bored me silly. Firstly, we get extracts from a journal and almost immediately I got a sense of a man hiding from himself. He appears to have no inner life. Or as if it's something he's concreted over. There's a lot of sensibility responding to nature but it's kind of hollow when there's so little personality attached to the voice. The letters that follow are even more bereft of inspiration or life. He comes across as a varnished surface. Talks complacently about Empire as if it's a rose garden that has to be maintained with diligence. The most emotional he ever gets is when he becomes mildly indignant at a kindly vicar who unprompted, sends one of Hopkins' poems to a local newspaper.
Hopkins became a Catholic priest and destroyed all his early poems. The Catholic church, in his imagination at least, then functioned as a kind of censor on what he wrote. At the end of the day, you're either a poet or poetry is a hobby of yours. Hopkins seems caught up in this dilemma and perhaps it eventually caused him to be less of a poet than he should have been. A natural gift he has in abundance. One wishes he forged for himself a much more interesting and courageous life. Instead he chose to pinch and squeeze himself into the embodiment of Victorian starch, formality and repression. Shelley or Byron he is not.
Hopkins' prose bored me silly. Firstly, we get extracts from a journal and almost immediately I got a sense of a man hiding from himself. He appears to have no inner life. Or as if it's something he's concreted over. There's a lot of sensibility responding to nature but it's kind of hollow when there's so little personality attached to the voice. The letters that follow are even more bereft of inspiration or life. He comes across as a varnished surface. Talks complacently about Empire as if it's a rose garden that has to be maintained with diligence. The most emotional he ever gets is when he becomes mildly indignant at a kindly vicar who unprompted, sends one of Hopkins' poems to a local newspaper.
Hopkins became a Catholic priest and destroyed all his early poems. The Catholic church, in his imagination at least, then functioned as a kind of censor on what he wrote. At the end of the day, you're either a poet or poetry is a hobby of yours. Hopkins seems caught up in this dilemma and perhaps it eventually caused him to be less of a poet than he should have been. A natural gift he has in abundance. One wishes he forged for himself a much more interesting and courageous life. Instead he chose to pinch and squeeze himself into the embodiment of Victorian starch, formality and repression. Shelley or Byron he is not.