Regarding the musicality of God’s Grandeur, my best friend, Pudinhand Wilson said, “It croaks like a syncopated frog pond—don’t you love it!”
We were enthusiastic about poetry back in high school. I think it was then Mr. Dick McCurdy, S.J., who made us memorize it.
It’s kind of hard to swallow the Holy Ghost thing, but obviously Hopkins was more interested in the warm breast part and the bright wings part.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. (wiki-link) was self tortured about (homo) sexual issues, poor guy. But heck, everyone’s got some sort of issues.
We were enthusiastic about poetry back in high school. I think it was then Mr. Dick McCurdy, S.J., who made us memorize it.
It’s kind of hard to swallow the Holy Ghost thing, but obviously Hopkins was more interested in the warm breast part and the bright wings part.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. (wiki-link) was self tortured about (homo) sexual issues, poor guy. But heck, everyone’s got some sort of issues.
I explain the weird imagery of God's Grandeur thusly: Father Hopkins put off saying his daily prayers, this was a weakness of his, because he was immersed in Popular Science type magazines.
He fell asleep in the middle of his prayers and God got mixed up with the oozing oil and crushed foil phenonema he'd been reading about.
Hopkins was a major innovator in English prosody. We salute the Society of Jesus for associating themselves with this great man.
Some kid wrote a diatribe (in verse, of course) against Hopkins’ rhythms. It went on and on, but I still remember the refrain:
Spring, sprang, sprung--
Hopkins, hold your tongue.
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