Gerard Manley Hopkins, A Selection of his Poems and Prose
Condition: GOOD
Publisher: Penguin
Publication date: 1961
First published 1953
Format: Paperback
Pages: 252
About the Book: (From the inside cover)
Since the posthumous works of Gerard Manley Hopkins first displayed their ‘plumage of far wonder and heavenward flight’ in the collection of 1918, which was edited by Robert Bridges, they have gone into a Third Edition and run through thirteen impressions. His prose has hitherto been published only in expensive volumes, two of which are now temporarily out of print. The present selection includes the forty-eight mature poems and thirteen of the best ‘unfinished poems and fragments’. These are preceded by four early pieces and also by the ‘Author’s Preface’, in which Hopkins explains his highly original prosody. Noted have been added to help the general reader to understand the poet’s thought and to elucidate further his sprung, counter-pointed, and ‘outriding’ rhythms. There are also three facsimiles of manuscript poems.
The prose passages have been taken mainly from the journals and letters, but they include a sermon and also extracts from a Platonic dialogue and a commentary. They have been chosen with the purpose of filling in the portrait of this Victorian Jesuit, whose personality and vision are as significant as his brilliant poetic technique. The editor’s critical and biographical Introduction stresses the importance of the poet’s theory of ‘inscape’ and ‘instress’ and aims generally at giving a certain unity to the whole selection.