{\b Gerard Manley Hopkins}.

{\b Date of Birth}.: 28 July 1844

{\b Date of Death}.: 8 June 1889

{\b Works}.

The Wreck of the Deutschland  (1876), Poems  (fourth edition, 1967) edited by 
W.H. Gardner and N.H. Mackenzie, Journals and Papers of G.M. Hopkins  (2 
volumes, 1959) edited by H. House and G. Storey. 
 
{\b Featured Works}.

'Heaven-Haven', 'Pied Beauty', 'The Windhover', 'In the Valley of the Elwy', 
'Felix Randal', 'Harry Ploughman', 'Spring', 'Duns Scotus's Oxford', 'The 
Starlight Night', 'Inversnaid', '[As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw 
Flame]', 'Binsley Poplars', '[Carrion Comfort]', 'God's Grandeur', 'The Habit of 
Perfection', '[I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day]', '[My Own Heart Let Me 
More Have Pity On]', '[No Worst, There Is None. Pitched Past Pitch of Grief]', 
'Spring and Fall', '[Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord ...]'.

{\b General Comment}.

Priest and poet, G.M. Hopkins was born at Stratford in Essex, the eldest of 
eight children. His father ran a successful marine insurance business in 
London. The family moved to Hampstead in 1852. Hopkins attended Highgate 
School where he demonstrated great academic and artistic talent, and where he 
won a prize for his first surviving poem, 'The Escorial'. In 1863 he entered 
Balliol College, Oxford where he was a pupil of Walter Pater. He wrote much 
poetry during this time including 'Heaven-Haven' and 'The Habit of 
Perfection'. He obtained a first in his degree. In 1866 he converted to 
Catholicism. After graduation he taught for a while and in 1868 became a 
Jesuit novice at Roehampton until 1870. He then went on to study at 
Stoneyhurst (1870-3) and was ordained priest in 1877.

Saddened by the loss of the ship the Deutschland  in December 1875, which had 
seven Franciscan nuns exiled for their faith among its passengers, Hopkins 
wrote his most ambitious poem, The Wreck of the Deutschland  (1876). It was 
rejected by the Jesuit journal The Month  as it was considered too difficult 
for its readers. It was while studying for his ordination in 1877 that he 
wrote some of his best-known and talented poems including 'The Windhover' and 
'Pied Beauty'. 'Inversnaid' was written during a brief period in Glasgow 
having visited Loch Lomond. In 1884 he was appointed Professor of Greek at 
University College, Dublin. He was overwhelmed by his academic and 
administrative responsibilities there and became very ill and depressed. In 
1885 he wrote a number of the so-called 'terrible sonnets' such as 'Carrion 
Comfort' and 'No Worst, There Is None' which have desolation at their core. In 
his last years he wrote 'Harry Ploughman' and 'That Nature is a Heraclitean 
Fire', and 'Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord' (March 1889). He died of typhoid fever 
in June 1889 without ever publishing any of his poems.