Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life

I bought this text because Paul Mariani wrote it. I've read Hopkins poetry for years and enjoyed what I could understand. Mariani showed me what I didn't understand and he placed each poem in its historical, biographical context. That helped. I'll read the book again. The book does take some work but it's worth the effort.

It has been some time now since I read Mariani's beautiful biography of Hopkins. So what remains in me is the emotion of the book. Wading into the first chapter, I remember how strange the style of writing felt to me. Mariani swung from staccato journalese in one chapter to flowing, florid poetical syntax the next. How strange, how different - now I wouldn't have it any other way. Later, I began having issues with Mariani the poet competing with Hopkins himself. I got over that in a hurry, I now wish all books were written so beautifully. Regarding Hopkins the man. I find so much beauty in him, so much transcendence, as well as a deliciously deep and flawed human being. The revelations about Hopkins' difficulties and perfectionism regarding his poetry; his having to gain the approval of the Jesuit censors and believing he should (and would) forego acclaim in his lifetime. What joy in pain. Reading of Hopkins' only love affair with his best friend was heart wrenching. So tragic, so lovely. Both the man and this book. The measure of all books in my opinion: I couldn't put it down. And in the end, I rued the fact that it was over (How could I ever find another book I loved as much?)and as all biographies end, this beautiful man, whom Mariani had helped me know and love, had died. I closed the cover after some time, tears flowing, a wretched smile on my face. I tend to believe that this will be the only book that I re-read in this lifetime. A Masterpiece!

In an immediate prose always in the present tense, Mariani distills forty years of research into a biography drawn from Hopkins' journals and correspondence. No critical detours, no theoretical jargon, only a sense of watching the poet labor and priest struggle. It's a scholarly work that reads like a novel. The highlights, a discussion of "The Wreck of the Deutschland" as the early breakthrough, and the late "Hericlitean fire" poem, show Hopkins consistently battling despair by insisting upon the sacramental vision that transforms the mundane by the example of the Incarnated God. Taking the trouble out of love to become flesh, Christ for Hopkins proves the "Real Presence" in the Eucharist that exemplifies the transformation of the natural into the divine. This, Mariani gracefully depicts, takes Hopkins out of the agnostic, Darwinian, mechanistic milieu of his Oxford peers into a bold decision to take the toughest path possible: to give up his security and his career prospects to become not only a Catholic but a Jesuit. The arduous years towards ordination do not end there; toiling in gritty, urban immigrant-poor parishes deprived Hopkins of his beloved countryside that in his studies in Wales brought him closest to what "Pied Beauty" and "God's Grandeur" convey memorably: the shattering of the norm by the intense arrival of God, transforming but remaining within our beautiful world. Mariani takes Hopkins' priestly vocation to show how he believed what he preached, lived, and promoted in poems that could not find any audience, and for long stretches as a Jesuit, Hopkins either denied himself or lacked the time or inspiration to write verse. He wore himself out young, dying at forty-four, of a typhoid flea's bite (or perhaps, Mariani suggests, what we know now as Crohn's disease). Hopkins in these pages remains, of course, a rather introverted, nervous, and conflicted man, fighting a lonely campaign against "acedia" and spiritual despair, shunted about from one dull assignment as a teacher or preacher to another in rapid fashion until at the ramshackle University College, Dublin, he's hired on the cheap as Jesuits will return their 400 pounds annual salary to the running of the institution! Hopkins wore out his talent in drudgery. He knew it, too. Reading about the 557 exams in Greek and Latin facing him one day to grade down to the eighth-of-a-point, his dreary lessons to bored undergrads, his failure to get even his one patient reader-- lifelong friend, future laureate and editor Robert Bridges-- to understand much of his formidably dense and amazingly original verse, Hopkins emerges as a saint for his willingness to keep on in a very anguished and solitary calling. His eccentricities make him more like us; his gifts separate his daring energy from us. He had a great knack for wordplay and punning; his comic verse as a young Jesuit sparkles. Arm wrestling, chasing a monkey on a roof, trying to mesmerize a duck so to study its beak, scruti

Paul Mariani has generously given us a magnificent gift. In exploring the life of Gerard Manley Hopkins, he has unveiled for us the interior life of this brilliant and eccentric poet-priest who could not (or would not) have his poetry published during his own lifetime. Mariani has waded through letters, journals, and sermons to give context for the life of this devout little man and to provide a setting for his poetry. The context at times feels tedious, but never boring. Each entry helps to build the life of this complex Jesuit priest. And together the entries provide a setting for Hopkins' poetry, which Mariani deals with in great length. Having done his doctoral work on Hopkins' poetry, he has a fine understanding of the poet's nuances, difficult enough for Hopkins' casual fans. I found his commentary to be very helpful in unpacking some of the obscure references in Hopkins' poetry. Further, Mariani utilizes Hopkins' own vocabulary and style at many points to provide interpretive material. Mariani writes prose with a poet's heart. I was most grateful that Mariani explored the spiritual foundations of Hopkins' life and poetry. Mariani was not shy about using Hopkins' own language to describe his struggle with God and Church. Most refreshing, Mariani wrote as an "insider." As a practicing Roman Catholic (with a Jesuit priest son), Mariani doesn't have to "borrow" spiritual language. It seems to me that Hopkins would be impossible to understand well apart from who he was as a man devoted to God. Mariani captures that devotion -- which was also a source of deep difficulty for Hopkins -- and struggle well. I recommend this book without reservation.

Portrayed in his fullness as poet, spiritualist and Roman Catholic Jesuit amid Victorian England--Hopkins steps out of these pages. You can feel him breathe. This biography cancels out all others.