Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in Stratford, in England, on July 28, 1844 (Poetry, 2001). He was the son of a prosperous and artistic family, and studied Classics at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1863. In 1866, two years after reading John Henry NewmanÆs ôApologia pro via sua,ö Hopkins was received into the Catholic Church by Newman, and shortly thereafter, decided to become a priest himself, much to his familyÆs displeasure (Poetry, 2001; Randall, 1996). Hopkins entered a Jesuit novitiate near London in 1867, and spent the next 9 years in training at Jesuit houses throughout England, finally being ordained in 1877. This was followed by seven years of preaching and teaching in London, Oxford, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Stonyhurst (Poetry, 2001). HopkinsÆ delicate health meant he could not take part in Church fasts, much to his annoyance, and the assessment of him by his superiors was that he did not fit in because his mind ôran in eccentric waysö (Randall, 1996)
Once he became a Jesuit, Hopkins burnt all the poetry he had written to that date, and did not write again until 1875, when a German ship, the Deutschland, was wrecked at the mouth of the Thames in a storm, killing many of the passengers, including five Franciscan nuns (Poetry, 2001). His poem about the shipwreck introduced a new poetic form, which Hopkins called ôspring rhythm.ö Hopkins became a professor of Greek at the Royal University of Dublin in 1884, but died five years later from typhoid fever, never having had any of his poetry published. He is buried in the Jesuit section of Glasnevin cemetery, in Dublin, Ireland (Kildare, 2003). It was not until 1918 that a volume of his works, ôPoems,ö was published (Poetry, 2001).
Hopkins is credited with developing new rhythmic effects in poetry, and in rejuvenating poetic language (Poetry, 2001). He is known for using familiar words in unfamiliar contexts, and using unusual
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