Gerard Manley Hopkins

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and works of Hopkins (1844-89), a Jesuit priest who at times burned his poems and at others insisted they should not be published. His main themes are how he, nature and God relate to each other. His friend Robert Bridges preserved Hopkins’ poetry and, once printed in 1918, works such as The Windhover, Pied Beauty and As Kingfishers Catch Fire were celebrated for their inventiveness and he was seen as a major poet, perhaps the greatest of the Victorian age.

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Guests

  • Catherine Phillips No other episodes
    R J Owens Fellow in English at Downing College, University of Cambridge
  • Jane Wright 2 episodes
    Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Bristol
  • Martin Dubois No other episodes
    Assistant Professor in Nineteenth Century Literature at Durham University

Reading list

  • Gerard Manley Hopkins
    Daniel Brown (Liverpool University Press, 2004) Google Books →
  • Rhythm and Will in Victorian Poetry
    Matthew Campbell (Cambridge University Press, 2008) Google Books →
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Poetry of Religious Experience
    Martin Dubois (Cambridge University Press, 2017) Google Books →
  • The Printed Voice of Victorian Poetry
    Eric Griffiths (Oxford University Press, 2018) Google Books →
  • The Major Works
    Gerard Manley Hopkins (ed. Catherine Phillips) (Oxford University Press, 2009) Google Books →
  • The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins
    Gerard Manley Hopkins (ed. Lesley Higgins) Google Books →
  • Faith in Poetry: Verse Style as a Mode of Religious Belief
    Michael D. Hurley (Bloomsbury, 2017) Google Books →
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins: Early Poetic Manuscripts and Notebooks vol. I
    Norman H. MacKenzie (ed.) (Garland Publishing, 1989) Google Books →
  • The Later Poetic Manuscripts vol. II
    Norman H. MacKenzie (ed.) (Garland Publishing, 1991)
  • The Poetical Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins
    Norman H. MacKenzie (Clarendon Press, 1990)
  • A Reader's Guide to Gerard Manley Hopkins
    Norman H. MacKenzie (St Joseph's University Press, 2008) Google Books →
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Very Private Life
    Robert Bernard Martin (Faber, 2011) Google Books →
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Major Works
    Catherine Phillips (ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2002)
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Victorian Visual World
    Catherine Phillips (Oxford University Press, 2007) Google Books →
  • Hopkins: A Literary Biography
    Norman White (Clarendon Press, 1992) Google Books →

Related episodes


Programme ID: m0003clk

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003clk

Auto-category: 821.8 (English poetry)

Hello (First sentence from this episode) Hello, Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1844 to 1889, has been called the greatest Victorian poet for his vivid imagery and his innovation with works such as The Windhover, Pied Beauty and As Kingfishers Catch Fire.