Volume III, Issue V, July 2015 ISSN 2321-7065 - SMART MOVES JOURNAL...

Volume III, Issue V, July 2015 – ISSN 2321-7065

Refereed (Peer Reviewed) Journal www.ijellh.com 755

The Grandeur of G. M. Hopkins’s “The Windhover”: An

Evaluation of the Poem As “The Best Thing [He] Ever Wrote”

Arup Ratan Chakraborty

Assistant Professor in English

Santal Bidroha Sardha Satabarshiki Mahavidyalaya

Goaltore, Paschim Medinipur

West Bengal

India

ABSTRACT:

―The Windhover‖ is perhaps the best poem of G. M. Hopkins. Hopkins himself called ―The

Windhover‖ ―the best thing I ever wrote‖. Written in 1877, it was published in 1918, when

the first volume of Hopkins‘s poems was brought out by his friend Robert Bridges, twenty-

nine years after the poet‘s death. This poem represents, in the best possible way, all the

artistic qualities of Hopkins. The poem is rich in secular and religious elements, imagery and

symbolism, structure and versification, and in the language and the tone. Though Hopkins

belonged to the Victorian Age, temperamentally he was a modern poet. His modernity in

―The Windhover‖ is evident in his verbal and metrical innovations, his use of ‗inscape‘ and

‗instress‘ and ‗sprung rhythm‘

KEYWORDS: ―The Windhover‖, G. M. Hopkins, Modernity, Inscape, Instress, Sprung

Rhythm



1. Introduction

Gerard Manley Hopkins‘s ―The Windhover‖ is one of the most discussed poems of

modern English literature. It commonly appears in anthologies and has lent itself to many

interpretations. Written in 1877, it was published in 1918, when the first volume of Poems of

Gerard Manley Hopkins was brought out by Robert Bridges, the friend of Hopkins, twenty-

nine years after the poet‘s death. During his lifetime (1844-89), Hopkins published few

poems. He never meant his poems to be published. Hopkins burnt all his poems on entering

the Jesuit novitiate; however, he had already sent some to Bridges who, with a few other

friends, was one of the few people to see many of them for some years. After Hopkins's death

they were distributed to a wider audience, mostly fellow poets, and in 1918 Bridges, by

then poet laureate, published a collected edition; an expanded edition, prepared by Charles

Williams, appeared in 1930, and a greatly expanded edition by W. H. Gardiner appeared in

1948 (eventually reaching a fourth edition, 1967, with N. H. Mackenzie). Hopkins called

―The Windhover‖ ―the best thing I ever wrote‖ (Hopkins 1953, 227). Windhover is another

name for the Common Kestrel.

―The Windhover‖ has been interpreted in various ways. But my attempt in this paper

would be to assess why Hopkins himself referred to this poem as his best work. This poem

represents, in the best possible way, all the artistic qualities of Hopkins. In the following

sections I shall try (i) to trace the origin of the poem and its theme, (ii) to analyse the

presence of secular and religious elements in it, (iii) to interprete the imagery and symbolism

of the poem, (iv) to analyse the structure and versification and (v) the language and the tone

of the poem. We should remember that although physically Hopkins belonged to the

Victorian Age, temperamentally he was much ahead of his time. His modernity means not

that he belongs, spiritually, to us, but that by transcending in great measure the dead

conventions of his contemporaries he is free of all ages and entombed by none. He has

probably engaged most attention as an explorer in prosody and an experimenter in

techniques. Hopkins‘s violations of grammar much offended Yvor Winters, who also

disputed his metrics. What Bridges, his closest friend and final edition, calls ‗blemishes‘

(Hopkins 1918, 97) in his poetry are essential to Hopkins‘s aim and achievement. In a letter

(dated 15 February 1879) to Robert Bridges, he says:

No doubt my poetry errs on the side of oddness. I hope in time to have a more

balanced and Miltonic style. But as air, melody, is what strikes me most of all in

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music and design in painting, so design, pattern, or what I am in the habit of

calling inscape is what I above all aim at in poetry. Now it is the virtue of design,

pattern, or inscape to be distinctive and it is the vice of distinctiveness to become

queer. This vice I have not escaped. (Abbot 1955, 38)

Hopkins obsession with originality is deep-laid It arises out of his basic belief about the

poetic nature: ―Every true poet, I thought must be original and the originality is a condition

of poetic genius‖ (Abbot 1956, 370). Hopkins‗s originality is two-fold – metrical and verbal.

Let‘s analyse ―The Windhover‖ to find out its greatness.

1. Analysis of “The Windhover”

2.1. Origin of the poem

Hopkins wrote ―The Windhover‖ at St. Beuno‘s College in North Wales in the spring

of 1877—he dated it ―May 30 1877‖

— and over a year later, on July 16 1878, he referred to

it as simply ―the Falcon sonnet‖ (Abbot 1955, 56).

It is probably the most accomplished

sonnet of that whole period. Its title, ―The Windhover‖ refers to a ‗Falcon‘, a bird of prey that

literally hovers in the wind to spy its quarry. Hopkins dedicated the poem ―To Christ our

Lord.‖1 This dedication was first added more than six-and-a-half years after the poem was

composed, and is not part of the original text. Another year later, on June 22 1879, he called

the poem ―the best thing I ever wrote,‖

but still did not mention ‗Christ.‘ The words ―To

Christ our Lord‖ were first added over four years after that, when Hopkins checked and

revised a copy of the poem made by his friend and fellow-poet Robert Bridges, a revision

made some time after mid-December 1883, most likely in 1884—over six-and-a-half

years after the poem‘s composition. I shall try to define in what way Hopkins sees the bird,

and what it comes to mean to him.

2.2. Poetic tension and Themes in “The Windhover”

―The Windhover‖ is a complex poem and needs some careful analysis to get to its

fullness, though even a first reading suggests a powerful poem, through its

dramatic images and strong rhythms.

It represents the fullest statement so far in Hopkins‘ verse of his inner conflict

between:

the world of created beauty and his love of it

the demands of a disciplined religious life, to which he feels called by the Creator.

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As in The Starlight Night, he seeks a resolution. Whether he finds it, or whether there remains

a still unresolved tension at the end will be one of the questions we need to face.

There are two interwoven themes, therefore, in the sonnet:

The beauty, variety and uniqueness of nature as depicted in the octave.

Christ‘s beauty in the sestet.

There is also an implied theme, Serving God, emerging at the end of the sonnet.

The interpretation of the poem revolves round how these three themes fit together, or whether

they are put in opposition to each other.

2. “The Windhover” as a religious poem

3.1. The subtitle of the poem

The poem is actually not to the bird at all; it is ‗To Christ our Lord‘, i.e. a religious

poem. The octave is certainly about the bird, trying to define its particular ‗inscape‘ or

identity, and the way it impacts him, its ‗instress‘. But in the sestet, Hopkins shifts his

ground, taking his eye off the bird and addressing Christ directly. The sestet in fact,

unusually, divides into two clear tercets:

one thinking of the beauty of Christ as opposed to the beauty of the bird;

the other, seeing in what way Christ‘s beauty is beautiful, and, more to the point, how

an apparently ordinary religious life could share in that beauty.

This is a challenge for us, too, as modern readers, since we talk easily enough about beautiful

women or landscapes, but not about beauty in ordinary, unglamorous things. We have to

remember that the Victorians, as heirs to the Romantics, had a much more fully worked

out aesthetic , which they were not afraid to apply to religion, or even to a mathematical

proof.

3.2. Inscape and Instress in “The Windhover”

An important element in his work is Hopkins's own concept of ‗inscape‘ which was

derived, in part, from the medieval theologian Duns Scotus. The exact detail of ‗inscape‘ is

uncertain and probably known to Hopkins alone but it has to do with the individual essence

and uniqueness of every physical thing. This is communicated from an object by its ‗instress‘

and ensures the transmission of the item's importance in the wider creation. His poems would

then try to present this ‗inscape‘ so that a poem like ―The Windhover‖ aims to depict not the

bird in general but it becomes a metaphor for Christ.

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The terms inscape and instress are coined by Hopkins. There is no single definition or

explanation of these terms as the journals which he wrote were never meant for publication.

The prefix ‗-in‘ emphasizes the inner core of distinctiveness, i.e., the ‗self‘ in all things. The

word ‗scape‘ as in ‗landscape‘ suggests the vastness or a total view. Thus, while

comprehending a thing in its totality, Hopkins perceived its inner distinctiveness. It is a mode

of perception, a moment of concentrated awareness which helped him to feel the essence of

being embedded in other creatures or objects. This is what Duns Scotus, the English

theologician of the thirteenth century called ‗haeccitas‘ or ‗thisness‘ in a thing.

The word ‗instress‘ is used to mean the energy that is inherent in and sustains all

things. It is also the force of stress that is waiting to discharge itself into the heart of the

devotee. It is a moment of spiritual insight after the heightened mood of inscape. It can also

come suddenly like a shower of blessing. ―The Windhover‖ begins with the inscape of the

bird in its flight and as admiration mounts to adoration, the bird becomes a metaphor for

Christ. That is the moment of instress.

In the octave, Hopkins has been watching a falcon soaring and swooping in the

morning air, marveling at the bird‘s skill and grace. The windy conditions do not seem to

bother the bird, who seems in total control of all his ecstatic movements. Hopkins‘ ‗heart in

hiding‘ is deeply moved by the sight, yet this reaction distresses him.

In the sestet he seems to want to regain his composure, ‗here buckle‘. He can only do

this by turning to Christ and declaring:

that ‗the fire that breaks from the then‘ is both more lovely and more challenging

such fire is hidden, but breaks out from the ordinary surface appearance of things to

reveal itself

the implication is that the bird‘s beauty is merely physical, and Hopkins‘ response to

it merely physical

the deeper beauty is spiritual, often hidden underneath a dull physical appearance.

There is the implication, however, in ‗fall‘ and ‗gash‘, that he is thinking more specifically

about Christ‘s crucifixion, where his self-sacrifice must be defined as the ultimate spiritual

beauty:

this self-sacrificing love then becomes the mark of all human spiritual beauty.

3.3. Creation signifies its creator.

The problem lies in the word ‗Buckle!‘ which has several quite different meanings:

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crumple, or give in or buckle under pressure. The moment of instress is often

described as the moment when the pressure of grace discharges a spiritual energy into

the devotee. Therefore it could mean that the two levels of metaphor are fused and the

bird becomes Christ.

the above interpretation assumes the word means ‗buckle down, or under‘, ‘get

control of‘

but ‗buckle‘ can also mean to fasten together, as with a belt.

If this is so, then the interpretation has more to do with admitting the way strength, beauty

and skill all come together in a unique inscape. The bird, as a created being, then becomes a

sign of its creator.

In Christian theology, Christ was present at creation, and therefore could be seen as

its creator, or the way through which creation came (‗God... by his Son...through whom he

made the universe.‘ Hebrews 1:2, New International Version of Bible).

Hopkins then has to think of how he, as priest, can live out his uniqueness, which may well

be by ‗sheer plod‘ rather than the soaring arcs of the bird.

3. Imagery and symbolism in “The Windhover”

4.1. Chivalric sport

The main image of the octave is the kestrel as knight. As hawking and falconry are

aristocratic, medieval sports, it is appropriate for Hopkins to use both images and diction that

reflect this. Since medieval aristocratic life was basically conducted in French, so are the

terms used:

‗minion‘, meaning ‗darling‘ rather than ‗servant‘ in medieval French;

‗dauphin‘, the heir apparent to the French throne;

‗wimpling‘ from ‗wimple‘ a medieval head covering, still worn by nuns;

‗rung‘ and ‗rein‘ both suggest falconry and releasing the bird whilst riding.

So the bird appears noble, proud, as well as totally skilful.

In the sestet, Christ is addressed as knight, using the same medieval terminology as in

the octave. Whilst seeing Christ as a knight is not exactly biblical, many medieval poems did

see Christ in this way (e.g. an Old English poem ―The Dream of the Rood‖). More

significantly, Jesuit spirituality saw Christ as the supreme chevalier, whilst Jesuit priests were

seen as Christ‘s soldiers.

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4.2. Physical freedom

Hopkins introduces a second image in the octave: that of skating, another sport that

demands skill and grace and strength in equal measure. Here he is thinking of the sweeping

movements of the bird through the air. Implicit in both images is the idea of physical

freedom, of being without borders, and also of display. The bird is unselfconsciously showing

off his skill.

4.3. Fire

The sestet lacks such cohesive images. There is the sudden emergence of ‗fire‘:

‗the fire that breaks from..‘ might suggest volcanic activity

however the last two lines suggest more an apparently dying fire, which when stirred,

breaks out into flame again, though that would not seem very ‗dangerous‘.

The dangerous fire is either:

God‘s glory, which is too fierce for man to look on,

‗the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory‘

(2 Corinthians 3:7 New International Version of Bible), a glory he had from contact with

God on Mount Sinai:

‗When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant and they were afraid

to come near him.‘ (Exodus 34:30 New International Version of Bible)

or electric fire from an arc.

4.4. Ploughing

The final two images pull the sestet together. The image of ploughing, a humble, non-

glamorous activity, is made to seem something special by the use of ‗sillion‘ another

medieval word meaning furrow (but rhyming with much grander French-sounding words

‗billion‘ and ‗vermilion‘) and the image of the shining earth as it is turned by the plough.

In a sermon, Hopkins refers to the humble period of Christ‘s life, when he was a

carpenter at Nazareth, before his ministry began, as ‗the great help to faith‘. In a letter to

Canon Dixon he writes: ―We (Jesuits) cultivate the commonplace outwardly, and wish the

beauty of...the soul to be all from within‖ (Sulloway, 112). This doesn‘t mean he found it

easy.

4.5. Glowing embers

The final image of the fire stirred, its embers glowing gold and hot again, represents a

beauty in miniature, as well as domestic and relaxed comfort, which stands in strange tension

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to the thought of Christ‘s wounds. Yet the mixture of earth and fire in these two final images

could be seen to symbolise body and spirit. In an essay, Hopkins wrote that the unique

blending of these two elements constituted man‘s inscape. The images of the sestet are less

obvious than those of the octave, this movement from simple octave to difficult sestet

echoing ―The Starlight Night‖.

5. Structure and versification in “The Windhover”

5.1. Sonnet structure of “The Windhover”

The sonnet structure is one of Hopkins‘ most elaborate, as is his use of sprung

rhythm. Each line could be examined in detail, but we shall be selective here. Basically the

poem is a Petrarchan sonnet, rhyming abbaabba cdcdcd, a very traditional rhyme scheme.

The sestet is divided into two tercets - again this is not unusual in Petrarchan sonnets. The

octave is not quite evenly divided: the first quatrain runs over into the fifth line with ‗In his

ecstasy!‘, but that in itself is not remarkable.

5.2. Use of Sprung Rhythm

Sprung Rhythm, as used in this poem, is measured by feet of from one to four

syllables, regularly, and for particular effects any number of weak or slack syllables may be

used. It has one stress, which falls on the only syllable, if there is only one, if there are more,

then scanning as above, on the first, and so gives rise to four sorts of feet, a monosyllable and

the so-called accentual Trochee, Dactyl, and the First Paeon.

What is remarkable is the use of the Sprung Rhythm to try to recreate the bird‘s flight, with

its sweeps, stops and dives. Hopkins‘ theory allows him to do things to the traditional iambic

pentameter, the typical sonnet line form:

He can add extra stresses to it, forming extra feet. Sometimes he calls these

‗outriders‘, i.e. outside the normal scansion; sometimes they are merely extra stressed

monosyllables, or spondees

He can add extra unstressed syllables, so technically keeping the line to five stressed

syllables.

He also sets up counterpointing in various ways, so the musical possibilities open to

him are numerous, and in this sonnet, they really work for him.

Sprung Rhythm is the most natural of things. He tabulates the reasons:

(1) it is the rhythm of common speech and of written prose, when rhythm is perceived in

them.(2) It is the rhythm of all but the most monotonously regular music, so that in the words

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of choruses and refrains and in songs written closely to music it arises. (3) It is found in

nursery rhymes, weather saws, and so on; because, however these may have been once made

in running rhythm, the terminations having dropped off by the change of language, the

stresses come together and so the rhythm is sprung. (4) It arises in common verse when

reversed or counterpointed, for the same reason. (Hopkin1918, 5-6).

5.3. Flight conveyed

In the first few lines, we can see the effect of the bird‘s soaring through the

continuous run-on lines. The first sentence fills most of the octave, with only an exclamation

mark to indicate any significant pause. Where else we pause is largely up to us, according to

how we respond to the counterpointing. It is obvious that ‗king‘ in ‗I caught this

morning morning‘s minion, king- / dom of daylight‘s dauphin‘ is more than just

the first syllable of ‗kingdom‘. The ‗windhover‘ becomes a symbol of Christ, its

outstretched ‗wimpling‘ wings like outstretched arms on the cross: it becomes a

symbol of Christ as ‗king‘.

5.4. Metre of “The Windhover”

The metre of ‗The Winhover‘ can be analysed in the following way:

The iambic pentameter is quite regular in the first line.

In the second line the first and last feet are anapaestic, that is, still a rising metre. but

what do we do with the middle of the line: ‗dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon‘?

Each of the alliterating syllables really needs a stress, as does the ‗Fal-‘.

We have to conclude ‗dawn‘ and ‗drawn‘ are extra spondees, giving the line

seven stresses rather than five.

When we see the internal rhymes and assonance here, too, with the long ‗aw‘

sound, it makes the line very long indeed.

However the hyphenating invites us to read the phrase quickly.

This is a good example of counterpointing.

In the third line, ‗rolling‘ is quite onomatopoeic, and the rhythm suggests evenness,

every syllable being of much the same length and stress. Even so, that will give us

seven feet again, if we put a secondary stress on ‗neath‘. We could rush the

‗underneath him‘, or see it as an ‗outrider‘, which would get us back to the five

regular beats. Also the last unstressed syllable ‗-ing‘ really belongs to the iambic

metre of the next line.

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By contrast to these expansive lines, we suddenly hit l.7 which is economical, barely

making five feet, but then lengthening out again to the climactic eighth line.

In the sestet, Hopkins actually marks in certain stresses for us:

‗sheer‘ and ‗plod‘. He doesn‘t want the stress to be shared between then, as perhaps it

should be in ‗blue-bleak‘.

To keep the rest of the line in order, we then have to see ‗of it‘ as extra unstressed

syllables

‗down‘ as an unstressed syllable, a preposition or adverb perhaps. But is that how we

really read ‗down‘? What does the word really mean? We could argue over this.

In the last line the internal rhymes ‗Fall‘ and ‗gall‘ each demand a stress, slowing the

line right down like a brake.

There is a further application of the brake in ‗gash‘, ‗gold‘ again both stressed

The whole poem then comes to an emphatic stop.

6. Language and tone in “The Windhover”

6.1. Stress and alliteration

The language is so complex that every word could be commented on. There are a

number of imagistic words associated with nobility, in contrast to the humility of ploughing

and embers.

Hopkins makes us ultra-aware of his words by other means:

many are monosyllabic and call for a clear stress.

many are formed into alliterative patterns - the first line of the sestet mirrors the same

line in The Starlight Night: a long list of monosyllabic nouns with a pause or caesura:

‗Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here‘. Caesura is a pause,

often indicated in text by a comma or full stop, during a line of blank verse. After a

caesura, the sense of the line may well run on without a pause at the end into the next

line.

6.2. Interjections

The first line contains at least seven stresses, and the interjection of ‗oh‘ creates a

deliberate pause to draw special attention to the next words. The interjection is repeated in ‗O

my chevalier!‘ a subordinate addressing someone in authority.

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‗O‘ often has an idea of desire, too, just as ‗ah‘ often has an idea of comfort or pity, as in ‗ah

my dear‘.

6.3. Word clusters and repetition

Hopkins uses word clusters, as in The Starlight Night:

‗dapple-dawn-drawn‘

‗rolling level underneath him steady air‘ which works more like a German multiword

‗blue-bleak‘

‗gold-vermilion‘.

He also uses repetitions:

‗off, off‘

‗morning morning‘s‘ is perhaps the most eye-catching and dramatic.

Other verbal features of the poem are:

The ‗I caught‘ of the first line really comes to mean ‗: I was caught by….‘

There are also word-breaks, where a word appears strung over the end of a line into

the next, an internal enjambement (the technique used in blank verse and other verse

forms in which the sense of a line runs on without a pause to the next one; this often

gives a sense of greater fluency to the lines), as in ‗king-/dom‘.

Lastly we need to note the spelling of ‗AND‘, which has to mean ‗and yet‘ or ‗what is

more‘.

Conclusion

This poem follows the pattern of so many of Hopkins‘s sonnets, in that a sensuous

experience or description leads to a set of moral reflections. Part of the beauty of the poem

lies in the way Hopkins integrates his masterful description of a bird‘s physical feat with an

account of his own heart‘s response at the end of the octave. However, the sestet has puzzled

many readers because it seems to diverge so widely from the material introduced in the

octave. The confusing grammatical structures and sentence order in this sonnet contribute to

its difficulty, but they also represent a masterful use of language. Hopkins blends and

confuses adjectives, verbs, and subjects in order to echo his theme of smooth merging: the

bird‘s perfect immersion in the air, and the fact that his self and his action are inseparable.

Note, too, how important the ‗-ing‘ ending is to the poem‘s rhyme scheme; it occurs in verbs,

adjectives, and nouns, linking the different parts of the sentences together in an intense unity.

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A great number of verbs are packed into a short space of lines, as Hopkins tries to nail down

with as much descriptive precision as possible the exact character of the bird‘s motion.

―The Windhover‖ is written in ‗Sprung Rhythm‘. This technique allows Hopkins to

vary the speed of his lines so as to capture the bird‘s pausing and racing. Listen to the

hovering rhythm of ―the rolling level underneath him steady air,‖ and the arched brightness

of ―and striding high there.‖ The poem slows abruptly at the end, pausing in awe to reflect on

Christ.

―The Windhover‖ also illuminates some of Hopkins‘s thoughts on poetry‘s purpose,

as well as its rhythm and style. For Hopkins, being able to glimpse the inner form of things—

as the ashen ember breaking open and revealing the glowing gold—is a special gift of the

poet, courtesy of God the Maker. He coined the words instress and inscape, adapting these

ideas from the medieval theologian Duns Scotus. Duns Scotus himself theorized the

importance of haeccitas, or ‗thisness,‘ in God‘s creation. The poet, then, sees through mere

appearance to the particularity and freshness of every living thing. This belief also guided

Hopkins to new metrical practices: he invented Sprung Rhythm, which loosened the

definition of meter by counting only stressed syllables in a line. Hopkins thought it gave

poetry a more natural, energetic, and colloquial sound and allowed the poet to avoid a

plodding iambic singsong rhythm. Thus we find Hopkins in ―The Winhover‖ pushing out the

boundaries of English poetry in a way that modern poets made much use of. Much of

Hopkins‘s historical importance has to do with the changes he brought to the form of poetry,

which ran contrary to conventional ideas of metre. All these qualities indeed make ―The

Windhover‖ the best poem Hopkins ever wrote.

Note:

I have taken the text from The Poetical Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Ed. Norman H.

MacKenzie Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990; page 144.

http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=173667



Works Cited:

Abbot, Claude Coller, ed. Further Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins including his

Correspondence with Coventry Patmore. London: Oxford University Press, 1956.

Print.

---. The Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins to Robert Bridges. London: Oxford University

Press,

1955. Print.

Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Ed. W. H. Gardner.

London: Penguin group, 1953. Print.

---. Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Ed. Robert Bridges .London: Humphrey Milford,

1918.

Print.

Sulloway, Alison G. Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Victorian temper. London: Routledge

&

Kegan Paul Ltd, 1972. Print.

Web References:

http://crossref-it.info/textguide/gerard-manley-hopkins-selected-poems/6/742

https://prezi.com/gwk_hcivzchj/windhover-hopkins/

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