About Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) is a Victorian poet and Jesuit priest whose work is now a core part of the Leaving Cert English poetry course. Hopkins is best known for his innovative use of rhythm, compression, and intense imagery. He developed the concept of “sprung rhythm,” a way of shaping poetic lines to reflect natural speech and stress. His poems are dense but rewarding, combining a close love of nature with religious devotion and deep emotional honesty. Because of this, they suit poetry analysis that links sound, structure, and theme.

In God’s Grandeur, Hopkins insists that the divine presence charges the natural world even as industry scars it. The poem ends with renewal through the Holy Spirit, showing faith in resilience. The Windhover describes a falcon in flight, its beauty and control becoming a symbol of spiritual mastery and awe. Spring celebrates innocence and natural joy, but beneath the delight there is a note of fragility. Inversnaid turns attention to wild, untamed nature, asking readers to preserve what is untouched. I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day records despair and isolation in raw terms, presenting the speaker’s struggle with faith and identity.

For Leaving Certificate study, Hopkins requires close attention to sound as much as meaning. Alliteration, assonance, and rhythm carry emotional force. Students should quote short phrases and show how they compress meaning, whether through intense imagery, religious reflection, or a burst of natural description. His poems also work well for comparison. For example, the bleak voice of I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark can be paired with the hopeful close of God’s Grandeur, or the beauty of The Windhover can be set beside the preservationist plea in Inversnaid.

Key Themes & Style

• Nature and divinity: natural world as evidence of God’s power.
• Faith and despair: the struggle between belief and doubt.
• Innocence and fragility: moments of pure joy tinged with loss.
• Preservation: value of wild, untouched places.
• Craft: sprung rhythm, dense sound patterns, compressed imagery.