The Wreck of the Deutschland

About Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) was one of the greatest English poets of the 19th century but published only one poem during his lifetime. His reputation dates from 1918 when Robert Bridges edited the first volume of his work for publication - although Robert Bridges had managed to include some of the poems in anthologies prior to that date. The edition of 750 copies sold out only after tenyears. Hopkins had written extensively as a young man but destroyed all of his poems upon becoming a Jesuit at the age of 24 and ceased to write for another seven years. His mature work is suffused with religion and melancholy but also deals powerfully with nature. More importantly the poetry is startlingly original many of the poems demonstrating his use of 'sprung rhythm' the influenceof Anglo-Saxon and Welsh verse and the avoidance of latinate vocabulary. He served as a priest in Oxford Manchester Liverpool and Glasgow. In 1884 he took up a position teaching Latin and Greek at University College Dublin and died in that city in 1889 after a bout of typhoid fever.Nigel Foxell was born in London in 1931. Also republished in recent years is A Sermon in Stone the author's pamphlet on John Donne's monument and epitaph in St Paul's Cathedral. Foxell is the author of five novels poetry and La Sardegna senza Lawrence (Aipsa Edizioni) which he then translated into English as Sardinia without Lawrence (Hearing Eye). He has also written perhapsthe longest guide to a village church: Amberley Church: A Critical Appreciation (2005).