37 pages 1 hour read

Gerard Manley Hopkins

The Windhover

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1918

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Introduction

“The Windhover”

  • Originally Published: 1918
  • Form/Meter: Sonnet/Sprung Rhythm
  • Literary Devices: Alliteration, Metaphor, Description, Juxtaposition, Allusion
  • Setting: Outdoors
  • Central Concern: Devotion to Christ and putting religion ahead of everything else
  • Potential Sensitivity Issues: This is a Christian poem about devotion to Jesus Christ

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poet

  • Bio: British poet born in 1844 in London; lived and wrote in the Victorian era; left the Anglican Church for Roman Catholicism while attending Oxford; joined the priesthood (Jesuit order) in 1877 after years of study; taught and wrote poetry during his tenure in Ireland at the Jesuits’ University College; died of typhoid in 1889; fame achieved posthumously with publication of his poems in 1918 by friend and fellow poet Robert Bridges
  • Other Works: “God’s Grandeur” (1918); “Pied Beauty” (1918); “The Wreck of the Deutschland” (1918)

THEMES

  • 1 - Awe
  • 2 - The Relationship Between the Natural and the Spiritual
  • 3 - Spiritual Epiphany

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