Peace

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1879

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Poem Analysis

Themes

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Literary Devices

Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

“Duns Scotus’s Oxford” by George Manley Hopkins (1918)

Though it was published in his 1918 posthumous collection, Hopkins initially wrote “Duns Scotus’s Oxford” in 1879. Duns Scotus was a medieval philosopher who proved immensely influential for Hopkins. The poem opens by giving a contemporary description of Oxford and the surrounding natural landscape, and the speaker muses on his own connection to Duns Scotus by simply being present in Oxford and breathing the same air that the philosopher may have breathed himself.

“God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1945)

The influence of Hopkins’s Christian faith, specifically Roman Catholicism, is evident in this particular poem Hopkins wrote in 1877. Like his other poems, this text was collected and published in 1918 after Hopkins’s death. In the poem, the speaker muses on the destruction and disrepair the earth and nature have suffered at the hands of mankind. Despite this, however, nature is perpetual and regenerative, a reflection of God’s eternal nature.

“The Wreck of the Deutschland” by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1918)

Hopkins was inspired to write “The Wreck of the Deutschland” in 1875 after hearing of the Deutschland’s wreck while entering the Thames. Many lives were lost in the shipwreck; five nuns who perished were on their way to England after being cast out of their convent in Prussia. This was one of the first poems Hopkins wrote after burning his previous verses upon entering the Jesuit novitiate and declaring that he would no longer write poems unless permitted by his religious superiors.

Further Literary Resources

"‘What You Look Hard at Seems to Look Hard at You’: Metaphysics and the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins" by Dennis L. Sansom (2021)

The titular quote is one attributed to Hopkins, and one which Sansom states “suggests a proper relationship between philosophy and art.” Sansom aims to highlight how Hopkins’s poetry allows for various “metaphysical interpretations,” since he uses “language to inscape and ingress profound experiences of reality.” Hopkins’s poetry is, according to Sansom, useful for other philosophers to assist them in making their own interpretations of reality.

“Topological Poetics: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Nineteenth-Century Mathematics and the Principle of Continuity” by Imogen Forbes-Macphail (1977)

Forbes-Macphail begins her essay by describing the field of mathematics in the 19th century. The discipline of mathematics was changing, with descriptive geometry and topology emerging where the focus was “invariant properties of form which are preserved under different types of continuous transformation”. Forbes-Macphail notes a shift in the field of mathematics from quantitative to qualitative characteristics, and asserts that the same shift can also be seen in poetry produced in the nineteenth century. Forbes-Macphail focuses on Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poetry and claims his poetry “embodies a topological poetics at a number of different levels, from his theory of inscape and use of sprung rhythm through to his flexible sonnet forms and interests in philology”.

“Gerard Manley Hopkins: Sensuality and Spirituality in the Diaries and Journals" by Suzanne Stewart (2016)

Stewart stresses the importance of using Hopkins’s published personal writings in order to more fully appreciate his poetry and theological/philosophical beliefs. Stewart’s particular claim is that “Hopkins was working out his ideas in prose concerning the proper place of art and beauty in religious life long before he expressed the conviction in the sonnets.” Stewart believes that Hopkins’s prose works deserve just as much attention and focus as his poetry, as they serve as “prior evidence of his spiritually charged perceptual processes.” His prose works reflect what Hopkins would eventually focus on in his poems.