Gerard Manley Hopkins was an English poet who was born in 1844 and died in 1889. Seven of his best-known poems are discussed in this study guide. Hopkins, who converted to Catholicism in 1866 and later became a Jesuit priest, is known for his poems’ devotion to God and to his highly innovative and original style. His works were largely unknown until a collection of his poems were posthumously published by his friend Robert Bridges, then the British Poet Laureate, in 1918.

Summary

Read seven of Gerald Manley Hopkins’s best-known poems along with a summary, discussion of form, and anlysis of each.

Literary Devices

Here is where you will find analysis of key themes, motifs, and symbols in the works discussed in Hopkins’s Poetry.

Deeper Study

Increase your understand of Hopkins’s Poetry by reading about Gerald Manley Hopkins’s life and influences and then read two mini essays about the poem “God’s Grandeur.”