Gerald Manley Hopkins and the music of poetry
Abstract
This study attempts to
correlate
two facts
about
Gerard Manley Hopkins: that he
was
an avid musician, who
theorised
about and composed music; and that his
poetry
is
characterised by its highly
complex, evocative sounds and
by its
relation of
form to
meaning, sound
to
sense.
This
study
is
an attempt
to
prove
that Hopkins is a
"musical"
poet
in
a
specific and
literal
sense--that his
musical
knowledge
and
interests influenced his
poetry
in
specific and discernible
ways, making
his
work
"musical" in
a sense that other poetry
of
his
age
is
not
(or to
an extent
that
other poetry
is
not), and resulting
in
much of
what we consider
to be
characteristic
in his
verse.
The
study
is divided into two
parts,
the first (I-III)
analysing
the role music plays
in his theoretical
writings,
the
second
(IV-VI) tracing these
musical
influences through
to the
musical and poetic art
itself. In Part One, Chapter I
presents
Hopkins the
musician,
the
biographical details
and philosophical
background behind his
musical
interest; Chapter II
relates
this to Hopkins
as priest and
theologian, demonstrating
music's role as central
to
his Scotus-based
position;
Chapter III then
shows
this
musical philosophy
in
more
detail
in his theories of
language
and art, resulting
in
an
ideal
art of song epitomised
by the
art of
Hopkins' favourite
composer,
Henry Purcell. Part Two then looks
at
Hopkins' art
itself,
shown as
following this Purcellian
musical
ideal: Chapter IV differentiates the
requirements of songs
from those
of poetry, and
demonstrates the
particular aims and
techniques of
Hopkins'
own songs;
Chapter V
reveals principles of musical or song-structure
behind Hopkins' concepts of sprung rhythm and other characteristic poetic
devices; finally,
Chapter VI
analyses
the
poems to discover their
radically musical nature.
The
study concludes with a
brief
question on
the
nature of
"the
music of poetry" generally.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
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