tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post2516416603880256293..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: How fast his firedint is gone - Hopkins, Heraclitus, and the residuary wormAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-8052457984685196082021-06-13T15:19:06.637-05:002021-06-13T15:19:06.637-05:00A debt to Duns Scotus does not help me much, I fea...A debt to Duns Scotus does not help me much, I fear.<br /><br />That ending, rereading it, yes, that's a big ending.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-6814273485655132022021-06-12T10:04:49.446-05:002021-06-12T10:04:49.446-05:00It's certainly no chore to me to read Hopkins....It's certainly no chore to me to read Hopkins. Beyond the visual information is his debt to Duns Scotus - we should remember that Yeats described Hopkins as a querulous scholar.<br /><br />The theological argument in a piece like this seems conventional, but the poetic argument probably isn't. The distance from matchwood to diamond could be crossed with a lot of geological bruising, - which seems to cut against the flash: light on the surface of a diamond? With its suggestion of instantaneous transformation -, but it is very subtle that Hopkins commemorates dead humans in terms of archeological traces ("potsherd"). Again, the diamond produces the visual impression of something brilliant shining amid a lot of waste (and reflecting a transforming flash). Tendilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02211191466522052539noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-38403779164605011492021-06-09T15:21:23.586-05:002021-06-09T15:21:23.586-05:00Thanks for reading this old thing.
I agree, a vis...Thanks for reading this old thing.<br /><br />I agree, a visual approach to Hopkins uncovers a lot of the meaning.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-49603508532457935712021-06-09T14:03:13.489-05:002021-06-09T14:03:13.489-05:00I think he joins words to pile in meaning: "s...I think he joins words to pile in meaning: "shivelights", "shadowtackle", "firedint" - rather than creating portmanteau words like Joyce. I definitely do see the Joycean spirit in his writing. <br /><br />Obviously, what's more powerful in Hopkins than in Joyce or Mallarmé is the visual dimension. For example with shivelights (fragments of light - shive is, say, a cornhead caught in wool) and shadowtackle you need to imagine a tree with the sun in it being shaken by the wind. Tendilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02211191466522052539noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-82476675559752433452021-06-09T13:55:37.206-05:002021-06-09T13:55:37.206-05:00I think he joins words to pile in meaning: "s...I think he joins words to pile in meaning: "shivelights", "shadowtackle", "firedint" - rather than creating portmanteau words like Joyce. I definitely do see the Joycean spirit in his writing. <br /><br />Obviously, what's more powerful in Hopkins than in Joyce or Mallarmé is the visual dimension. For example with shivelights (fragments of light - shive is, say, a cornhead caught in wool) and shadowtackle you need to imagine a tree with the sun in it being shaken by the wind. Tendilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02211191466522052539noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-14977504561463168642015-03-09T16:56:09.076-05:002015-03-09T16:56:09.076-05:00Yes, Donne maybe, writing poems that are little pu...Yes, Donne maybe, writing poems that are little puzzles. Except Hopkins uses more arcane clues.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-37007587662625513242015-03-09T14:42:52.629-05:002015-03-09T14:42:52.629-05:00I haven't read Hopkins in years, but this is t...I haven't read Hopkins in years, but this is the poem I remember, with its piling up of nouns and internal rhymes. I find his obscurity puzzling, since he doesn't seem to be trying to pack in more meaning (like Joyce) or more ambiguity (like Mallarmé). He seems to just want more commas and consonants. The alliterations do make it seem medieval, but he may also have been influenced by Donne, who could make tortured syntax seem like religious fervor. An odd poet, indeed... Doug Skinnerhttp://www.dougskinner.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-88412393284491041582015-03-08T21:23:49.914-05:002015-03-08T21:23:49.914-05:00I was surprised with this poem that Hopkins was so...I was surprised with this poem that Hopkins was so explicit about its parallel as a sermon.<br /><br />Miguel, Hopkins is far out. Bridges, who himself was once a major poet - now he is a minor poet, if not unread - is constantly accusing Hopkins of being incomprehensible, and Hopkins is thus constantly explaining individual lines and words. Thank goodness, says I.<br /><br />I do no think I have made clear that Hopkins was unpublished until long after his death. When they appeared in 1918, Modernist poets were ready for them.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-91528498284752854712015-03-08T18:48:10.933-05:002015-03-08T18:48:10.933-05:00I think I'd like to receive his letters; read ...I think I'd like to receive his letters; read his poems, not so much - I can't understand a single verse!LMRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08538873868140070018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-55621539877061413642015-03-08T17:16:38.064-05:002015-03-08T17:16:38.064-05:00Your mention of sermons reminds me that I have arg...Your mention of sermons reminds me that I have argued this in the past: many of his sonnets are thinly disguised sermons because he needed to share the Gospel in his singular, nearly heretical ways. R.T.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13220814349193561823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-86581219820734236312015-03-08T16:21:14.167-05:002015-03-08T16:21:14.167-05:00Hopkins has a strongly medieval quality that seems...Hopkins has a strongly medieval quality that seems to be temperamental rather than the result of study.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-16472114675743759242015-03-08T12:14:14.535-05:002015-03-08T12:14:14.535-05:00All is vanity leads me back to the extreme Old Eng...<i>All is vanity</i> leads me back to the extreme Old Englishness of him, both in the alliteration and also in those two-part compound words, and then I think of the similar harshness in the literature there, those people who describe their rotting bodies, or who reflect that life is fleeting, and that permanence only comes from the "Father in heaven."Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.com