Setting aside for a moment Mauriac's religious beliefs (and it is fully possible to enjoy his work without sharing his sect) Francois Mauriac was an amazingly skillful writer. His short novels are stylistically conservative-- a straightforward realism rules--and, as far as I know, always comparatively short. But within those formal limits, his ability to offer believable and thoughtful moral dramas without ever lapsing into tendentiousness is remarkable. They have their own sort of gravity, a seriousness that reminds me, oddly enough, of George Eliot, though one of Eliot's works is about as long as 8 or 9 of Mauriac's. Technically what I most admire is Mauriac's ability to represent the passing of time. Even "represent" is too distant a word really; it's as if he captures the sensation of passing time. This edition is a great bargain. It offers a large selection of the complete texts of several important works at a reasonable price. If people 100 years from now are still reading novels they're going to wonder what sort of morons we were to allow such accomplished works to fall into such relative obscurity.

Mauriac's writings are beautiful, Christian, and highly charged emotionally, without succumbing to sentimentalism. The French countryside, the bougoise, are both transformed by Mauriac into celestial images of piercing love. This work contains four of his best novels, including the absolutely brilliant "Woman of the Pharisees" and tragically dark "Genetrix." Francois Mauriac is one of the greatest Christian authors of the 20th or any century, and The Mauriac Reader a superb introduction to his craft. In short, if you love literature, get this one.

THE POEMS OF GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS. Fourth Edition based on the First Edition of 1918 and enlarged to incorporate all known poems and fragments. Edited by W. H. Gardner and N. H. Mackenzie. 362 pp. Oxford and New York : Oxford University Press, 1970. ISBN 0-19-281094-4 (pbk.)

For anyone who is interested in Hopkins, and everyone should be, this is the standard and authoritative edition. It gives us the only complete and accurate text which for the first time puts the poems in their true chronological order.

The poems have been arranged in four sections : Early Poems (1860-1875?); Poems (1876-1879); Unfinished Poems, Fragments, Light Verse, &c. (1862-89); Translations, Latin and Welsh Poems, &c. (1862-67). The book contains a useful and informative Introduction and Foreword, and is rounded out with very full Notes, a series of Appendices, and Indexes of titles and first lines. It is also beautifully printed on excellent paper, stitched, and bound in a sturdy glossy wrapper.

Hopkins had a unique sensibility, and brought something very special and of great value into English poetry. He seems to have had the ability to enter into the intelligence and feelings and spirit of all life forms, whether animal or plant or even landscape, to resonate with the indwelling divinity within them, and to somehow magically bring the miracle of their vibrant being over into his poems.

Hopkins is in fact a striking example of the fully human sensibility as described in the works of Heidegger and the great thinkers of the East, and exemplifies a quality of sensibility which most of us seem somehow to have lost. We skate dully and blindly over the surface of things, but Hopkins plunges into the depths of being and carries us along with him. In other words, he puts us back in touch with reality, with what life is really about. Hence his enormous value and importance.

In a complete collection such as this, there are bound to be many poems that fall short of greatness. For the newcomer to Hopkins, one suggested approach might be to first read some of his greatest poems, poems such as 'God's Grandeur,' 'Spring,' 'The Windhover,' 'Pied Beauty,' 'The Caged Skylark,' 'Binsey Poplars,' 'As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame.'

There are many beauties to enjoy in Hopkins - his unique use of language, his control of sound and rhythm, his amazing images and metaphors - but for me the most beautiful thing of all is the news he brings, news of a universe in which all things are of infinite value and infinitely precious, and in which no creature is of any less value than another because all are indwelt by divinity:

"Each mortal thing does one thing and the same : / Deals out that being indoors each one dwells ; / Selves, goes itself ; _myself_ it speaks and spells, / Crying _What I do is me : for that I came_" (p.90).

Hopkins makes us acutely aware of our loss, and our crime. His poems map out a path back to a saner, more balanced, and more wholesome and intelligent way of dwelling on the earth, dwelling lightly upon it with all other creatures and as its guardian, not its ravager.

"O if we but knew what we do / When we delve or hew - / Hack and rack the growing green! / ... After-comers cannot guess the beauty been...' (pp.78-9).

Hopkins, I think, would have been very much in agreement with Heidegger who tells us that the earth must once again become a _Spielraum_ , a space of great beauty in which to play, and one in which all creatures, instead of being treated as mere objects, are allowed to do what they came here to do, to develop the full potential of their natures and fulfill themselves as manifestations of divinity. His poems are unforgettable, and one envies those who may be coming to them for the first time.

The first poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins I read was "PiedBeauty," which was included in a book of poetry for children thatwas given to me by my great-aunt. In high school, I read "Spring and Fall: to a young child" and loved it, though I did not realize it was by the same author. It was only college that I connected the two, and discovered a wonderful poet, who has become one of my favorites.

For a fan of Hopkins looking for an authoritative volume, this edition is a treasure. In addition to his better known works, it contains early poems, numerous fragments, and unfinished works, in fact "every scrap of English verse which can be ascribed... to Hopkins" (from the Introduction xvii). In addition, it contains a good essay on Hopkins and his work, and extensive textual notes.

Hopkins poetry may appear obscure and difficult at first, and in fact it is, at times, wildly original. Hopkins' language is deliberately archaic and inventive, and he both revives wonderful words not used since Shakespeare, and makes up his own. Hopkins also writes in "sprung rhythm," a metrical style that is almost syncopated, and juxtaposes stressed syllables. I recommend reading his poems out loud. The sheer beauty of his language will inspire you to recite the words over and over again, until you understand his meaning: the essence which he is trying to distill. New readers may be daunted by this volume at first, and find that Hopkins' great poems are "submerged in a mass of less significant fragments" (Intro xiv). I would suggest his sequence of ten sonnets (#31-40) as an ideal place to start reading.

Hopkin's friend and fellow poet Robert Bridges wrote that Hopkins strove "for the unattainable perfection of language," and at times he seems to have actually obtained it: "Men go by me whom either beauty bright / In mould or mind or what not else make rare: / They rain against our much-thick and marsh air / Rich beams, till death or distance buys them quite." (The Lantern out of Doors, #40). END

In The Breaking of Style: Hopkins, Heaney, Graham, Helen Vendler theoretically outlines the ways in which contemporary writing styles remain true to traditional literary form, while at the same time morph to fit "a new sense of life" pressing "unbidden upon the poet" (1). Focusing on the "material body" of the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Seamus Heaney, and Jorie Graham, Vendler pushes these works against predecessors such as Wordsworth, Keats, Lowell, and Donne to demonstrate, through formal and stylistic critique, the way in which "breaking" standard literary tradition reflects epistemological changes in the writers themselves, which are brought into existence by societal forces external to the poets and manifested by gradation in the poetry produced: "The micro-levels of stylistic change...need to be attended to quite as much as the macro-levels...such micro-levels of change from poem to poem reflect changes of feeling, changes of aesthetic perception, or changes of moral stance in the poet" (4). What emerge in the poetic lines of Hopkins, Heaney, and Graham are amalgamations of styles old and new; "espousals as well as rejections in the invention of the new stylistic body" (3). When analyzing the works of Hopkins, Heaney, and Graham, Vendler distinguishes each author's literary modification by the way in which (s)he manipulates metrical stresses, epistemological settings, and linear units, then illustrates the "perceptual, aesthetic and moral implications" that are demonstrated by their respective violations of standard, Modernistic literary conventions. Divided into three basic critical sections, The Breaking of Style discusses the principles surrounding the literary innovations of Hopkins's use of sprung rhythm, Heaney's manipulation of readerly phenomenological perception, and the societal implications surrounding the bricolage of human experience that is captured in the "cinematic freeze-frame" of Graham's later work (80). Using terminology reminiscent of postmodern critical theory, Vendler demonstrates that the stanzaic mimesis produced by the sensually assaultive affects of Gerard Manley Hopkins's use of the spondaic crush is designed to elicit an epistemologically reflective "psychic shock" in his readers: "When the mind becomes one gigantic cacophony of groans, in eight-beat sprung rhythm lines prolonging themselves into one undifferentiated monosyllabic vocal disharmony, we have come to the last agony of the stylistic body of poetry" (40). Hopkins's poetic innovation, Vendler states, reflects this phenomenon with "mimetic accuracy." When discussing Renaissance mnemonic theory in relation to established literary form, Vendler attributes Seamus Heaney's narrative arrogation to omniscience as being distinctly influenced by the literary styles of the Wordsworthian speaker, changed to reflect subjectivity through and in the sensual phenomenological setting. No more is the speaker the deliverer of allegorical reflection, but rather the speaker becomes a vehicle of "clairvoyant perception" through Heaney's employment of adjectival and adverbial innovation (42). This "reanimation" of the past in Heaney's poetry serves to create a new found ontological zone or "third realm, neither one of pure memory actively revised nor one of present distanced actuality, but rather one of the past remembered as prophesy" (48). Likewise, Vendler demonstrates Jorie Graham's liberties taken with poetic line length as a means to lay bare the traditions of Modernism by foregrounding, for example, the setting of a work, or that which was traditionally viewed as literary back-drop. This creation of a separate ontological zone through asymptotic gesture on the part of Graham serves to redefine the aim of verse as an "earthly, terrain-oriented lateral search" (78). The Keatisian "fine excess" present in the poetry of Graham now serves as a way, Vendler demonstrates, to illustrate Graham's "Dream of the Unified Field"; to represent "the luxurious spread of experienced being, preanalytic and precontingent" (84). Written in a narrative prose style rich in alliterative crafting and stylistic construction, Helen Vendler's The Breaking of Style: Hopkins, Heaney, Graham offers an alternative and well-supported insight into the makings of the postmodern ideological perspective. By demonstrating the similarities and differences of the works of Hopkins, Heaney, and Graham in relation to their contemporaries and predecessors, Vendler delineates without the hindrance of elevated postmodern literary jargon the ways in which these authors transform canonized literary form into a more pliable arena designed to reflect their ever-changing sociological realities. Through the literary innovations of writers such as Hopkins, Heaney and Graham, as well as semi-tacit adherence to the inspirations behind such formalistic construction, Vendler states convincingly, "the style of our own inner kinesthetic motions has...been broken and remade" (95).

Oxford University Press has done it again! This book is an absolutely wonderful compilation of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry, letters, and prose. With all of his poems (including fragments of poems), as well as letters and spiritual writings related to his conversion and his joining of the Jesuit order, this book not only gives the reader a wonderful selection of his work, but also an interesting insight into the life of Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins. I would recommend this master of sprung verse to all.

Norman White is the world expert on Gerard Manley Hopkins, and his new book on Hopkins in Ireland gives a clear and stunningly sad picture of the last years of Hopkins' life. As usual, White's prose is clear and nuanced. We are all lucky to have White as a lover/critic of the sublime Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Hopkins is one of those poets hidden from so many because of his subject matter, yet is considered one of the most influential Victorian poets for his use of word combinations, meter and image.

Added to the delicious and poignant poetry is the contemplative nature of his prose and poetry. In it, you'll read about his humility and submission to God, his genuine faith, his desire that his poetry exalt God and not Hopkins himself.

Most his work was published posthumously, as late as 1920 or so, and immediately influenced the likes of T.S. Elliot (AKA, the guy who wrote the poem "Cats" is based on and "Wasteland") and his contemporaries.

While Whitman and Wilde were exalting in themselves, and just after Emerson and Thoreau were helping us see creation, Hopkins demonstrated prowess in pointing readers to see the Creator in the creation.

Atheists won't agree with him, of course, but he says it so well, they will at least go, "Hmm... if I believed, I could see that... yeah, wow, well put." The Catholics will cheer him on, "Atta boy... yep, that guy's a Jesuit!" Not undone are the Protestants who will be so impressed in agreement they'll be happy he was a Christian.

Check out this snippet from "Pied Beauty" "Glory be to God for dappled things--/For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;/For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;/Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches wings;/Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;/And 'all tra'des, their gear and tackle and trim." Those accents are in the original.

Delicious to say aloud? You should hear the second verse. His others are as tasty.

I fully recommend this book.

Anthony Trendl

Andre Maurois has great esteem for George Sand (the "nomme de plume" of Aurore Dupin de Dudevant), which he eloquently manifests in his biography of the great literary heroine of 19th Century France. I have been an avid fanatic of Madame Sand for quite a while, having read many of her novels (she was incredibly prolific, and so it must take many more years than the 25 which I have thus lived to read her entire oeuvre), as well as several biographies written about her. I read her "Histoire de Ma Vie" ("Story of My Life") a couple of years ago, for an Independent Study I was conducting during my years as an undergraduate, and I was absolutely fascinated by her life and her spirit, which she manifested in her novels. She led a life which many of her contemporaries considered "depraved," yet she always lived fearlessly and emotionally, according to her own inclinations and heart ("Never fear when your heart tells you what to do. . . the heart can never be wrong," she once wrote). I picked up Maurois' biography on George Sand recently, and I devoured it in a matter of days. His approach and style is somewhat antiquated (he wrote this book in the 50's, after all), but he nevertheless seems to have an uncanny understanding of Sand's life and ideas. I highly recommend his biography to anyone who is not too acquainted with Sand or her writings, but for the true Sand afficionado, I suggest that he or she read her autobiography before Maurois' biography. After all, who is most entitled and prepared to speak about her own life than Sand herself? Nevertheless, Maurois has written a good and thorough account of Sand's life. It is not one of those most commendable biographies, in which the reader believes that the writer must have known his or her subject personally, but it is a solid account of Sand's life, regardless. Although Maurois holds George Sand in high regard, he is not biased in his opinions regarding the authoress. . . in fact, at times he almost seems to pass judgement regarding her chaotic lifestyle and her tumultous liaisons. For example, he portrays De Musset as more of a victim of Sand's indiscretions (her affair with the doctor who sought to cure De Musset of his infirmities, for example), than his own penchant for a life of debauchery. I would not go so far as to proclaim that Maurois is sexist, but he does seem, at times, to allow more liberties to the men in Sand's life than he does to Sand herself. He sometimes depicts Sand as a sort of vampiress, who devours her male counterparts, while seemingly disregarding their own vices. Sand had a few jilted lovers, yes, but she too was wounded in several romantic liaisons. Nevertheless, and in summary, Maurois renders a pretty accurate portrait of George Sand, which will surely inspire the reader to learn more about this fascinating and mysterious author, truly so far ahead of her time. . . George Sand lived the sort of life, both as a woman and as an artist, which was not generally not embraced during her lifetime. She paved a literary path for future female writers, such as Colette, Virginia Woolf, and Jane Austen, among countless others, who have carried on her legacy. . . Maurois acknowledges such, if we read between the lines. . . Well, it was not his intent to present his readers with a literary feminist treatise, but he wrote a really good biography about a woman who would influence future female authors to follow her example. . .

Hopkins, a Welsh monk, was nearly lost to the public when he renounced his own work, burned a large portion of his creations and sunk into relative obscurity around the turn of the century. Oh, what a tragedy would that have been! Thanks to T.S. Eliot and other astute cultural advocates, this pioneer in the realm of confluence of sound and meaning has received more of the respect he deserves.

Hopkins' style is unique--a combination of Anglo-Saxon alliterative stress patterns, and a truly modern consciousness of spirituality and doubt. Although he draws heavily on Mediaeval techniques of versification, the poet's language escapes the flatline of the archaic through an energetic dynamism. The result is what he terms "sprung rhythm", wherein phonemes reach a level of excitement through rhythmic juxtaposition of stressed and unstressed syllables in an at times choppy, at times smooth pattern.

What I believe "Wreck of the Deutchland" is a masterpiece of Hopkins' language. This poem, like much of his work, is extraordinarily well suited to reading out loud. The ebb and flow of the paced alternation of syllabic and intoned stress gives the reader an intuitive feel for the thematic material of the poem. When the boat is tossed by rough waters, so tosses the reader's voice. When the narrator trembles with fear or faith, so trembles the reader's tongue. However, the sonic force of "Wreck of the Deutchland" is only one aspect of this multi-layered tapestry. The language of sound is a kind of precondition or foreshadowing of the meaning contained in the semantic and symbolic language of the text.

The thing perhaps that I love most about Hopkins is that he seems to incorporate all facets of expression in his work, but certainly not in a pedantic fashion. He is a metaphysical poet in the most honest and unassuming manner. The different textual layers arise and intermingle organically in the medium of the very accessibly, very human voice of a humble poet.

Gerard Manley Hopkins is the greatest English poet to ever put pen to paper, bar none. Yes, even better than Shakespeare. Every student of English lit should read Hopkins. Hopkins writes from a profound love and awe of God and the beauty of His creations, but also from a deep despair resulting from chronic depression. His mastery of classical English combined with his magic use of sounds and word inventions is sheer genius. Read him.

I found this to be one of the most helpful works on Hopkins that I have read. On all occasions Ward shows a respect and attention to the poet that is quite refreshing. Her unique insistence on understanding the serious importance of his intellectual formation (which included close study of Ruskin, Newman, Scotus, and Catholic sacramental theology), makes a powerful case for reconsidering the assumptions of both excesively pious critics who see in Hopkins a mystic who intuited great spiritual truths without employing his immense intellectual gifts to sort out the theological facts, and of postmodern writers who correlatively assume that Hopkins actually had a weak and degenerate mind, and that his obvious poetic gifts had nothing to do with the quality or consistency of the superstitions that he communicated using those gifts.

Ward makes her case in each chapter by communicating concisely and interestingly the key thoughts of those intellectual figures and movements that strongly influenced Hopkins, and then by very persuasively revealing the real influence of those thinkers by using their thoughts in the exposition of many of his major poems. My academic training is in philosophy, and I was especially impressed with how well the focus of the book on communicating philosophical theology in order to understand Hopkins does not prevent a serious presentation of the ideas of the thinkers in question--the treatment of Scotus, for example, reveals that Dr. Ward has read much more broadly in the writings of the difficult 13th century friar than is normal for a literary critic trying to understand what Hopkins means by the terms "instress" and "inscape," and what he means when he refers them to Scotus's philosophy.

Many have noticed the influence that poets like Shakespeare and Milton have exerted on Hopkins's imagery and sound, but this book fills a gaping hole in Hopkins scholarship by seriously exploring the tremendous influence that Hopkins's favorite philosophers, theologians, and critics had on the thought that undergirds that use of imagery and sound. Highly recommended.