This is a good, inexpensive introduction to Gerard Manley Hopkins. There is a brief section talking about Hopkins and how much of his poetry was lost. This gives you an idea of who is giving you this poetry.

For the poetry student, the Author's Preface is essential. Here, Sprung Rhythm is explained. If you are not a serious student of poetry, this will probably be lost on you. It is not necessary to read the poetry, but to understand Hopkins' style, it is a must-read.

The poetry itself is filled with religious and classical images and allusions. If you are not well-read, like me, you may not get every thing that Hopkins is explaining to you. There are some notes in the back, but these are limited. I have no doubt that Hopkins is intelligent, but I will need to do some extra reading to fully understand all of this.

I think this is a great read. It is not a quick read by any means. This is poetry which is read again and again to get a full understanding. I would also recommend reading this aloud.

The poetry of Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins is some of the greatest modern Catholic poetry ever produced by an Englishman. Received into the Catholic Church by J.H. Newman and later ordained a Jesuit priest, Fr. Hopkins never made a name for himself while alive. After his death, a friend of his discovered his poetry, compiled it into a short volume, and published it. It immediately became a hit amongst the English, and eventually spread throughout the entire Catholic world.

Hopkins uses a variety of verse (from sprung to your run-of-the-mill iambic pentameter), which makes for an exciting read. Some of his poems, such as GOD'S GRANDEUR and PIED BEAUTY have even made it into a poetry appendix in the American translation of the Catholic breviary. These poems are wonderful starters for meditation, and they capture the thoughts of a man's heart as it aspires towards God. A wonderful read.

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.

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.

This edition is something you want to pop in with a larger Amazon order... buy it on whimsy if you aren't sure. It is an inexpensive as book can get this side of free.

I fully recommend this book.

Anthony Trendl

Mauriac demonstrates his masterful powers of observing humanity at its best and its worst. In this story he explores the dynamics of human love within the horizon of Christian faith. He creates characters which embody the ethic of Christian love both in its best form and at its worst incarnations. And in so doing, he gives us a glimpse into the glories and the agonies in risking to love in an authentic way. A great read. And a fine examine for any and all who are serious about Love.

Mauriac, winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize for Literature, is one of the great underrated writers of the 20th century. His highly emotional approach to writing has been criticized (unjustly, I beleive) as sentimentalist. But the suffering of his characters, their humanity and loveability even in the midst of their personal failings and darknesses, make Mauriac's world incredibly compelling. "Woman of the Pharisees" is, on its surface, the story of a cold and cruel woman viewed through the eyes of her own son, a child. In the name of Christian love, she destroys all she touches, whether a couple in love or a priest who is truly Christ-like. Yet in the end one begins to realize that the pharisee may not be her, but rather... (read and see). An agonizing, beautiful book, as are nearly all of his novels (with the exception of the horrific but still great "Genetrix"). I cannot recommend this work highly enough.

Madame Bovary is a story about a common woman who marries an ordinary husband living an unglamorous middle-class life in a provincial town. It's that realistic. The heroine, Emma Bovary, longs for the wealth, romance, and adventure she finds in the Romantic novels of her time. After her marriage to Charles, a second class doctor, and moving to a small, mediocre town, she finds her life full of routine and banaltiy. She rebels, and seeks to satisfy her desires for a more glamorous life. This leads her to adultery and financial difficulties, which both lead to tragic consequences.

Emma Bovary is a character you will either despise for her actions or sympathise with and understand. It is true, her actions bring misfortune to her family, especially her husband Charles. Although he is weak and unambitious, lacking the gallantry of her image of a lover, his sentiments for her are genuine and she fails to see it. Moreover, he so trusts and admires her and never sees through her deception. I find that he is the character, if not most interesting, then most tragic and worthy of sympathy, as he becomes the true victim. As for Emma, like her or hate her, she is one who many will relate to.

This is not an exciting read, not fast paced or action-packed. Still, the messages in the book will reward your efforts. I'm no expert on Romantic novels but I think it's quite unlike other novels of it's time. Flaubert's descriptions and use of language are very moving, sometimes disturbing, especially when describing the ravages of sickness or pain. Those who like to contemplate on moral ideas in a literary work, or who love the beauty of language for the sake of it will enjoy this book very much.

This book is about a woman named Emma Bovary and her husband Charles Bovary. They are married and she becomes bored with his love and he doesn't satisfy her anymore. She becomes very depressed with life because what she imagined her love life to be is not at all what she is actually getting out of her marriage with Charles. Because of this fact she becomes attracted to other men she meets along the way. She meets a couple men and can't seem to stop thinking about them. Instead of trying to forget these other men she ends up having affairs with 2 of the men. She is affaid of what her husband will do but has the affairs anyway. She does end up seeing how much she does love Charles in the end. During Emma's deep quest for love I felt for her. She was a hopeless romantic in search of passion and a love like that towards herself. I feel as if Emma did not care enough to see the love that she did have for Charles until the very end of the novel.

In the opinion of our book group, this is still one of the greatest novels of all time in the richness of its descriptions and the loving, yet candid, description of the human condition. Flaubert's use of language and imagery is a beautiful representation of realism. His search for "le mot juste" - or exactly the right word - is still amazing. It was great to read this novel again through "mature" eyes. Life's lessons tend to lend a more sympathetic view of things. Although none of the characters are endearing, they are still engrossing. The story rings as true today as it did 150 years ago when Flaubert wrote it. All in all, Madame Bovary is simply, not just a novel, it is literature.

THIS IS THE STORY OF A WOMAN WHO ATTEMPTS TO POISON HER HUSBAND AND IS ACQUITTED OF THE CRIME, AS THE ATTEMPT FAILS. HER HUSBAND'S TESTIMONY AIDS IN HER ACQUITTAL. THE BOOK DEALS WITH THERESE'S PUNISHMENT BY HER HUSBAND AND DAUGHTER AND HER SUFFERING THROUGHOUT THE REST OF HER LIFE AS SHE ATTEMPTS TO LIVE WITH THE VIVID MEMORY OF HER CRIME.

Mauriac, who won the 1952 Nobel Prize for literature, later said of Therese that what she needed was a priest-confessor who truly represented Christ. Since he (at the time of writing the novel) knew of no such person, he could only write of a woman who's passion cried out in futility for fulfillment. The novel takes place in three (maybe four?) vignettes, with Therese first being accused of poisoning her husband, then moving to Paris and becoming a lover of many men, and finally her one truest act of love toward a young man who is drawn to both her and to God. The novel may offend Christians (since there's no cute or easy ending), offend protestants (since Mauriac sees Christanity and Catholicism as synonyms), and offend non-believers (Mauriac, for all his literary brilliance, is a Jesus freak at heart). I recommend Therese (and Mauriac's other works, incl. the non-listed on Amazon "River of Fire,") most highly.

It is important to refer to poetry of another era in a time when poetry is often trivial, written by poets who have little regard for form for readers schooled in deconstructionism and for whom sex has been debased to political power mongering. Margaret Smith's encounter with Gerard Manley Hopkins reflects the constraints imposed by religious vows on the poet she follows through his alien terrain. She voluntarily observes the meter of the sonnet form. Readers who can still comprehend why a poet would accept such discipline or imagine a theology that would inspire mortification of the flesh will glimpse innocence in the landscapes and longings of these biographical extrapolations from journals and poems Hopkins didn't consign to the flames. The work seems capable of eliciting tenderness from the toughest postmodernist. Acknowledgement of the literary licentiousness of the present era doesn't compel a reversion to abhorrence of the flesh or formal order that stifles the imagination, as this book makes clear. There is often more passion in restraint than in indulgence and a great deal more imagination. The blush of innocence is born of freedom found only where civility is cultivated. Hopkins' virtue, in particular his vows and his chastity, are not congenial. It helps to notice that his self-denial set him free to serve the humblest needs as a priest. Making religion the domain of specialists is certainly problematic. A heroic demonstration of virtue, like arrogance, doesn't prove anything. Still, astonishment attends the open expression of innocence. In this apocryphal rendition, Hopkins loved a nun of the Poor Clares. She may have loved him. He could not, in good conscience, indulge even his gift for verse in celebration of her physical being. The traces he left of what remains when nearly everything is denied provided sufficient impulse that a hundred years later Margaret Smith could feel it and write powerfully of its impact.

For someone (as I was) curious about Hopkins, this little Everyman volume provides great value with an excellent selection of writings. In addition to the standard introductory essay and chronology, Walford Davies also includes a handsome array of critical responses to Hopkins and a bibliography for further reading.

I'll be reading further in Hopkin's journals, if I can find them. The selections printed here would be inspirational for any dedicated diarist-- Hopkins took an unflinching look at nature-- recording with delicacy and accuracy and without sentimentality.

It will take me longer tto really digest the poetry. I can see what the critics mean by comparing Hopkins to Whitman, but as these are fairly clearly meant to be read out loud, the value is less in a single reading. Even still, poems like "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child" and "To R.B." were haunting and evocative at the very first read.

In this text, the author attempts to read Hopkins' poems as prayers, the fruit of his relationship with God. His hope is that the reader will understand Hopkins' spirituality as well as his poetic sensibility. When read with the poems, the text also serves as personal spiritual reading.

I purchased this book so as to have something to cram into my pocket everytime i left my room. The book is nice for its size and its ability to fit into any pocket; however, the selection of poems is quite limited by its lack of page numbers. Hopkins has his glory, but this edition is only for those on the go.

Check out "A Pocket Book of Moder Verse" for a more pagey, portable book.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Windhover (John Pick, editor) (Merrill, 1968)

Pick collects what he considers the best of the various schools of scholarship on Hopkins' most-written-about sonnet and presents it in textbook fashion, complete with ideas for possible papers at the end of the book. While, obviously, such a tome is going to get a tad dry after a while, this ends up being a fascinating account of how a couple of well-placed double-entendres in a poem can spark firestorms of criticism among different schools of thought. Of particular interest is a series of letters published in a London newspaper in the mid-fifties in which three critics snipe at one another's interpretations of the poem. It's beautiful stuff. One wonders if literary critics are ever so on fire about anything else.

In the end, the book does what it's supposed to do; it acquaints its readers with the differing schools of thought on Hopkins' poem, and in doing so may illuminate the reader to ideas within the poem he had not previously seen. A good resource for Hopkins scholars. ***