Ignatian Inscape and Instress in Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty,” “God’s Grandeur,” “The Starlight Night,” and “The Windhover”: Hopkins’s Movement toward Ignatius by Way of Walter Pater

Abstract

This essay discusses Gerard Manley Hopkin’s notions of inscape and instress, examining their early expressions during Hopkins’s time as a student at and recent alumnus of Balliol College, Oxford, their subsequent development amid Hopkins’s career as a Jesuit novice and priest, and their manifestation in four sonnets composed in 1877. Attention is paid throughout to the likely influence of Hopkins’s Balliol tutor, Walter Pater, as well as the influence of Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises upon Hopkins’s presentation of inscape and instress in his poems.

Prosodic Experimentation in Hopkins’ Poetry

“…Hopkins uses a few stresses in a row, to create a burst of energy, a sort of spring, an instress in the poem, "Pied Beauty". Instress is the perception of an object in an intense thrust of energy toward it (Urban, 2018). Hopkins skillful use of the meter makes the poem musical, allowing us to grasp flexibility, 'pied' beauty.…”

“…The rhythmic variation, heightened by sprung rhythm and alliterative lines, stimulates us to celebrate the natural glory, and to mark inscape. Inscape is the distinctive design that constitutes individual identity (Urban, 2018). Hopkins continues making prosodic experimentation in the sonnet, "Spring" to display the wonders of the dynamism evoked by the spring against a backdrop of religious references to the Garden of Eden and sin.…”

“…Inspired from the theosophy of the medieval philosopher, Duns Scotus, Hopkins hypothesized that everything in the universe was characterized by 'inscape'. Inscape is the special natural design that characterizes individual identity (Urban, 2018). The human being, the most individually distinctive being in the universe, recognizes the inscape of other beings in an act that Hopkins calls 'instress'.…”