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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Listings for Author:  

Gerard Manley Hopkins

  

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Gerard Manley Hopkins : [religious poems]

'I?m also doing a series of four-part songs for Peter & his Round-table singers to "first-perform" at the Aeolian Hall on November 24th. I?ve done four so far ? fairly extended, all to religious words by Gerald [sic] Manley Hopkins - & there?ll probably be two more.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Benjamin Britten      Print: Book

  

Gerard Manley Hopkins : [manuscripts]

Thursday 1 July: '[in library of Robert Bridges, during visit to Morrell family at Garsington] I asked to see the Hopkins manuscripts; & sat looking at them with that gigantic grasshopper Aldous [Huxley] folded up in a chair close by.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Gerard Manley Hopkins : [poems]

'What I gather from the few poems of Hopkins that I have read is that the passion in his verse is predominantly intellectual and has a tortured quality about it; indicative almost of an unnatural constriction of the body: and this may be so, as Hopkins was a Jesuit priest.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: William Soutar      Print: Book

  

Gerard Manley Hopkins : [poems]

'Meeting held at School House, Leighton Park. Jan 27th 1942 J. Knox Taylor in the Chair.
1. In the absences of the Secretary the minute of the last meeting were read by Alice Joselin.
2. With reference to Minute 6 of the last meeting, i.e. the selection of books for reading this year, it was decided that as two of the selected books could not be procured, Margaret Dilks and Mary S. W. Pollard should be asked to select two alternatives from the last list. The minutes were then approved and signed.
4. After partaking of coffee, the excellence of which & the enjoyment thereof, being in no way impaired by the introduction of powdered milk, (despite our host’s perturbation at this war-time inclusion!) we settled down with eager expectations and interest to the main business of the evening.
5. The subject was a provocative one “Modern Poetry” & we very gladly welcomed Kenneth Nicholson into our midst, as he had kindly consented to come & talk to us about modern poetry & to lead us into the strange regions of this somewhat unknown world.
6. Gerard Manley Hopkins & W. B. Yeats were apparently the leaders in breaking away from the old traditions of poetry-making, & of setting up a new form, even expressing a new spirit. We then listened to poems of T. S. Eliot, Wilfred Owen & W. Auden, & saw how this new way progressed & was elaborated.
We were bewildered, astounded & intrigued by turns! Through the intracacies [sic] of “sprung rhythm”, down the “arterial roads” of poetical imagery of the early 1920’s to the more apparently intelligible sombreness of recent poetry, we were led gently but inexorably, by our persuasive speaker, to see & realise that however strangely we might regard this literature of our age, we must acknowledge the urgency & sincerity of what the modern poet had to say.
'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Kenneth F. Nicholson      Print: Book

  

Gerard Manley Hopkins : [poems]

'Meeting held at School House, Leighton Park. Jan 27th 1942 J. Knox Taylor in the Chair.
1. In the absence of the Secretary the minutes of the last meeting were read by Alice Joselin.
2. With reference to Minute 6 of the last meeting, i.e. the selection of books for reading this year, it was decided that as two of the selected books could not be procured, Margaret Dilks and Mary S. W. Pollard should be asked to select two alternatives from the last list. The minutes were then approved and signed.
4. After partaking of coffee, the excellence of which & the enjoyment thereof, being in no way impaired by the introduction of powdered milk, (despite our host’s perturbation at this war-time inclusion!) we settled down with eager expectations and interest to the main business of the evening.
5. The subject was a provocative one “Modern Poetry” & we very gladly welcomed Kenneth Nicholson into our midst, as he had kindly consented to come & talk to us about modern poetry & to lead us into the strange regions of this somewhat unknown world.
6. Gerard Manley Hopkins & W. B. Yeats were apparently the leaders in breaking away from the old traditions of poetry-making, & of setting up a new form, even expressing a new spirit. We then listened to poems of T. S. Eliot, Wilfred Owen & W. Auden, & saw how this new way progressed & was elaborated.
We were bewildered, astounded & intrigued by turns! Through the intracacies [sic] of “sprung rhythm”, down the “arterial roads” of poetical imagery of the early 1920’s to the more apparently intelligible sombreness of recent poetry, we were led gently but inexorably, by our persuasive speaker, to see & realise that however strangely we might regard this literature of our age, we must acknowledge the urgency & sincerity of what the modern poet had to say.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: [a member of the XII Book Club – one of Isabel Taylor, Roger Moore, Margaret Dilks, A. G. Joselin, or F. E. Pollard]      Print: Book

  

Gerard Manley Hopkins : [unknown]

'Meeting held at School House, Leighton Park. Jan 27th 1942 J. Knox Taylor in the Chair.
[...]
5. The subject was a provocative one “Modern Poetry” & we very gladly welcomed Kenneth Nicholson into our midst, as he had kindly consented to come & talk to us about modern poetry & to lead us into the strange regions of this somewhat unknown world.
6. Gerard Manley Hopkins & W. B. Yeats were apparently the leaders in breaking away from the old traditions of poetry-making, & of setting up a new form, even expressing a new spirit. We then listened to poems of T. S. Eliot, Wilfred Owen & W. Auden, & saw how this new way progressed & was elaborated.
We were bewildered, astounded & intrigued by turns! Through the intracacies [sic] of “sprung rhythm”, down the “arterial roads” of poetical imagery of the early 1920’s to the more apparently intelligible sombreness of recent poetry, we were led gently but inexorably, by our persuasive speaker, to see & realise that however strangely we might regard this literature of our age, we must acknowledge the urgency & sincerity of what the modern poet had to say.
7. Isabel Taylor, Roger Moore, Margaret Dilks, A. G. Joselin, and F. E. Pollard all contributed readings, some from the poets already mentioned, others from the poetry of Day Lewis, Stephen Spender, McNeice & Dylan Thomas. Some pleased, others perplexed; we capitulated before such a phrase as “As a madman shakes a dead geranium”, but again were revived with what appeared to us as more lucid poems. One which pleased us with its clarity, evoked the remark from F. E. Pollard “that the only thing wrong with it was what was the matter with that except that it was immediately intelligible”!
Such was our introduction to “Modern Poetry,” whether or not we appreciated its “difference,” we were deeply grateful to K. Nicholson for inspiring us with the desire to read more.

[signed as a true record by] Arnold G. Joselin 23/2/42. [at the club meeting held at 72 Shinfield Road: see XII Book Club Minute Book, p. 113]'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: [a member of the XII Book Club – one of Isabel Taylor, Roger Moore, Margaret Dilks, A. G. Joselin, or F. E. Pollard]      Print: Book

  

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