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Currently Playing: The Theological Aesthetics of Gerard Manley Hopkins | Lecture 12

How does the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins fit into the lineage of English visionary poetry? In this lecture, I consider how Hopkins’s poetic philosophy was partly shaped by an inner conflict between his love of the natural world and the ascetic demands of his Christian faith. That conflict finds resolution through the medieval theology of Duns Scotus, whose ideas of univocity and haecceity (“thisness”) provide the metaphysical grounding for Hopkins’s core poetic concept of inscape, the unique inner essence of every created thing. We trace how Hopkins departs from the symbolic and analogical modes of nature poetry by instead celebrating the irreducible particularity of the world. We read “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” and “Pied Beauty” as ecstatic affirmations of divine presence in the material world sacramentally. Click the link below to join my community school of poetry with live classes, guided seminars, and its discussion forum! https://versedcommunity.mn.co/ Gerard Manley Hopkins, Duns Scotus, inscape, haecceity, univocity of being, poetry and theology, sacramental poetics, Hopkins and nature, visionary poetry, Jesuit poets, “Pied Beauty,” “As Kingfishers Catch Fire,” Christian mysticism, Hopkins lecture, theological poetry Introduction 0:00-2:25 The problem of loving nature 2:25-9:29 Duns Scotus & univocity 9:29-13:50 Haecceity 13:50-16:40 Close Reading "As Kingfishers Catch Fire" 16:40-26:14 Devotional Haecceity 26:14-30:06 Close Reading "Pied Beauty" 30:06-38:57