Gerard Manley Hopkins

September 15, 2008
The strength of this meticulous chronicle of the 19th-century Jesuit is the author’s focus on the inner life of a poet who was critically acclaimed after his death and almost unknown in his lifetime. The resulting lack of context is also the volume’s most persistent and occasionally tiresome weakness. A Hopkins scholar and poet who has written biographies of poets William Carlos Williams and Robert Lowell, Mariani has woven together Hopkins’s correspondence, sermons, journal entries and other materials to form a frequently fascinating account of the poet’s life from his decision to leave the Church of England at age 22 to his death 22 years later. The biographer also analyzes the poet’s innovative, idiosyncratic poems and their philosophical, theological and literary roots. The book would have benefited greatly by occasional views of the political, spiritual and artistic environment that influenced Hopkins and his literary contemporaries. Nonetheless, there is much to learn from this portrayal of an opinionated, often depressed yet likable priest-poet who toiled in near obscurity, constantly trying to subordinate his poetic gifts to his calling to serve God.

October 1, 2008
Poet Mariani (English, Boston Coll.; "The Broken Tower: The Life of Hart Crane") presents a new biography of the Victorian poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins. Largely unknown in his own lifetime, Hopkins gained recognition in the 20th century through his novel use of rhythm, poetic language, and romantic imagery. Mariani presents a biography that is more poetic than informative. His day-to-day and week-to-week narrative never strays far from Hopkins's correspondence, notebooks, poems, and other writings, and this leaves the reader wanting for some kind of commentary deeper than Hopkins's own copious observations, as sublime as they can be. Mariani gives readers little insight into Hopkins's close relationships, religious fervor, elusive sexuality, or literary influences beyond that from the poet's own hand. This information is often broken up by extended expositions of Hopkins's poems that are insightful yet don't add much to the task of biography. The poet's life story is beautifully written, but the lack of a strong central theme could make the journey hard going for a reader new to Hopkins's life and work. Recommended for academic libraries.Steven Chabot, Univ. of Toronto

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2008
What daring! exclaimed a young Hart Crane upon first reading the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. In showing how such daring opened a new path in poetry, Mariani retraces a torturous spiritual journey with the same acumen that has won praise for his biographies of Lowell, Williams, and Berryman. Readers soon confront a paradox: the courage that made Hopkins a creative revolutionary first manifests itself in his decision to defy Victorian prejudices by submitting to Catholic doctrine and to the rigors of Jesuit discipline. To be sure, Hopkins suffers when obtuse ecclesiastical leaders suppress his literary talent, consigning him to lonely labors at a decrepit Irish university. Nonetheless, religious devotion remains the explosive force that blazes forth in poems such as The Windhover and Gods Grandeur. The story behind such masterpieces of faithpoignantly matched by lesser-known masterpieces of despairilluminates the genius who infused technical innovations (such as sprung rhythm) with a profound metaphysical vision (inscape). But a puzzle emerges in Hopkins long correspondence with Robert Bridges, the gifted friend who brings Hopkins verse to light 25 years after his death. How, readers may ask, did it fall to an agnostic to rescue supernal Christian art from oblivion? Literary scholarship informed by rare passion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)