English Literature

Week 29

Please read:

Historical background, pp. 627-631.

Thomas Hardy

• "The Darkling Thrush", p. 633.
• "The Man He Killed", p. 633.
• "Ah, Are You Digging My Grave?", p. 634.
• "In Time of ’The Breaking of Nations’", p. 634.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

• "Pied Beauty", p. 637.
• "God’s Grandeur", p. 638.
• "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child", p. 639.
• "Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord", p. 640.
• "The Windhover: to Christ our Lord".

Hopkins considered this poem to be his best, and, of the ones I have read myself, I would have to agree. It is dense with imagery, laced with Hopkins’ own peculiar sounds and vocabulary, and pulls together quite remarkably. Read it carefully and aloud; go over it several times to see what you can get out of it. Don’t be afraid to use a dictionary.

If you’re interested in reading more of Hopkins’ poetry, look at the selection at the Bartleby site. It’s quite impressive.

A. E. Housman

• "When I Was One-and-twenty", p. 725.
• "Loveliest of Trees", p. 726.
• "To an Athlete Dying Young", p. 726.
• "Terence, this is stupid stuff." (from A Shropshire Lad)

This is perhaps Housman’s most famous poem, and a kind of poetic manifesto. What is he saying about the function of poetry in his life, and those of his hearers?

Please take the background quiz for Unit VII.