Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins (July 28, 1844 - June 8, 1889) was a British Victorian poet and Jesuit priest, whose verse has been widely admired for the vividness of its expression.

The reintroduction of sprung rhythm to English verse

Much of Hopkins' historical importance has to do with the changes he brought to the form of poetry. Prior to Hopkins most Middle English and Modern English poetry was based on a rhythmic structure inherited from the Norman side of English's literary heritage. This structure is based on repeating groups of two or three syllables, with the stressed syllable falling in the same place on each repetition. Hopkins called this structure running rhythm, and though he wrote some of his early verse in running rhythm he became fascinated with the older rhythmic structure of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, of which Beowulf is the most famous example. Hopkins called this rhythmic structure sprung rhythm. Sprung rhythm is structured around feet with a variable number of syllables, generally between one and four syllables per foot, with the stress always falling on the first syllable in a foot.

Related Topics:
Middle English - Modern English - Running rhythm - Beowulf - Sprung rhythm

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Hopkins saw sprung rhythm as a way to escape the constraints of running rhythm, which he said inevitably pushed poetry written in it to become "same and tame." Many contemporary poets have followed Hopkins' lead and abandoned running rhythm, though most have not adopted sprung rhythm but have instead abandoned traditional rhythmic structures all together, adopting free verse instead.

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