The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins

Volume VI: Sketches and Scholarly Studies, Part II: Musical Settings and Sketches

Author: R.K.R. Thornton Series: Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins

The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins

This volume brings together for the first time two lesser-known aspects of Gerard Manley Hopkins's creative drive: his sketches and drawings and his musical compositions. The drawings are presented with a full introduction and annotations. The musical compositions feature as both manuscript facsimiles and new transcriptions.

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Summary

Description

Sketches and Scholarly Studies: Part II, Musical Settings and Sketches brings together two crucial aspects of Gerard Manley Hopkins's insatiable drive to create: drawing, predominantly (but not exclusively) from the early part of his life, when he had ambitions to be a painter; and music, from the later part of his life, when he found in music suggestions of a new contact with the eternal. Hopkins grew up in a home that emphasizedcultural and artistic accomplishments; his brothers Arthur and Everard were both professional illustrators, and his sister Grace was an accomplished pianist. Limited as the corpus of Hopkins's drawings is--foursmall sketchbooks and a handful of loose drawings--there is certainly evidence to suggest that he might have been a successful illustrator adhering to Ruskinian principles. This edition reproduces the surviving drawings, with a full introduction and annotations placing them in the context of Hopkins's creative life. His musical compositions are presented in both manuscript facsimiles and new transcriptions, revealing his exploration, in a new mode, of ideas of rhythm, harmony, and counterpoint.

About the Author

R. K. R. Thornton, the son of an artist, is retired and balances editing with painting and writing. He was Head of the Department of English at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne until 1990, and a Professor at the University of Birmingham until 2000. He has edited and published on a variety of writers, often supposedly minor figures, including John Clare, Ivor Gurney, Ernest Dowson, and Joseph Skipsey. Hopkins, by no means a minor writer, has occupied much ofhis time.