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The poet is enraptured one morning by the rare sight of a falcon gliding on the gentle dawn wind. His spirit
is captivated by the ecstasy of the vision.
His poetic mind, however, is immediately transformed into images of medieval knights on their horses,
as well as the excruciating spectacle of Jesus Christ bearing his cross up Calvary.
Be warned! "Windhover" is probably one of the most complex poems that you are ever likely to
study. Indeed, it has several levels of meaning.
The poet has selected his words carefully for their lyrical value, and has then layered within them meaning
upon meaning upon meaning.
Tread carefully! There is no simple answer to any of question which you might face for this poem.
A NOTE ON THE POET
Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in 1844, the first of nine children. His parents were staunch Anglicans.
Hopkins attended a grammar school in Highgate and then continued on to Oxford University.
His search for religion, however, caused him to fall under the influence of the great Catholic convert, John
Henry Newman. As a result, Hopkins became a Catholic in 1866 and then joined the Society of Jesus the
following year.
Initially Hopkins burned all his early poetry because he believed it was a symbol of ambition in the world.
He later changed his mind, however, after being influenced by the writings of the medieval scholar Duns
Scotus who saw art as a reflection of God within the world.
From this concept, Hopkins developed his philosophy of Inscape and Instress.
Inscape is the underlying form that marks the essence of all things, the God-principle which exists
in everything.
Instress, on the other hand, is our ability to experience that God-principle.
Everything has inscape. In other words, everything has a God-principle.
Not everyone, however, has instress. The person who watches the glory of the setting sun but is
reminded of a poached egg clearly lacks instress.
The poet studied Theology in Wales, which is probably where he picked up the Welsh lyrical way of
speaking and writing. He would translate this into his poetry in what he called Sprung Rhythm.
Hopkins was ordained a priest in 1877 and then worked as a curate in Sheffield, Oxford and then London
before moving on to become parish priest in slum parishes in Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow.
None of this work was intellectually suitable for a man who had such a brilliant mind.
He then became a professor of Latin and Greek, first at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire and then at
University College in Dublin.
His frustration, however, at having to mark a plethora of mediocre scripts sent him spiralling into a state
of deep depression from which he would not emerge.
He died of typhoid fever in 1889. He was then 44 years of age.
Have you looked at the questions in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer the following questions:
"The Windhover" looks like a Petrarchan sonnet. But is it? Explain carefully. (6)
[Need help?]
"The Windhover" certainly does look like a Petrarchan sonnet. It has an Octave and a Sestet. Its
rhyming scheme is that of a Petrarchan sonnet.
The problem, however, lies with the number of syllables per line. A Petrarchan sonnet has ten syllables
per line, forming iambic pentameters. But how many syllables per line does Hopkins use?
The reality is that the poet does not adhere strictly to the classic English form of the sonnet.
The first line does indeed have 10 syllables, but the second line has 16 although one could reduce it to
14 by slurring over some syllables.
Line 3 = 14. Line 4 = 14. Line 5 = 10. Line 6 = 14. etc
What the poet is doing is using the classical Italian form of the sonnet, i.e. as is found in Italian poetry,
where each line has 14 syllables and not 10.
So Windhover is a hybrid between an English Petrarchan sonnet and an Italian sonnet.
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What is the meaning of each of the following words? (8)
[Need help?]
MINION = a servant or a favourite of a king.
DAUPHIN = the eldest son of the King of France.
FALCON = a bird of prey like a small eagle, sometimes trained to hunt small game for sport.
WIMPLING = a "wimple" is a silk headdress covering the neck and the sides of the face, formerly
worn by women. Is the poet therefore using the word "wimpling" to describe the shiny feathers of
the bird? Another possibility is that Hopkins sometimes makes up words. If this is so, what do you think
he means by it?
SKATE = steel blades or boots with blades attached for gliding on ice.
CHEVALIER = a form of knighthood.
SILLION = this is probably another created word. What would it mean? Silver? Shiny?
VERMILION = brilliant red pigment, the type of colour that nobility or royalty would wear.
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What do the following words have in common? (8)
[Need help?]
Each one of these words refers to royalty.
- A king rules over his kingdom;
- The dauphin is the eldest son of a king;
- Plume and buckle would be the accoutrements of a knight, a nobleman in the service of the king who
carries the plume on his helmet and the buckle on his armour;
- Blue is the colour of royalty. So is gold. And so is vermillion.
Why then does Hopkins use all these words which refer to royalty?
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Purely on a superficial level, what is the Octave about? Explain your answer. (4)
[Need help?]
This, of course is an easy question -- just in case every other question is killing you!
The Octave is about a falcon which the poet sees early one morning, gliding on the air, hovering on the
wind.
It glides on the air as smoothly as a skater gliding on the ice.
And then the wind catches the bird, and it sweeps into a glide in another direction.
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Purely on a superficial level, what is the Sestet about? Explain your answer. (4)
[Need help?]
The answer here is not so clear. But at its superficial meaning, the poet continues to describe the falcon
while at the same time reflecting upon its spiritual meaning for him, i.e. its "instress".
Unfortunately there is no clear meaning as to what his reflection is, at least not at the superficial level. The
poet is probably describing the different colours which flash from the falcon's feathers as the light reflects
from them.
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I CAUGHT this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy!
- Comment on the rhythm of these lines. What do you think the poet is trying to achieve? (Hint: the
poet is doing several things here, so please give this question its full value.) (6)
[Need help?]
There are two or three levels of meaning here.
Superficially, the poet is trying to capture the smooth gliding of the falcon on the air. The rhythm has that
smoothness which represents the gentle movements of the bird in flight.
There is, however, another meaning. An earlier question asked you to look at certain words which have
royalty in common.
Are we not looking here at a hidden image of a knight -- chevalier -- on horseback, with plume and
buckle and wearing the colours of his king?
The poet uses the word "rein" in "upon the rein of a wimpling wing". Here is a play
on words: reign of a king, reins of a horse.
Think of the movement of knight and horse, the gentle swaying as they move together. Then look again
at the rhythm of these lines: is this not the rhythm of the chevalier riding his horse?
The poet wants you to think of that, otherwise why does he present all these words together, creating an
image of knight and horse?
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- Identify and then comment on the poet's use of alliteration. (6)
[Need help?]
Boy, oh boy! These lines are just loaded with alliteration:
- the M's in "morning morning's minion";
- the D's in "dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn";
- the R's in "riding of the rolling" and "rung upon the rein";
- the W's in "wimpling wing".
The main purpose of all this alliteration is to achieve a lyrical effect. Hopkins was a poet who focussed
on the lyrical quality of words.
He picked up this idea when he trained for the priesthood in Wales, and while there he absorbed the lyrical
way in which the Welsh people speak.
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- What does the poet mean when he says, "I caught this morning morning's minion"? (Hint: the
poet has locked some pretty deep meaning into these words, so please give this question some very deep
thought.) (10)
[Need help?]
Superficially, the poet is painting a picture in words of how he caught sight of the falcon in the early
morning, gliding on the wind.
Why, however, does the poet use the word "minion", i.e. a servant or favourite of a king?
At one level, the "king" is the sun. The falcon is the sun's favourite, gliding in the early morning,
giving joy to the sun as it rides the air at dawn, reflecting the light of the sun off its feathers.
But the poet also hints to us in his introduction: "To Christ our Lord".
In Christian theology, Jesus Christ is the favourite Son of God. So the "minion" that the poet refers
to is not just the falcon, but Jesus Christ himself.
The sun therefore represents God the Father. And the sunlight reflecting off the feathers of the bird would
then represent the light of God reflected from his son, Jesus Christ.
Think about this as you read the poem because Hopkins continues with this theme later.
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- Why does the poet split "king -- dom" over two lines? (4)
[Need help?]
It has to do with the number of syllables in the line.
If the word was not split, then there would be 11 syllables in line 1 and only 13 syllables in line 2. Whereas
the poet needs a split of 10 and 14 syllables in these two lines.
To achieve this, he has to split the word "king -- dom."
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