Springandfall

From BluWiki

[edit] Slides

[edit] Biography

• Born in Stratford, Essex
• Attended Oxford
• Friends with Robert Bridges
• Father wrote poetry
• Devout Jesuit
• Isolated
• Published posthumously

[edit] The Era

• lived during victorion era
• did not follow victorian pattern
• modernist school of literature

[edit] Occasion

• Letter to Robert Bridges
• isolation
• Depression

[edit] Poem

1. Margaret, are you grieving
2. Over Goldengrove unleaving?
3. Leaves, like the things of man, you
4. With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
5. Ah! as the heart grows older
6. It will come to such sights colder
7. By and by, nor spare a sigh
8. Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
9. And yet you will weep know why.
10. Now no matter, child, the name:
11. Sorrow's springs are the same.
12. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
13. What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
14. It is the blight man was born for,
15. It is Margaret you mourn for.

[edit] Interpretation

• �Goldengrove unleaving�
• �fresh thoughts�
• �as the heart grows older / It will come to sights such colder�
• "you will weep know why�
• "It is the blight man was born for"
• �It is Margaret you mourn for�
• "fall"
  • leaves
  • tears
• "leave"
  • youth
  • innocence
  • life

[edit] Theme

• Maturing will not make the sorrow go away

[edit] Structure

• Rhyme: aabbccdddeeffgg

[edit] Personal Response

• As we grow older, we mature and the things that we once thought important lose their value

[edit] Notes

[edit] Biography

• He lived until age 45
• Hopkins became friends with Robert Bridges, the future poet laureate of England, at Oxford
• Influenced by his father, Hopkins started writing poetry at an early age
• Hopkins gave up his dream of becoming a writer to become a priest
• Hopkins published few of his poems. Robert Bridges and other fellow poets gathered and promoted Hopkins� poems after his death.

[edit] The Era

While he lived in the victorian era, he did not follow the typical style of writing. Typical victorian pieces were long epics about society. Hopkins poems were shorter and required interpretation. He was regarded as a pioneer of the Modernist school of literature. Because of his writing style, he was condidered a visionary poet ahead of his time.

[edit] Occasion

• As a result of the isolation of his priesthood, Hopkins became severely depressed. His increasing gloominess greatly influenced the tone of his poems.
• Hopkins wrote this poem as he walked from Lydiate to the train for Liverpool (White). He wrote Robert Bridges that it was "a little piece composed since I began this letter [Sept. 5], not founded on any real incident. He said he was not well satisfied with it.

[edit] Poem

[edit] Interpretation

• Hopkins uses vivid imagery
• "Golden grove unleaving" is the leaves dying
• the "fresh thoughts" is Margaret's innocence
• "as the heart grows older / It will come to sights such colder", Margaret's sorrow will not go away. It will only get worse. The speaker is sympathetic, yet honest and melancholy.
• "It is the blight man was born for", the "blight" is death and loss
• "fall" and "leaves" are used as both a verb and noun