Skip Navigation


The Review of English Studies Advance Access originally published online on July 30, 2008
The Review of English Studies 2009 60(244):271-294; doi:10.1093/res/hgn107
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
60/244/271    most recent
hgn107v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Coren, P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press 2008; all rights reserved

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Plainsong and the Performance of Poetry

Pamela Coren

University of Leicester


  Abstract

This article examines the effects of Hopkins's devotion to plainsong on his poetry and theory of poetry. It is written for literary specialists and students of Hopkins's poetry, requiring no specialist musical knowledge, and does not discuss the relationship of music and poetry or Hopkins's own compositions. It places his interest in early music in the context of his aesthetic development generally and proposes that Hopkins's knowledge of the unmeasured and unbarred music of plainsong provided an impetus to his move away from standard verse rhythms and his development of sprung rhythm. Its second proposition is that Hopkins's declamatory or rhetorical models of poetry and his placing of poetry in the context of performance also stem from his belief in plainsong as ‘perfect recitative’. It is based on a study of the letters and journals and contains some discussion and analysis of the poems and Hopkins's own directions on reading them.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.