Around the Corner and Down the Hill

The 27th Gerard Manley Hopkins International Festival took place in Newbridge, Kildare, at the Dominican college there. It is situated in quite a lovely spot on a bend along the River Liffey, and if ever a spot could inspire the muse, this is it.

There were, however, alongside academic lectures, poetry recitations and singing (notably, ‘Molly Malone’ in Latin, off-key, which I understand is something of a tradition), trips to various places of interest in Co. Kildare.

First we went to Maynooth College (NUI), where it is thanks to the kindness of Miho Takahashi that I have these photos at all.

Sakiko Takagi & I at Maynooth, 20th July

Then we proceeded to have a tour of the Russell Library, at which I could have stayed all day, and possibly half the night. They were having a special exhibit on WWI, and on the particular straits of their German Professor, Bewerunge, who went on a visit home in 1914, and didn’t make it back to Ireland until 1921, I believe. This should be a lesson to us.

Russell Library, Maynooth, 20th July

And if I haven’t managed to convince you to visit yet, the Chapel was worth the entire day alone. Here is the outside, which helps to almost enclose the square (it would’ve done, except they ran out of money, and hired a different architect, etc). Also, there is a rather interesting garden at the foreground, which won a few prizes and all, designed by a well-known gentleman recently, but I’d much rather talk about the chapel.

Because it is well worth talking about. Here is the view from the altar.

It is very narrow, very high and very long. I believe they said it was one of the biggest college chapels in the world, and I believe them. (You can check out some of the history here: Chapel). Notably, the history of how the Chapel, and the College were founded is mind-boggling. In the late 18th century, the British Crown (!) funded it because those Irish priests were getting far too many revolutionary ideas from the continent.

But really, what is most impressive is the detail. For example, each one of those pews is unique in design, decorated with a species of plant native to Ireland. Or we could talk about the floor:

Or the altar:

Or again:

This is the backside of the altar, and the carving of the marble is really just exquisite. Or check out this, the Lady Chapel:

Really, no expense seems to have been spared if you look at this wall gilding:

Unfortunately, I have no more pictures to offer of Maynooth, but you can take a virtual tour here:
Chapel, St. Patrick’s College Maynooth in Nui Maynooth

One of the other trips we made was to the Bog of Allen, next to the Hill of Allen, which is a historically important site in Irish History and one which tends to pop up in folklore quite a bit.

This peat: black, brown and white. Black is the most dense, and comes from the deepest part of bog, and burns the best. Brown is the middle layer, and white is the top (mostly used for gardening, I believe).

They differ in the strata of the bog, and are composed of different materials of different ages (there was quite a lecture but I’m sure you can find a book on peat).

Anyway, here we are, stacking peat to dry:

And here is the view from the top of the Bog of Allen:

It really is just breath-takingly wonderful. For those of us who like flowers of all sorts (lichen and otherwise):

This is what the bog looks like up on top, and quite frankly, reminds me a lot of the Cape. And below, I believe this is to be a type of heather which is very common on the bog.

Finally, after we stood on the Bog of Allen, listened to bog folk music and did reels. Also, we ate colcannon, which is quite tasty. That was an unexpected treat.

As I have said, there was much pub-visiting in the evening, and if you went, it was largely regarded as a public service that you had to perform. Here is proof that, as they say, I did my bit.

 

Paradox and Mystery

One of Hopkins’ most celebrated poems, it is easily one of his most anthologized and because of this, beaten, battered and bruised into the minds of schoolchildren, who henceforth regard Hopkins with the sort of terror and misery which was previously reserved for playground bullies and fish stick Fridays. This is a pity, because ‘Pied Beauty’ is lovely, in both a physical and spiritual sense. But we aren’t here to talk about the failing educational standards of the United States, but rather a closer understanding of Hopkins.

In his close textual reading of the poem, Cappella notes the importance of the comma, semi-colon section of ll.7-9, pairing as they do opposites into a whole, so that “swift” is coupled to “slow,” “sweet” to “sour” and “adazzle” to “dim.” The beauty that poet is praising is “all things counter, original, spare, strange” so that ordinary things of the world become extraordinary in the sight of the poet. This pairing of opposites into a single whole is, by nature, a paradox, but that paradox only points to the greater paradox of the poem.

Cappella made a point of noting the fact that ‘pied’ can also mean ‘variable,’ and when we consider this in light of the penultimate line of the poem, that of “He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change,” we have thus hit upon the greater paradox. If Hopkins intended that reading, how can both be true? We may, of course, separate the ‘variable’ beauty into the physical beauty of the world and leave the unchanged beauty of God alone, but then we must consider also that ‘fathers-forth’ is in the present tense. It could refer to the idea of grace (for a parallel example, cf Summa III.40.iv.1), or it could refer to something akin to the spiration of the Spirit.

But what I wonder is (and this is just musing mind), when we consider the pairing of opposites in paradox, and the mundane made divine, if it is meant to refer to the mystery of the Incarnation and the paradox of the Eucharist.

The Way the World Ends

Hopkins’ poem ‘Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves’ is even more troubling than the Terrible Sonnets, in many ways. For one, does the title suggest the Oracle at Delphi, or as Takahashi suggests, is it the Sibylline Books? Or, as Egan pointed out, is ‘spelt’ meant to refer to ‘wheat’ rather than letters? That is the matter taken lightly, but the while the theme of the Terrible Sonnets may have been dark, it is somehow less terrifying than the idea of Judgement presented in ‘Sibyl’s Leaves.’

Mr. Eliot may say what he likes about a ‘whimper,’ but merely “Our evening is over for us; our night whelms, whelms, and will end us” chills the blood as he never could. Consider also the chilling effect of the end of the poem, combining as it does two different kinds of judgement. The first, “let life wind / off” into “two spools” can only refer to the Fates, the three goddesses whose allotment of life to mortals was demonstrated by the metaphor of spinning and weaving, and finally, cutting the thread. But the poet’s remembrance of that brings in another line of thought, for “two spools” becomes “two flocks, two folds” where they are “black, white; right, wrong;” and at once here is the Christian judgement, where the two semi-colons indicate how the entire terror of the thought rests on those paired opposites of black and white, right and wrong.

“Reckon but, reck but, mind / But these two,” so the poet continues (and consider the fruitful allusions of ‘reckon’ and ‘reck’), almost breathlessly, with the unbearable clever ‘mind’ at the end of the line serving as both a warning and a reminder. “Ware of a world” cries the poet, “of a rack / Where, selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe-and shelterless, thoughts against thoughts in groans grind.” If the onomatopoeic nature of those last two words didn’t convince you, consider fully that middle clause of ‘selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe-and shelterless,’ and perhaps the consequences of a certain Garden popped into your mind.

Takahashi said it well when she called this poem “the apocalyptic hymn of Hopkins.”

Straining for Something

‘Hurrahing in Harvest’ is one of the loveliest and most celebrated of Hopkins’ poems. The whole literary world is still breathlessly waiting on the remarkable ambiguity of “O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.” Consider also how the line “these things were here and but the beholder / Wanting” (ll.11-2) is so similar in effect to the line “It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze from oil / Crushed” (ll.3-4) in ‘God’s Grandeur,’ and is similarly subtle in meaning.

Complexities of ambiguity aside, there are two thoughts (aside from many others) that I shall comment on. First, per that little post on Hopkins the Victorian, how the “stallion stalwart” and the “heart” which “rears wings bold and bolder” (ll.10-4) cannot help but put one in mind of the myth of Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology who Bellerophon, in his hubris, tried to ride to the heavens. Since the speaker says “I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes” in order “to glean our Saviour” in the heavens, the parallels are too exact to be accident. Yet unlike Bellerophon, who suffers grievously on account of his attempt, the speaker’s last line seems rather in ecstasy, suggesting that unlike the Greco-Roman gods, who took umbrage at mortal inroads, the ‘Saviour’ of the speaker is quite different.

Secondly, let us consider the alliteration of ‘Hurrahing in Harvest,’ which since this is Hopkins, there is a great deal of and in the title no less. While there is a profusion of ‘h’ alliteration throughout, I wish rather to draw attention to the ‘g,’ ‘r,’ and ‘b.’ For ‘g,’ we have “glory” and “glean” in l.6, “gave” in l.7 and “greeting” ‘in l.8. For ‘r,’ we have “rise” in l.1, “rapturous” and “realer” and “rounder” in l. 8, and lastly “rears” in l.13. For ‘b,’ we have “barbarous” and “beauty” in l.1, “beholder” in l.11 and “bold” and “bolder” in 13. What these mean I cannot say for certain, only notice the poet’s ecstasy (‘rapturous,’ ‘glory, ‘bold’ and ‘bolder’) in seeing (‘glean,’ ‘beholder’) what reality is (‘realer,’ ‘rounder,’ ‘barbarous’ and ‘beauty’).

Man of Mystery

It seems that Hopkins is a man out of time. Perhaps it is because his poetry was not published in its entirety until after the War, and many a fine Modernist claimed him as their own. Yet Arkins’ lecture on ‘Hopkins and the Classics’ reminded me that for all of our (mis)appropriation of Hopkins, he was, himself, a Victorian. What the word chains that Hopkins uses to such great effect may not necessarily be akin to the Modernist usage at all, Arkins suggested, but being rather more like to Aeschylus’s use of compound adjectives. One notes also a certain elegance of brevity in Hopkins, which cannot be denied looks of Latin origin.

Classics aside, Hopkins’ study of etymology and philology and his use of it in his poetry is breath-takingly Victorian, almost as much as his use of alliteration and assonance, and his play with the nature and sound and rhythm of words (as had the ancient roots of English poetry done of old) is so absent in Modern poetry, which may explain much about it. In point of fact, Hopkins’ poetry is so overwhelming in the sense of language, so carefully designed and ornamented (whether within a metrical form or no), that one might suggest that he has more in common with his peers in time, than out of it.

Consider also the subtlety and double-play of his words, more akin to Herbert or Donne perhaps, than those that followed after him. And if academics have liked to make much of the Terrible Sonnets, well, they certainly take part in a literary tradition as near as that Donne and as far away as Thomas Wyatt. That is not to say he is entirely Victorian, for Hopkins is, in many ways, so entirely fresh and original, so novel that he does not fit with staid or dull verse. But if anyone deserves his own literary category, surely Hopkins does. Then again, is that not the nature of great literature?

Bearing Witness

The question is—does Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ need an introduction? While not so ubiquitous as Shakespeare, googling his name (or referring to the nearest bookstore) usually returns a tidy witness to his popularity, not including the barrels of ink spilled by academics on his account. Therefore I suggest if you don’t know who Hopkins is, you should take yourself to the nearest encyclopedia, or if that should fail you, at the very least, Wikipedia.

In any case, while the International Gerard Manley Hopkins Festival is not quite so well known as Hopkins himself, that too has a website you can google, so I shall restrain myself to describing some of the lectures which, though interesting, do not merit a whole post.

Firstly, Adamson gave a very interesting lecture, entitled ‘The Man from Petrograd,’ on precisely why Robert Bridges put off and put off, and put off yet again having Hopkins’ poetry published, despite some great demand. It took Bridges some twenty years to have Hopkins’ poetry published, which is obviously demonstrates the importance of picking your literary executor wisely (in particular, cf Letter to Mrs. Manley Hopkins, 4th of August 1890, where Bridges refers to “the peculiarities of his versification” and the “freakishness corresponding to his odd choice of words etc”). Whether it was envy (quite possibly), arrogance (without a doubt) or simply block-headedness, Adamson demurred to say, noting only his supposition that the reason why Bridges failed to understand and appreciate Hopkins-the-poet was because he did not understand Hopkins-the-priest. In any case, Adamson took particular care to note the great irony of Bridges’ letter to Mrs. Manley Hopkins on the 14th of January, 1918, just prior to the publication of edition of Hopkins’ poems, where he informed her of “what happiness it is to have one’s long patience at last rewarded.”

Secondly, Bagnall gave a lecture on ‘Hopkins and the Catholic University,’ which gave an enormous amount of background for Hopkins’ employment in the Classics Department at UCD in 1884. During the time Hopkins was there, UCD was poorly run, both with regard to its accounts and the management of its faculty and students to the extent that it is amazing that the school still exists. UCD was heavily in debt, seemed incapable of collecting its student’s fees, and better still, paid faculty differing amounts seemingly without cause. Such is a recipe for disaster. This may go some way as to explaining why (beyond the obvious), Hopkins was miserable in Dublin.

Finally, Grandgeorge gave a lecture on ‘Hopkins and Habbakuk,’ and while I am inclined to disagree that the origin of the phrase “send my roots rain” comes from the book of Habbakuk, as I would guess that it rather comes from the Psalms (if one must be Biblical), or more likely from the Prologue of Chaucer. But what I found most striking was Grandgeorge’s comment on Hopkins’ conversion to the Catholic faith (it must be noted that Grandgeorge is a Protestant minister), when he remarked on what might have happened if Hopkins had remained in the Church of England. “And what could he [Hopkins] have had? Oh my friends, a man of his genius, of his particular genius, could have had all the world has to offer, including a relationship with God.”

Yet this remark, it seems to me, taking as it does an anguished look at the loss of poetry and relationships and things that Hopkins suffered on his entering into the Jesuits, is extremely ironical. For it was, as Hopkins himself might have said, only in forsaking his life that he found it.

Here Endeth the Lesson

Unsurprisingly, in my treatment of Haicéad’s last poem, on being forbidden to write Irish verse, I will be referring to Kinsella’s translation. You will have to forgive my blatant favoritism of this, the last of Haicéad’s work. But it seems to me, unlike his political work or his romantic work, this poem tells the truth of Haicéad. While his use of a battle metaphor is much like most of his other work, however, the end of the poem does not call for victory in those terms, so that if the prayer at the end of #49 to God asks for victory, it does so in moral not temporal terms; Haicead asks for judgement, admittedly a negative one, rather than the death of his enemies.

He begins by learning the news of a ‘decent’ man, which, as I have said, only contrasts with his description of clergy as ‘arrogant’ and ‘malignant,’ not to mention ‘bald.’ Clearly, that last offense is the last straw (also, likely a twice-fold pun, playing with the clerical tonsure and the meaning of bald as bluntly or even rudely honest). On account of this, while the poet would like to do battle, he cannot, for ‘the time is past’ ‘when the edge of [his] intellect was a thing to fear,’ so that the poet ‘will not spring at the flank of their argument,’ unlike so many times before (cf #48, #35, #13). Rather, the poet ‘stitch[s] my mouth up with a twisted string,’ where not only will he ‘say no word about their mean complaining,’ but to the point of stitching his mouth shut, not simply with thread but of heavier, graver sort, that of ‘twisted string.’

And what he beseeches ‘Oh my God’ is not simply death, but to ‘condemn,’ which is not the same thing entirely. Here is the poet’s request for judgement, not merely victory for this side or that. But he has already told of us the weight of this betrayal, that the clerics are a ‘herd of narrow censors,’ where ‘narrow’ is derogatory, particularly compared to the ‘subtle paths’ of Gaelic (consider the difference in ‘paths’ and ‘narrow,’ where the implication of one is way finding, and the other is the opposite) . The moral character of this insult is only eclipsed by his description of them as a ‘herd,’ that they are more akin to a group of animals than to rational men. For a man who would have and did do battle with nothing more than his tongue and his wits, this is probably the greatest retort he could muster, save of course, the last lines of the last poem, of the last prayer he wrote. Clearly, while the pen may be mightier than the sword, the last of Haicéad shows that he well knew—there are things, or rather more truly, beings mightier still indeed.

Every Translator is a Traitor

‘On hearing that it was ordered by the Irish clergy that a brother may not compose Gaelic poetry,’ translated by Michael Hartnett, #49

I heard of late from one easy-going, friendly,
a novel tale that came out of Ireland:
that now the clergy regard as threatening
the incisive Gaelic language—
the great joy of our urbane ancestors!
I, myself, won’t engage in their arguments,
since the time has gone since I could organize
each thought that came from contemplating;
when with a sharp and dangerous intellect
I could shake a fist of magic javelins
that would not lose their cunning energies
right at these overbearing clergymen
down on their bald destructive craniums!

I will sew up my lips with plaited cross-stitching
and not speak of their niggardly pettiness,
but I denounce this pack and their censoring
and their hate, O God, for my fellow-countrymen!

‘On hearing it has been Ordered in the Chapterhouses of Ireland that the Friars make no more Songs or Verses,’ translated by Thomas Kinsella

I heard from a decent man the other day
A piece of news from the ‘spouse of Coron and Corc’:
That the Church condemns our Gaelic’s subtle paths,
The polished pleasures of our noble fathers.

I will not spring at the flank of their argument
Now that the time is past when I could mutter
Each thought erupting from the scope of my mind,
When the edge of my intellect was a thing to fear

Showering with no loss of pliant force
Into the general flank of those arrogant priests
Or down on top of their bald malignant skulls
A hard sharp fistful of accomplished darts.

I will stitch my mouth up with a twisted string
And say no word about their mean complaining
Merely condemn the herd of narrow censors
And the hate they bear my people, O my God.

As I have said previously, in Past and Present, I prefer the subtlety of Kinsella’s version to Hartnett’s, for a number of reasons I will point out later. Firstly though, I wanted to consider the suitability of each translation. Compare the difference in the lines ‘the great joy of our urbane ancestors’ and ‘the polished pleasures of our noble fathers.” Attractive alliterations aside, Hartnett’s use of ‘urbane’ seems ill-suited as compared to Kinsella’s much more fitting ‘noble.’ Or again, what Hartnett translates as ‘a fist of magic javelins,’ Kinsella has as ‘a hard sharp fistful of accomplished darts,’ where the troubling ‘magic’’ is replaced with ‘accomplished.’ Versed in folklore Haicéad may have been, but I much doubt he would debase his skill as a poet or his faith as a priest by ‘magic.’

Kinsella’s extended use of the battle metaphor in stanzas 2-4 gives a more logical whole, as does his separation into quatrains, which I assume mimics Haicéad’s metrical form. I could also pick and choose the parts of Kinsella’s that I like better – his use of ‘decent man’ instead of ‘easy-going, friendly’ as Hartnett does. The two translations are not comparable, if only because the use of ‘decent’ more than implies the treacherous betrayal Haicéad feels.

Lastly though, and perhaps most important, Kinsella’s translation of the last four lines shows a deeper understanding that Hartnett, I believe, lacks. The difference between Hartnett and Kinsella is how the speaker’s ‘hate’ is directed. In Hartnett, the poet says ‘I denounce’ and his ‘O God’ may as well be a curse as an oath. In Kinsella, however, the poet beseeches ‘Oh my God’ to ‘merely condemn,’ that hatred. There can be no comparison between the two, for it is, as you see, a matter of subtlety, but such is the matter.

Confusing the Issue with Facts

Haicéad, as I had said, writes mainly of love. Even so, it make take a reader or two by surprise that a priest should be writing of romantic love for a woman, but we shan’t make the error of conflating narrator with poet. In any case, Hartnett claims that #4—dedicated to Mary Tobin—is a “lovely, if conventional, ‘court of love’ effusion to Mary Tobin and, shortly afterwards, on hearing of her death, write a real and tender poem,” referring to #5 (11-2). I cannot deny his claim that #5 is entirely on a different level than #4, reflecting as it does the gravity of Mary Tobin’s death and sincerity of Haicéad’s belief as a Catholic priest, but it seems to me that they are not so easily separable as Hartnett might like to think.

While #4 does seem little more than a “lovely, if conventional, ‘court of love’ effusion,” it does more than that. Haicead does praise her physical beauty at some length:

“A stroke from a sharpened quill is not more slim
Than her eyebrows black as the beetle’s wing
Above her eyes—two speheres of liquid grey–
The Archetypal rose is in the whiteness of her face;
Her fine and smooth and well-proportioned nose,
Her gentle lips that well-shaped teeth enclose—”

And there may be something almost ridiculous in colouring a woman’s eyebrow ‘black as the beetle’s wing,’ and while Haicéad goes so far as to call her “my virgin of the perfect breasts,” that is not the only level at which he praises her. She is also his “sweet distinguished friend” with “holy hand” and “true-voice” so that when he is with her, the poet’s “heart pours out a gentle peace” (Hartnett 17). There is in #4 not only praise of her physical attributes but her virtues as well, although it must be said that the former greatly exceeds the latter.

That ratio is reversed in #5, ‘After hearing of Mary’s death,’ so that when the poet says “death has not conquered her image in my mind,” he explains that “her beauty stays intact: not a jot is changed; / she is known to be warm, affectionate, / devout and honest, pure and wise, / pleasant, lovely, noble, young and kind” (Harnett 17). If the poet could exchange his life for hers, he would “be a bad exchange” not only on account of her virtue, since she is his “small, pure lamb” but also because the poet has “received the grace to forever suffer pain / in the stinging fire of hurt among the living dead” (Hartnett 17). While this is explicitly religious, the poet’s belief is most firmly stated in the last stanza, which on account of Hopkins I have already quoted, but the last two lines are more than worth quoting again, expressing as they do Haicéad’s faith in such a beautiful and hopeful way:

“My blackbird, take my blessing and embrace your Paradise—
For my virgin girl, this is not death—but life.”

The Facts of the Matter

Haicéad is characterized by his use of alliteration, adjective chains and his puns, and last but certainly not least, his sense of humour.

Firstly, to alliteration. Consider #22, which is dedicated to Roiberd Óg Carrún, and reads thusly:

“I call warm blessings on your head always 

And, beloved, on the sociable pure harp you play:

With a stream of polished playing skilled and sweet

You have banished the spiders out of all our ears!”

                                                              (Hartnett 37)

Secondly, to his accumulation of adjectives. Consider #3, which is a love poem which refers to “Deirdre of the unrevealing eyes” who has told her love “that we must separate, for she intends to wed.” Her love praises Deirdre, saying that it isn’t her fault that she is “slender noble svelte / sweet silvertongued whitetoothed” and “handsome graceful wise with twisting intricate hair, / a white-as-chalk and stately smoothflanked maid” (Hartnett 16). Much of his poetry reads in such a fashion, from describing woman to men and even an odd bishop or two, down to Ireland herself: “poor and fair and swiftspeared Ireland,” “O tender, brightflanked coastline” (Harnett 24).

Thirdly, his puns. Consider #12, which is dedicated to James Butler in Ireland, and says that the poet “send[s] to see you, to the Irish shore, / a darling woman who wears no clothes” (Hartnett 25). The earlier two lines of the poem are a blessing, and so too are the last, for the poet sends a benediction, which in Irish is beannacht (note—this is a female noun). But the pun lies in the fact that “a darling woman who wears no clothes” is bean nocht in Irish. Or we could take #19, which is entitled “Arneis” which is an Irish word meaning ‘cattle’ where the poet adds “a dimunitive,” that of ‘ín’ and he is referring to ‘Caitlín’ (Hartnett 34, 11).

And lastly, his sense of humour. There are many places one could quote, but one need simply quote #1 in full:

“Though I am just a wisp of straw and not a besom—

And not Cearúl—that noble, handsome creature—

I’d sooner have his place in your affections

Than control the whole of Cruachain’s taxes.

 

Take heed—although he’s absent long on trips—

Don’t ignore my love in such hardships;

for it’s commonly said, my girl, whose tight curls thickly fall,

It’s better to be mangy than have no hair at all.”

                                                           (Harnett 15)