Spring and Fall: To a Young Child

Hopkins is now regarded as one of the most important 19th century poets in the English language, but in his own time, the theologian remained largely unpublished. Part of this neglect was the nature of Hopkins’s poems: though the poems are about familiar themes like nature, mortality, and religion, stylistically they are radically different from the conventions of Victorian poetry. A visionary and innovator, Hopkins wrote in his poems not just new words and phrases, he also experimented with syntax, rhythm, and meter. Behind these formal experiments was Hopkins’s belief that form and subject are one. The form of a poem creates meaning, rather than just be its vehicle. This can be seen in “Spring and Fall,” where Hopkins’s careful use of words like “unleaving,” “goldengrove,” “wanwood,” and more creates layers of semantic associations.

Another literary innovation for which Hopkins is known is “sprung rhythm” (for a greater explanation, refer to the “Form, meter, and rhyme” under the “Literary Devices” section of this guide). “Sprung rhythm” is Hopkins’s attempt to incorporate the rhythms of Welsh poetry and oral speech into English. In this system, each metrical foot begins with a stressed syllable. To mark the stresses, Hopkins used accents, as he does throughout in “Spring and Fall.” Hopkins considered sprung rhythm to be the natural rhythm of speech and oral tradition; thus, his poems were meant to be read aloud. The “sprung” in sprung rhythm denotes the fact that the stressed syllables can often follow each other, as in the phrases “ghost guessed” and “heart heard” (Line 13).

Why this sharp focus on sound and form? The answer lies in Hopkins’s belief that aesthetics and the particulars of form reflected the divine inherent in nature. His creative vision encompassed poetry and nature as one whole, ultimately manifesting God’s glory. Additionally, Hopkins was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelitism of painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), the brother of poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894). The name Pre-Raphaelitism refers to pre-renaissance or pre-Raphael; Raphael was a painter synonymous with the 16th century European Renaissance. Rosetti’s Pre-Raphaelitism was a visual arts and literary movement that emphasized the aesthetics of medieval paintings and poetry. Some of the features of the movement were a conflation of the devotional and the erotic, and particular emphasis on sensorial details of color, texture, and sound. Hopkins, a painter himself, was also moved by the Pre-Raphaelites’ love for the visual image. In “Spring and Fall,” descriptions such as “Goldengrove unleaving” and “leafmeal” immediately conjure up not just visual image but an entire visual atmosphere.

The combination of formal innovation with devotional themes and Biblical imagery gives Hopkins’s verse a unique, exciting quality. However, radical as his verse is, Hopkins often drew inspiration from established traditions and poets writing in conventional meter. Apart from his study of the Welsh language, Hopkins was also influenced by the works of his contemporary Christina Rossetti. Like Hopkins, Rossetti too wrote poems with religious themes, though with more conventional, ballad-like stanzaic structures. Rossetti’s poems also have a read-aloud quality, which appealed to Hopkins. Hopkins was influenced by his friend and the poet Robert Bridges as well, who regularly commented on Hopkins’s work. Bridges, an influential writer who would go on to be appointed England’s Poet Laureate, was instrumental in getting Hopkins’s poetry published at last, several years after Hopkins’s death from typhoid.