Spring and Fall: To a Young Child

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1918

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Related Poems

“God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1877)

One of Hopkins’s most famous and most quoted poems, “God’s Grandeur” was composed a few years before “Spring and Fall.” The similarities and differences between the two poems are worth noting: both use Hopkins’s characteristic vivid sensorial imagery, sprung rhythm, alliteration, and assonance. The differences are tonal and thematic: while “Spring and Fall” is melancholy and meditative, “God’s Grandeur” is more dynamic, celebrating natural beauty as “charged” with the grandeur of God. The striking tonal variation between the two poems illustrates Hopkins’s considerable poetic range.

“Mirrors of Life and Death” by Christina Rossetti (1877)

Rossetti was one of the older contemporary poets who Hopkins greatly admired for her rhythmic, enigmatic poetry, as well as her religious and philosophical themes. “Mirrors of Life and Death,” considered an influence behind “Spring and Fall” contains similar themes of mortality and life’s impermanence. Both poems are written in simple, evocative language and rhyming short lines but differ vastly in poetic technique. A comparative analysis of the two is very useful in studying how Rossetti influenced Hopkins, and how radically Hopkins’s technique differed from other poets of the Victorian age.

“The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop (1946)

American modernist poet Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) was a great admirer of Hopkins. Hopkins’s influence is clear in Bishop’s much-lauded poem “The Fish,” which describes the animal in deep, vivid detail. Like Hopkins, Bishop pays great attention to the natural object at the center of her poem, evoking it with imagery that plays on different senses. Even the rhythm of her poem is inspired by Hopkins, with her use of clusters of stressed syllables throughout the verse. “The Fish” is a good example of how greatly Hopkins influenced modern poetry.

Further Literary Resources

The Journals and Papers of Gerard Manley Hopkins (1959)

Freely available on The Internet Archive, the journals of Hopkins offer excellent insight into his poetic process, his religious and philosophical beliefs, as well as his personality. The journals also show how Hopkins used direct experiences to construct most of his poems and how his confessional style of writing prefigures the confessional poetry of the 20th century.

“Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Difficulties of Victorian Poetry” by George P. Landow (1992)

Professor of English and the History of Art at Brown University, Landow compares Hopkins with other Victorian poets in The Victorian Web. Landow contends that the early work of Victorian poets like Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) and Robert Browning (1812-1889) were radical in their own way. Readers found their works difficult to read, and it is only because the poets went on submitting and publishing their works that they became popular. Thus, Landow disrupts the stereotype that Hopkins was the only innovator of his age and belongs at the opposite end of the spectrum from Tennyson and Browning.

“The Preposterous Beauty of Gerard Manley Hopkins” by Kay Ryan (2020)

Writing for LitHub, American poet Kay Ryan examines the poetic innovation of Hopkins, with particular attention to the poetic language used in “Spring and Fall.” Ryan’s analysis is illuminating and detailed and she shows how Hopkins’s new words and altered syntax turn his poem into an immersive universe for the reader.