Selected Sonnets and Other Lyrics by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The initial impact of these lines is purely auditory – and supremely effective at carrying meaning. The chaotic gallop of the words builds up to an auditory climax with ‘Buckle,’ superbly exposed by the enjambment. ‘Something’ has given way, ‘something’ has broken, and at a moment of supreme tension and focus. On reflection , we may feel this is a knight brought down in a battle charge; the kestrel pinning back its wings to dive for its prey, or Christ Himself broken upon the cross. Before reflection, however, there is only the rhythm, and the amazing sense of collapse-at-breaking-point communicated by ‘Buckle’ which does service semantically, but would ‘mean’ much less without the stream of words that precede it. Finally, it doesn’t matter precisely what is broken and then gives light, so long as that principle is established, and Hopkins achieves this primarily through rhythmic effects. Once the fundamental, sound-based meaning is accepted, then a period of reflection and re-reading can allow us to explore the complex ramifications of this poem – but there is certainly a strong argument that the auditory communication of meaning is, at least, very important to primary effect of these lines.

So can it be true to say that Hopkins preferred sound to meaning? Only if we recognise that he saw sound as a central technique of poetry in establishing meaning – and this is scarcely a very radical position to hold, since it is sound and rhythm that largely distinguishes poetry from prose. Why write in poetry, if there is no focus upon sound? Nevertheless, this particular focus only allows emphasis to be placed upon one aspect of Hopkins’ poetry, and it could easily be argued that his capacity for creating vivid pictorial images is just as central to his communication of meaning. Consider, for example, the final lines of The Windhover : ‘and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,/Fall, gall themselves and gash gold-vermillion.’ The vivid play of colours here imprints itself on the imagination, while the thinking mind processes the connection between ‘vermillion’ (‘blood scarlet’) and the words ‘gash’ and ‘gall’ with their associations with the Crucifixion. Like all great poetry, Hopkins’ work has genuine depth of meaning, and creates marvellous images in the mind, as well as demonstrating an exceptional mastery of sound.