Volume III, Issue V, July 2015 – ISSN 2321-7065
The Grandeur of G. M. Hopkins’s “The Windhover”: An
Evaluation of the Poem As “The Best Thing [He] Ever Wrote”
Arup Ratan Chakraborty
Assistant Professor in English
Santal Bidroha Sardha Satabarshiki Mahavidyalaya
Goaltore, Paschim Medinipur
West Bengal
India
ABSTRACT:
―The Windhover‖ is perhaps the best poem of G. M. Hopkins. Hopkins himself called ―The
Windhover‖ ―the best thing I ever wrote‖. Written in 1877, it was published in 1918, when
the first volume of Hopkins‘s poems was brought out by his friend Robert Bridges, twentynine years after the poet‘s death. This poem represents, in the best possible way, all the
artistic qualities of Hopkins. The poem is rich in secular and religious elements, imagery and
symbolism, structure and versification, and in the language and the tone. Though Hopkins
belonged to the Victorian Age, temperamentally he was a modern poet. His modernity in
―The Windhover‖ is evident in his verbal and metrical innovations, his use of ‗inscape‘ and
‗instress‘ and ‗sprung rhythm‘
KEYWORDS: ―The Windhover‖, G. M. Hopkins, Modernity, Inscape, Instress, Sprung
Rhythm
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1.
Introduction
Gerard Manley Hopkins‘s ―The Windhover‖ is one of the most discussed poems of
modern English literature. It commonly appears in anthologies and has lent itself to many
interpretations. Written in 1877, it was published in 1918, when the first volume of Poems of
Gerard Manley Hopkins was brought out by Robert Bridges, the friend of Hopkins, twentynine years after the poet‘s death. During his lifetime (1844-89), Hopkins published few
poems. He never meant his poems to be published. Hopkins burnt all his poems on entering
the Jesuit novitiate; however, he had already sent some to Bridges who, with a few other
friends, was one of the few people to see many of them for some years. After Hopkins's death
they were distributed to a wider audience, mostly fellow poets, and in 1918 Bridges, by
then poet laureate, published a collected edition; an expanded edition, prepared by Charles
Williams, appeared in 1930, and a greatly expanded edition by W. H. Gardiner appeared in
1948 (eventually reaching a fourth edition, 1967, with N. H. Mackenzie). Hopkins called
―The Windhover‖ ―the best thing I ever wrote‖ (Hopkins 1953, 227). Windhover is another
name for the Common Kestrel.
―The Windhover‖ has been interpreted in various ways. But my attempt in this paper
would be to assess why Hopkins himself referred to this poem as his best work. This poem
represents, in the best possible way, all the artistic qualities of Hopkins. In the following
sections I shall try (i) to trace the origin of the poem and its theme, (ii) to analyse the
presence of secular and religious elements in it, (iii) to interprete the imagery and symbolism
of the poem, (iv) to analyse the structure and versification and (v) the language and the tone
of the poem.
We should remember that although physically Hopkins belonged to the
Victorian Age, temperamentally he was much ahead of his time. His modernity means not
that he belongs, spiritually, to us, but that by transcending in great measure the dead
conventions of his contemporaries he is free of all ages and entombed by none. He has
probably engaged most attention as an explorer in prosody and an experimenter in
techniques. Hopkins‘s violations of grammar much offended Yvor Winters, who also
disputed his metrics. What Bridges, his closest friend and final edition, calls ‗blemishes‘
(Hopkins 1918, 97) in his poetry are essential to Hopkins‘s aim and achievement. In a letter
(dated 15 February 1879) to Robert Bridges, he says:
No doubt my poetry errs on the side of oddness. I hope in time to have a more
balanced and Miltonic style. But as air, melody, is what strikes me most of all in
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music and design in painting, so design, pattern, or what I am in the habit of
calling inscape is what I above all aim at in poetry. Now it is the virtue of design,
pattern, or inscape to be distinctive and it is the vice of distinctiveness to become
queer. This vice I have not escaped. (Abbot 1955, 38)
Hopkins obsession with originality is deep-laid It arises out of his basic belief about the
poetic nature: ―Every true poet, I thought must be original and the originality is a condition
of poetic genius‖ (Abbot 1956, 370). Hopkins‗s originality is two-fold – metrical and verbal.
Let‘s analyse ―The Windhover‖ to find out its greatness.
1. Analysis of “The Windhover”
2.1. Origin of the poem
Hopkins wrote ―The Windhover‖ at St. Beuno‘s College in North Wales in the spring
of 1877—he dated it ―May 30 1877‖ — and over a year later, on July 16 1878, he referred to
it as simply ―the Falcon sonnet‖ (Abbot 1955, 56). It is probably the most accomplished
sonnet of that whole period. Its title, ―The Windhover‖ refers to a ‗Falcon‘, a bird of prey that
literally hovers in the wind to spy its quarry. Hopkins dedicated the poem ―To Christ our
Lord.‖1 This dedication was first added more than six-and-a-half years after the poem was
composed, and is not part of the original text. Another year later, on June 22 1879, he called
the poem ―the best thing I ever wrote,‖ but still did not mention ‗Christ.‘ The words ―To
Christ our Lord‖ were first added over four years after that, when Hopkins checked and
revised a copy of the poem made by his friend and fellow-poet Robert Bridges, a revision
made some time after mid-December 1883, most likely in 1884—over six-and-a-half
years after the poem‘s composition. I shall try to define in what way Hopkins sees the bird,
and what it comes to mean to him.
2.2. Poetic tension and Themes in “The Windhover”
―The Windhover‖ is a complex poem and needs some careful analysis to get to its
fullness, though even a first reading suggests a powerful poem, through its
dramatic images and strong rhythms.
It represents the fullest statement so far in Hopkins‘ verse of his inner conflict
between:

the world of created beauty and his love of it

the demands of a disciplined religious life, to which he feels called by the Creator.
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As in The Starlight Night, he seeks a resolution. Whether he finds it, or whether there remains
a still unresolved tension at the end will be one of the questions we need to face.
There are two interwoven themes, therefore, in the sonnet:

The beauty, variety and uniqueness of nature as depicted in the octave.

Christ‘s beauty in the sestet.

There is also an implied theme, Serving God, emerging at the end of the sonnet.
The interpretation of the poem revolves round how these three themes fit together, or whether
they are put in opposition to each other.
2. “The Windhover” as a religious poem
3.1. The subtitle of the poem
The poem is actually not to the bird at all; it is ‗To Christ our Lord‘, i.e. a religious
poem. The octave is certainly about the bird, trying to define its particular ‗inscape‘ or
identity, and the way it impacts him, its ‗instress‘. But in the sestet, Hopkins shifts his
ground, taking his eye off the bird and addressing Christ directly. The sestet in fact,
unusually, divides into two clear tercets:

one thinking of the beauty of Christ as opposed to the beauty of the bird;

the other, seeing in what way Christ‘s beauty is beautiful, and, more to the point, how
an apparently ordinary religious life could share in that beauty.
This is a challenge for us, too, as modern readers, since we talk easily enough about beautiful
women or landscapes, but not about beauty in ordinary, unglamorous things. We have to
remember that the Victorians, as heirs to the Romantics, had a much more fully worked
out aesthetic , which they were not afraid to apply to religion, or even to a mathematical
proof.
3.2. Inscape and Instress in “The Windhover”
An important element in his work is Hopkins's own concept of ‗inscape‘ which was
derived, in part, from the medieval theologian Duns Scotus. The exact detail of ‗inscape‘ is
uncertain and probably known to Hopkins alone but it has to do with the individual essence
and uniqueness of every physical thing. This is communicated from an object by its ‗instress‘
and ensures the transmission of the item's importance in the wider creation. His poems would
then try to present this ‗inscape‘ so that a poem like ―The Windhover‖ aims to depict not the
bird in general but it becomes a metaphor for Christ.
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The terms inscape and instress are coined by Hopkins. There is no single definition or
explanation of these terms as the journals which he wrote were never meant for publication.
The prefix ‗-in‘ emphasizes the inner core of distinctiveness, i.e., the ‗self‘ in all things. The
word ‗scape‘ as in ‗landscape‘ suggests the vastness or a total view. Thus, while
comprehending a thing in its totality, Hopkins perceived its inner distinctiveness. It is a mode
of perception, a moment of concentrated awareness which helped him to feel the essence of
being embedded in other creatures or objects. This is what Duns Scotus, the English
theologician of the thirteenth century called ‗haeccitas‘ or ‗thisness‘ in a thing.
The word ‗instress‘ is used to mean the energy that is inherent in and sustains all
things. It is also the force of stress that is waiting to discharge itself into the heart of the
devotee. It is a moment of spiritual insight after the heightened mood of inscape. It can also
come suddenly like a shower of blessing. ―The Windhover‖ begins with the inscape of the
bird in its flight and as admiration mounts to adoration, the bird becomes a metaphor for
Christ. That is the moment of instress.
In the octave, Hopkins has been watching a falcon soaring and swooping in the
morning air, marveling at the bird‘s skill and grace. The windy conditions do not seem to
bother the bird, who seems in total control of all his ecstatic movements. Hopkins‘ ‗heart in
hiding‘ is deeply moved by the sight, yet this reaction distresses him.
In the sestet he seems to want to regain his composure, ‗here buckle‘. He can only do
this by turning to Christ and declaring:

that ‗the fire that breaks from the then‘ is both more lovely and more challenging

such fire is hidden, but breaks out from the ordinary surface appearance of things to
reveal itself

the implication is that the bird‘s beauty is merely physical, and Hopkins‘ response to
it merely physical

the deeper beauty is spiritual, often hidden underneath a dull physical appearance.
There is the implication, however, in ‗fall‘ and ‗gash‘, that he is thinking more specifically
about Christ‘s crucifixion, where his self-sacrifice must be defined as the ultimate spiritual
beauty:

this self-sacrificing love then becomes the mark of all human spiritual beauty.
3.3. Creation signifies its creator.
The problem lies in the word ‗Buckle!‘ which has several quite different meanings:
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
crumple, or give in or buckle under pressure. The moment of instress is often
described as the moment when the pressure of grace discharges a spiritual energy into
the devotee. Therefore it could mean that the two levels of metaphor are fused and the
bird becomes Christ.

the above interpretation assumes the word means ‗buckle down, or under‘, ‘get
control of‘

but ‗buckle‘ can also mean to fasten together, as with a belt.
If this is so, then the interpretation has more to do with admitting the way strength, beauty
and skill all come together in a unique inscape. The bird, as a created being, then becomes a
sign of its creator.
In Christian theology, Christ was present at creation, and therefore could be seen as
its creator, or the way through which creation came (‗God... by his Son...through whom he
made the universe.‘ Hebrews 1:2, New International Version of Bible).
Hopkins then has to think of how he, as priest, can live out his uniqueness, which may well
be by ‗sheer plod‘ rather than the soaring arcs of the bird.
3. Imagery and symbolism in “The Windhover”
4.1. Chivalric sport
The main image of the octave is the kestrel as knight. As hawking and falconry are
aristocratic, medieval sports, it is appropriate for Hopkins to use both images and diction that
reflect this. Since medieval aristocratic life was basically conducted in French, so are the
terms used:

‗minion‘, meaning ‗darling‘ rather than ‗servant‘ in medieval French;

‗dauphin‘, the heir apparent to the French throne;

‗wimpling‘ from ‗wimple‘ a medieval head covering, still worn by nuns;

‗rung‘ and ‗rein‘ both suggest falconry and releasing the bird whilst riding.
So the bird appears noble, proud, as well as totally skilful.
In the sestet, Christ is addressed as knight, using the same medieval terminology as in
the octave. Whilst seeing Christ as a knight is not exactly biblical, many medieval poems did
see Christ in this way (e.g. an Old English poem ―The Dream of the Rood‖). More
significantly, Jesuit spirituality saw Christ as the supreme chevalier, whilst Jesuit priests were
seen as Christ‘s soldiers.
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4.2. Physical freedom
Hopkins introduces a second image in the octave: that of skating, another sport that
demands skill and grace and strength in equal measure. Here he is thinking of the sweeping
movements of the bird through the air. Implicit in both images is the idea of physical
freedom, of being without borders, and also of display. The bird is unselfconsciously showing
off his skill.
4.3. Fire
The sestet lacks such cohesive images. There is the sudden emergence of ‗fire‘:

‗the fire that breaks from..‘ might suggest volcanic activity

however the last two lines suggest more an apparently dying fire, which when stirred,
breaks out into flame again, though that would not seem very ‗dangerous‘.
The dangerous fire is either:
God‘s glory, which is too fierce for man to look on,

‗the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory‘
(2
Corinthians 3:7 New International Version of Bible), a glory he had from contact with
God
on Mount Sinai:
‗When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant and they were afraid
to come near him.‘ (Exodus 34:30 New International Version of Bible)

or electric fire from an arc.
4.4. Ploughing
The final two images pull the sestet together. The image of ploughing, a humble, nonglamorous activity, is made to seem something special by the use of ‗sillion‘ another
medieval word meaning furrow (but rhyming with much grander French-sounding words
‗billion‘ and ‗vermilion‘) and the image of the shining earth as it is turned by the plough.
In a sermon, Hopkins refers to the humble period of Christ‘s life, when he was a
carpenter at Nazareth, before his ministry began, as ‗the great help to faith‘. In a letter to
Canon Dixon he writes: ―We (Jesuits) cultivate the commonplace outwardly, and wish the
beauty of...the soul to be all from within‖ (Sulloway, 112). This doesn‘t mean he found it
easy.
4.5. Glowing embers
The final image of the fire stirred, its embers glowing gold and hot again, represents a
beauty in miniature, as well as domestic and relaxed comfort, which stands in strange tension
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to the thought of Christ‘s wounds. Yet the mixture of earth and fire in these two final images
could be seen to symbolise body and spirit. In an essay, Hopkins wrote that the unique
blending of these two elements constituted man‘s inscape. The images of the sestet are less
obvious than those of the octave, this movement from simple octave to difficult sestet
echoing ―The Starlight Night‖.
5. Structure and versification in “The Windhover”
5.1. Sonnet structure of “The Windhover”
The sonnet structure is one of Hopkins‘ most elaborate, as is his use of sprung
rhythm. Each line could be examined in detail, but we shall be selective here. Basically the
poem is a Petrarchan sonnet, rhyming abbaabba cdcdcd, a very traditional rhyme scheme.
The sestet is divided into two tercets - again this is not unusual in Petrarchan sonnets. The
octave is not quite evenly divided: the first quatrain runs over into the fifth line with ‗In his
ecstasy!‘, but that in itself is not remarkable.
5.2. Use of Sprung Rhythm
Sprung Rhythm, as used in this poem, is measured by feet of from one to four
syllables, regularly, and for particular effects any number of weak or slack syllables may be
used. It has one stress, which falls on the only syllable, if there is only one, if there are more,
then scanning as above, on the first, and so gives rise to four sorts of feet, a monosyllable and
the so-called accentual Trochee, Dactyl, and the First Paeon.
What is remarkable is the use of the Sprung Rhythm to try to recreate the bird‘s flight, with
its sweeps, stops and dives. Hopkins‘ theory allows him to do things to the traditional iambic
pentameter, the typical sonnet line form:

He can add extra stresses to it, forming extra feet. Sometimes he calls these
‗outriders‘, i.e. outside the normal scansion; sometimes they are merely extra stressed
monosyllables, or spondees

He can add extra unstressed syllables, so technically keeping the line to five stressed
syllables.

He also sets up counterpointing in various ways, so the musical possibilities open to
him are numerous, and in this sonnet, they really work for him.
Sprung Rhythm is the most natural of things. He tabulates the reasons:
(1) it is the rhythm of common speech and of written prose, when rhythm is perceived in
them.(2) It is the rhythm of all but the most monotonously regular music, so that in the words
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of choruses and refrains and in songs written closely to music it arises. (3) It is found in
nursery rhymes, weather saws, and so on; because, however these may have been once made
in running rhythm, the terminations having dropped off by the change of language, the
stresses come together and so the rhythm is sprung. (4) It arises in common verse when
reversed or counterpointed, for the same reason. (Hopkin1918, 5-6).
5.3. Flight conveyed
In the first few lines, we can see the effect of the bird‘s soaring through the
continuous run-on lines. The first sentence fills most of the octave, with only an exclamation
mark to indicate any significant pause. Where else we pause is largely up to us, according to
how we respond to the counterpointing. It is obvious that ‗king‘ in ‗I caught this
morning morning‘s minion, king- / dom of daylight‘s dauphin‘ is more than just
the first syllable of ‗kingdom‘. The ‗windhover‘ becomes a symbol of Christ, its
outstretched ‗wimpling‘ wings like outstretched arms on the cross: it becomes a
symbol of Christ as ‗king‘.
5.4. Metre of “The Windhover”
The metre of ‗The Winhover‘ can be analysed in the following way:

The iambic pentameter is quite regular in the first line.

In the second line the first and last feet are anapaestic, that is, still a rising metre. but
what do we do with the middle of the line: ‗dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon‘?

Each of the alliterating syllables really needs a stress, as does the ‗Fal-‘.

We have to conclude ‗dawn‘ and ‗drawn‘ are extra spondees, giving the line
seven stresses rather than five.

When we see the internal rhymes and assonance here, too, with the long ‗aw‘
sound, it makes the line very long indeed.


However the hyphenating invites us to read the phrase quickly.

This is a good example of counterpointing.
In the third line, ‗rolling‘ is quite onomatopoeic, and the rhythm suggests evenness,
every syllable being of much the same length and stress. Even so, that will give us
seven feet again, if we put a secondary stress on ‗neath‘. We could rush the
‗underneath him‘, or see it as an ‗outrider‘, which would get us back to the five
regular beats. Also the last unstressed syllable ‗-ing‘ really belongs to the iambic
metre of the next line.
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
By contrast to these expansive lines, we suddenly hit l.7 which is economical, barely
making five feet, but then lengthening out again to the climactic eighth line.
In the sestet, Hopkins actually marks in certain stresses for us:

‗sheer‘ and ‗plod‘. He doesn‘t want the stress to be shared between then, as perhaps it
should be in ‗blue-bleak‘.

To keep the rest of the line in order, we then have to see ‗of it‘ as extra unstressed
syllables

‗down‘ as an unstressed syllable, a preposition or adverb perhaps. But is that how we
really read ‗down‘? What does the word really mean? We could argue over this.

In the last line the internal rhymes ‗Fall‘ and ‗gall‘ each demand a stress, slowing the
line right down like a brake.

There is a further application of the brake in ‗gash‘, ‗gold‘ again both stressed
The whole poem then comes to an emphatic stop.
6. Language and tone in “The Windhover”
6.1. Stress and alliteration
The language is so complex that every word could be commented on. There are a
number of imagistic words associated with nobility, in contrast to the humility of ploughing
and embers.
Hopkins makes us ultra-aware of his words by other means:

many are monosyllabic and call for a clear stress.

many are formed into alliterative patterns - the first line of the sestet mirrors the same
line in The Starlight Night: a long list of monosyllabic nouns with a pause or caesura:
‗Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here‘. Caesura is a pause,
often indicated in text by a comma or full stop, during a line of blank verse. After a
caesura, the sense of the line may well run on without a pause at the end into the next
line.
6.2. Interjections
The first line contains at least seven stresses, and the interjection of ‗oh‘ creates a
deliberate pause to draw special attention to the next words. The interjection is repeated in ‗O
my chevalier!‘ a subordinate addressing someone in authority.
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‗O‘ often has an idea of desire, too, just as ‗ah‘ often has an idea of comfort or pity, as in ‗ah
my dear‘.
6.3. Word clusters and repetition
Hopkins uses word clusters, as in The Starlight Night:

‗dapple-dawn-drawn‘

‗rolling level underneath him steady air‘ which works more like a German multiword

‗blue-bleak‘

‗gold-vermilion‘.
He also uses repetitions:

‗off, off‘

‗morning morning‘s‘ is perhaps the most eye-catching and dramatic.
Other verbal features of the poem are:

The ‗I caught‘ of the first line really comes to mean ‗: I was caught by….‘

There are also word-breaks, where a word appears strung over the end of a line into
the next, an internal enjambement (the technique used in blank verse and other verse
forms in which the sense of a line runs on without a pause to the next one; this often
gives a sense of greater fluency to the lines), as in ‗king-/dom‘.

Lastly we need to note the spelling of ‗AND‘, which has to mean ‗and yet‘ or ‗what is
more‘.
Conclusion
This poem follows the pattern of so many of Hopkins‘s sonnets, in that a sensuous
experience or description leads to a set of moral reflections. Part of the beauty of the poem
lies in the way Hopkins integrates his masterful description of a bird‘s physical feat with an
account of his own heart‘s response at the end of the octave. However, the sestet has puzzled
many readers because it seems to diverge so widely from the material introduced in the
octave. The confusing grammatical structures and sentence order in this sonnet contribute to
its difficulty, but they also represent a masterful use of language. Hopkins blends and
confuses adjectives, verbs, and subjects in order to echo his theme of smooth merging: the
bird‘s perfect immersion in the air, and the fact that his self and his action are inseparable.
Note, too, how important the ‗-ing‘ ending is to the poem‘s rhyme scheme; it occurs in verbs,
adjectives, and nouns, linking the different parts of the sentences together in an intense unity.
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A great number of verbs are packed into a short space of lines, as Hopkins tries to nail down
with as much descriptive precision as possible the exact character of the bird‘s motion.
―The Windhover‖ is written in ‗Sprung Rhythm‘. This technique allows Hopkins to
vary the speed of his lines so as to capture the bird‘s pausing and racing. Listen to the
hovering rhythm of ―the rolling level underneath him steady air,‖ and the arched brightness
of ―and striding high there.‖ The poem slows abruptly at the end, pausing in awe to reflect on
Christ.
―The Windhover‖ also illuminates some of Hopkins‘s thoughts on poetry‘s purpose,
as well as its rhythm and style. For Hopkins, being able to glimpse the inner form of things—
as the ashen ember breaking open and revealing the glowing gold—is a special gift of the
poet, courtesy of God the Maker. He coined the words instress and inscape, adapting these
ideas from the medieval theologian Duns Scotus. Duns Scotus himself theorized the
importance of haeccitas, or ‗thisness,‘ in God‘s creation. The poet, then, sees through mere
appearance to the particularity and freshness of every living thing. This belief also guided
Hopkins to new metrical practices: he invented Sprung Rhythm, which loosened the
definition of meter by counting only stressed syllables in a line. Hopkins thought it gave
poetry a more natural, energetic, and colloquial sound and allowed the poet to avoid a
plodding iambic singsong rhythm. Thus we find Hopkins in ―The Winhover‖ pushing out the
boundaries of English poetry in a way that modern poets made much use of. Much of
Hopkins‘s historical importance has to do with the changes he brought to the form of poetry,
which ran contrary to conventional ideas of metre. All these qualities indeed make ―The
Windhover‖ the best poem Hopkins ever wrote.
Note:
I have taken the text from The Poetical Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Ed. Norman H.
MacKenzie
Oxford:
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Press,
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page
144.
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Works Cited:
Abbot, Claude Coller, ed. Further Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins including his
Correspondence with Coventry Patmore. London: Oxford University Press, 1956.
Print.
---. The Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins to Robert Bridges. London: Oxford University
Press,
1955. Print.
Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Ed. W. H. Gardner.
London: Penguin group, 1953. Print.
---. Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Ed. Robert Bridges .London: Humphrey Milford,
1918.
Print.
Sulloway, Alison G. Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Victorian temper. London: Routledge
&
Kegan Paul Ltd, 1972. Print.
Web References:
http://crossref-it.info/textguide/gerard-manley-hopkins-selected-poems/6/742
https://prezi.com/gwk_hcivzchj/windhover-hopkins/
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