“To See Thee I Must [See] Thee, to Love, Love”

In early poems from his years at Oxford, before his conversion to Roman Catholicism and reception into the church by John Henry Newman, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote several poems, “The Half-way House,” “Nondum,” “Let me to Thee,” and “My prayers must meet a brazen heaven,” where the absence of God—of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Religion and the arts
Main Author: Lichtmann, Maria (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2018
In: Religion and the arts
Year: 2018, Volume: 22, Issue: 4, Pages: 429-445
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Hopkins, Gerard Manley 1844-1889 / Religious poetry
Further subjects:B Hopkins conversion contemplation “The Half-way House” “Nondum” Scotus Eucharist
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
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Summary:In early poems from his years at Oxford, before his conversion to Roman Catholicism and reception into the church by John Henry Newman, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote several poems, “The Half-way House,” “Nondum,” “Let me to Thee,” and “My prayers must meet a brazen heaven,” where the absence of God—of the direct, immediate experience of God—is the theme. The poet seems to long for an ontological moment of being in his words, “inscaped” by God. In his childhood faith of the established religion of the Church of England, he has known only a God who is “above.” When he prays the paradox, “To see Thee, I must see Thee, to love, love,” Hopkins is setting out a major theme of his poetic and personal endeavors. This note of longing for an immanent God will be both fulfilled and frustrated in his life and in his art. Duns Scotus’s two incarnations of Christ, into the Eucharist and into human nature, will bring much of that fulfillment philosophically, as his acceptance of the Real Presence brought it spiritually.
ISSN:1568-5292
Contains:In: Religion and the arts
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15685292-02204003