Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Paul Valéry
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on July 28, 1844, in Stratford, Essex, which has since been absorbed into the bustling expanse of Greater London. He entered the world as the eldest of what would become nine children in a prosperous, artistic, and devout High Church Anglican family. His father, Manley Hopkins, was a successful marine insurance adjuster who also served as the Hawaiian consul-general in London and dabble…
“The poetical language of an age should be the current language heightened.”
In the autumn of 1871, as France was still reeling from the trauma of the Franco-Prussian War and the violent suppression of the Paris Commune, a child was born in the Mediterranean port town of Sète who would become one of the twentieth century's most formidable literary intellects. Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry entered the world on October 30th, in a region where the brilliant southern light seemed to sharpe…
“Whoever cannot attack the reasoning attacks the reasoner.”
About 973 km separate Stratford, Essex, England from Sète, Occitanie, France. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Gerard Manley Hopkins: stratford, essex, robert bridges, the wreck of the deutschland, sprung rhythm, oxford movement, john henry newman, society of jesus, terrible sonnets. Paul Valéry: sète, franco-prussian war, paris commune, symbolist movement, stéphane mallarmé, la jeune parque, le cimetière marin, charmes.
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Gerard Manley Hopkins: Spirituality, Wonder, Longing. Paul Valéry: Longing, Sensuality, Tenderness.
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