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.
William Sharp
Gerard Manley Hopkins
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
William Sharp was born on 12 September 1855 in Paisley, Renfrewshire, at a time when Scotland’s industrial towns were expanding rapidly but remained surrounded, in memory and imagination, by older rural worlds. He would become one of the most energetic and versatile literary figures of the late Victorian period: a poet, critic, biographer, editor, translator, anthologist, travel writer, and cultural interpreter. Yet…
“Sometimes I am tempted to believe I am half a woman.”
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.”
About 558 km separate Paisley, Scotland from Stratford, Essex, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
William Sharp: paisley, fiona macleod, dante gabriel rossetti, sospiri di roma, earth's voices, late victorian, celtic revival, aestheticism. Gerard Manley Hopkins: stratford, essex, robert bridges, the wreck of the deutschland, sprung rhythm, oxford movement, john henry newman, society of jesus, terrible sonnets.
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.
William Sharp: Wonder, Joy, Peace. Gerard Manley Hopkins: Spirituality, Wonder, Longing.
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