Book Description
Provides a careful and comprehensive reading of Hopkins' poetry, early and late, from the vantage point of the methods, discipline and theological insights of the Ignatian spirit of "The Spiritual Exercises." Using Hopkins' own projected commentary and other spiritual notes, the author offers a reading of Hopkins' poetry highlighting the themes of Ignatian spirituality and analyzing parallel structures between the Ignatian meditation and Hopkins' sonnets. Contents: Elected Silence: Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1844-1889; Ignatius and Hopkins; Ignatius and the Wreck; The Ignatian Spirit of the Priest-Poet; The Desolate Self of the Terrible Sonnets; Hopkins and the Meditative Tradition; Postscript; Postscript II: The Psychology of Ignatian Election: "The Selfless Self of Self."

About the Author
David Anthony Downes is Professor of English at California State University in Chico, California.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Provides a careful and comprehensive reading of Hopkins' poetry, early and late, from the vantage point of the methods, discipline and theological insights of the Ignatian spirit of "The Spiritual Exercises." Using Hopkins' own projected commentary and other spiritual notes, the author offers a reading of Hopkins' poetry highlighting the themes of Ignatian spirituality and analyzing parallel structures between the Ignatian meditation and Hopkins' sonnets. Contents: Elected Silence: Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1844-1889; Ignatius and Hopkins; Ignatius and the Wreck; The Ignatian Spirit of the Priest-Poet; The Desolate Self of the Terrible Sonnets; Hopkins and the Meditative Tradition; Postscript; Postscript II: The Psychology of Ignatian Election: "The Selfless Self of Self."