Confessing the Flesh

<b>A new theoretical reading of the renowned poet and Jesuit priest</b> <p/><i>Confessing the Flesh</i> is an expansive interdisciplinary analysis of how aesthetic and religious discourses function in dialogue in the work of Gerard Manley Hopkins the celebrated Victorian-era poet and Catholic priest. Through Hopkins Lesley Higgins reveals how religion was expressed lived and debated in the nineteenth century. Both a comprehensive analysis of innovative Victorian poetry and a cultural history of confession this book builds on previous Hopkins criticism by adopting a new approach informed by feminist and Foucauldian theory. With its analysis of the cultural conditions and power relations that sustained religious belief and poetic expression in the Victorian age <i>Confessing the Flesh</i> offers new insights on the perennial question of Hopkins's religious commitments. And with its examination of everything from theological treatises to <i>Punch</i> cartoons Higgins's exploration of Hopkins's confessional modes uncovers the ways that gender and nation become implicated in confessional controversies and fleshly entanglements.