Philosophical Mysticism of Gerard Manley Hopkins

<p>Through the lens of Hopkins's 'masterwork' <i>The Philosophical Mysticism of Gerard Manley Hopkins</i> readdresses Hopkins's frequently overlooked mysticism as an interior narrative within his corpus. Drawing on a range of religious literary and visual traditions from Augustine's <i>Confessions</i> to the seventeenth-century spiritual emblem this book demonstrates the ways in which the <i>Wreck</i> deliberately constructs and conceals a mystical and contemplative narrative. Typology and allegory are some of the important hermeneutic tools used in this re-reading of Hopkins relating the poet to the discursive tradition surrounding the Old Testament Song of Songs the philosophical theology of the Greek Fathers and perhaps most intriguingly the meditative and visual tradition of the baroque heart-emblem. On the centenary of the publication of Hopkins's poems this book places the writer firmly within a mystical tradition necessitating a fundamental reconsideration of the legacy of this major Victorian poet. </p>