Androgyny in Gerard Manley Hopkins or gender in gerry

Abstract

Abstract This thesis argues that Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry can make a significant contribution to our current feminist rereadings of the canon. While on a conscious level he was something of a misogynist, as a man of his time, and a Catholic, on a deeper level he gives a very prominent place to feminine or gylanic qualities, because of some ambiguous qualities in his own sexuality, as well as through the prominent role he assigns to the Virgin Mary. This leads to an interesting originality in his theology, although still basically orthodox, and it also allows an erotic reading of his work through the emphasis he gives to the marriage of the Church to Christ, and Mary as being the prototype of fecundity and regeneration, all nature sharing some of these richly creative qualities of hers. An introductory discussion of the role of the Virgin Mary in the Catholic Church Hopkins converted to shows that this mainly patriarchal branch of Christianity has allowed considerable respect for women, mostly because of the prominent position given to Mary, as the prototypical human, partaking in the one ideal relationship between God and humanity. There has also been a gylanic tendency in the church as a whole, seen in the gospel of self-sacrifice and love, as noted by writers as far apart as Julian of Norwich and Nietsche. At times Christ, in his sacrifice, and the Holy Ghost, symbolised by embracing wings and breast, have embodied a nurturing, self-denying and motherly side of experience. Jung describes this dual sexuality as the anima in man, paralleled by the animus in woman. Both a prominent role for Mary, and a gylanic tendency in general can be seen in Hopkins' poetry. Hopkins is also writing in a tradition of erotic mysticism, through which an ascetic self-denial of physical sexuality leads to its emerging in a more indirect form. Hopkins had a very ambiguous attitude towards sex and marriage, and his sexual instincts and emotions were less than perfectly sublimated, which is expressed in his poetry. There were certain powerful early influences in Hopkins' life, such as Dr. Dyne, his school teacher, who savagely tried to discipline Hopkins, and who appears transformed in the poetry into a repressive and cruel expression of God the Father, which he needs to balance with a more feminine form of God. Another is Digby Dolben, the homosexual fanatical Christian, for love of whom Hopkins wrote various poems. From a very young age a strongly sensual, even sado-masochistic, element in his writings can be seen, and this tendency continues afterhis conversion to Catholicism; both the ascetic and sensual are seen in his religious and nature poetry. In `The Wreck of the Deutschland` Hopkins' description of God places Mary in an even more prominent position than the three members of the orthodox trinity. He also describes the nun of this poem as reaching a physical consummation with God, as she partakes of the nature of Mary in her sacrificial death. Another poem of sacrifice, `Andromeda`, traditionally read as an allegory of the marriage of the Church to Christ, in fact suggests a more explicitly sexual meaning than a purely allegorical reading would require. The sacrificial theme in `The Bugler's First Communion` emerges in the way Hopkins' intense feelings for a young parishioner make him prefer the young man's sacrifice rather than the possibility of his being corrupted. His nature poetry is full of the powerful forces of sexuality, regeneration and fecundity, which expression of physicality is sanctioned in nature, unlike in tortured humanity, for whom sexuality is ambiguous. Hopkins stands outside any such experience, as time's eunuch, one starved of any means of emotional and physical self-expression; he is the frustrated observer of human intimacy. The Mary poems are powerful expressions of her fecundity, a veritable Mother Nature. The `Terrible Sonnets` contain images of rape, gestation, and birth, where the human narrator shares some of the experiences of the female sex, as also in `To R.B.`. Very much aware of his own frustrations, Hopkins sees humanity as condemned to a struggle within its physical nature, since complete self-expression is non-problematic only for the non-human, natural world. Although sexuality remains fraught for him, his many expressions of female aspects of his own experience indicate an implicit awareness of the androgynous nature of humanity. Coming to these insights almost in spite of himself, his poetry can be seen ultimately to make a plea for human nature as well as the natural world to be allowed total self-expression in its own uniqueness or 'thisness' rather than being restricted sexually to being solely male or female, so that each sex may share in the qualities of the other sex. These findings give Hopkins' poetry a refreshingly contemporary light.