The split world of Gerard Manley Hopkins : an essay in semiotic phenomenology

376 Pages·2011·2.376 MB·English

by  Hopkins, Gerard Manley, Sobolev, Dennis, Hopkins, Gerard Manley

The Split World of
Gerard
Manley
Hopkins

The Split World of
Gerard
Manley
Hopkins
An Essay in Semiotic
Phenomenology
Dennis sobolev
The Catholic University
of America Press • Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2011
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standards for
Information Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sobolev, Dennis, 1971–
The split world of Gerard Manley Hopkins : an essay in
semiotic phenomenology / Dennis Sobolev.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8132-1855-7 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Hopkins,
Gerard Manley, 1844–1889—criticism and interpretation. 
2. Semiotics and literature. I. Title.
PR4803.H44Z846 2011
821´.8—dc22 2010050052
in memory of my father

Of all believers he was the freest from illusions,
and among those who see the world as it is, without
illusions, he was the most unshakable believer.
                —Max Brod
Suffering conceptualized remains mute and
inconsequential.
               —Theodor Adorno

Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Toward Hopkins 1
1 Being and the World 27
Inscape, Instress 27
Between Epistemology and Ontology 43
Contemplation and Being 60
Cognitio Dei Experimentalis 72
Significatio Allegorica 89
2 Hopkins’s Existential Perspective 113
Being and Poetry 113
Semantics of Death 130
Heart of Darkness 139
The Fragmented Body 156
Epithalamion 168
3 Identity and Culture 188
Priest and Peasant 188
Portraits of the Artist 200
Allegory of Resistance 218
Song of Orpheus 229
Metaphysical Vertigo 246
4 The Techniques of Retention 253
Scylla and Charybdis 253
In the Labyrinth 263
Languages of the Real 277
The Subjective Mode 285
Rhetoric of Disruption 290
Conclusion: The Split Consciousness 301
Works Cited 333
General Index 347
Index of Works by Hopkins 359