Hopkins and Heidegger

Brian Willems

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781441123107
• eBook ISBN: 9781441138682
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Hopkins and Heidegger is a new exploration of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetics through the work of Martin Heidegger. More radically, Brian Willems argues that the work of Hopkins does no less than propose solutions to a number of hitherto unresolved questions regarding Heidegger's later writings, vitalizing the concepts of both writers beyond their local contexts. Willems examines a number of cross-sections between the poetry and thought of Hopkins and the philosophy of Heidegger. While neither writer ever directly addressed the other's work - Hopkins died the year Heidegger was born, 1899, and Heidegger never turns his thoughts on poetry to the Victorians - a number of similarities between the two have been noted but never fleshed out. Willems' readings of these cross-sections are centred on Hopkins' concepts of 'inscape' and 'instress' and around Heidegger's reading of both appropriation ( Ereignis ) and the fourfold ( das Geviert ).
This study will be of interest to scholars and postgraduates in both Victorian literature and Continental philosophy.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Inscape and Ereignis
• 2. ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’ and the Potentiality of Ereignis
• 3. ‘Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves’ and the Gesture of the Fourfold
• 4. ‘(Carrion Comfort)’: That which is Not Itself
• Appendix: ‘Binsey Poplars’ and ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index