Paradise Lost Episode 3. Gerard Manley Hopkins and the patterns of creation

Paradise Lost Episode 3: Hopkins and the patterns of creation
Within good and evil - and the examination of morality and meaning.

In this episode we look at how the innovative 19th Century poet Gerard Manley Hopkins expresses the transcendent in words that paint imagery and a sense of majesty, through his patterned language; what he termed inscape.

Inscape uses the internal sounds and patterns of his poetry (patterns which he introduced with his metric theory of sprung rhythm) to create an intertwined impressionistic landscape of sound and imagery. The sounds of his meter create an imagery of their own which relate his complex themes of transcendence and meaning. We examine two of his poems to illustrate his theories, The Windhover, and Pied Beauty, and perform these as musical pieces.