Gerard Manley Hopkins

Author Code: EGMH

The son of an accomplished poet, Hopkins was greatly influenced by his father's work. He was educated at Highgate School and Balliol College, Oxford where he studied classics. While at Oxford he became lifelong friends with Walter Pater and the future poet laureate Robert Bridges. Bridges would later edit and publish Hopkins' poems posthumously. In 1866, Hopkins converted to Catholicism and in 1868 gave up poetry and began studying for the priesthood, taking vows in 1870. He was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1877. Thereafter, he taught at Mount St. Mary's College in Chesterfield. In 1878, he moved to London and became a curate at a Jesuit church there. Over the next few years, he held positions in Oxford, Manchester, Glasgow and Liverpool. He was the appointed to the chair in Greek and Latin at University College Dublin in 1884. His health began to deteriorate while in Ireland and he succumbed to typhoid fever in 1889. Today, Hopkins is considered one of the most important poets of the Victorian era. It was only in 1918 that his poems were published, collected and edited by his friend Robert Bridges.