To Seem the Stranger A portrait of Gerard Manley Hopkins
To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life
Among strangers....
England, whose honour 0 all my heart woos, wife
To my creating thought, would neither hear
Me, were I pleading, plead nor do I....
During his lifetime not six people even knew he wrote poetry, and no one thought it worth publishing. His family never accepted his conversion to Catholicism. He spent much of his adult life working as a priest in Liverpool and Dublin. He died at 45. Yet today Gerard Manley Hopkins is recognised as one of the greatest Victorian poets. He lived in isolation from the fashions and trends of his time. But his work seems wholly modern.
In this portrait John Wain , writer and former Oxford
Professor of Poetry, examines Hopkins's life and work, explains why the Victorians found it hard to listen to his voice - and why we need to. Reader PAUL WEBSTER
Photography PAUL REED
Film editor CHRIS LAWRENCE Series producer DANIEL WOLF Producer JOHN GERAINT BBC Wales