Stress, Slack, and Hopkins' Terrible Sonnets

Abstract

<p>The main contention of this thesis is that considerable insight into Gerard Manley Hopkins' Terrible Sonnets may be gained through a consideration of Hopkins' term, <em>slack.</em> Much critical attention has been given to Hopkins' idiosyncratic vocabulary of <em>stress, instress, scape </em>and <em>inscape,</em> but little has been given to <em>slack.</em>I argue that the concept of <em>slack, </em>an antonym to the well-known Hopkinsian term, <em>stress</em>, is fundamental to the man's thought, his way of seeing, and his poetry.</p> <p>I begin by examining the incarnational vision which Hopkins began to develop at Oxford, and which depended upon his capacity to perceive a just proportion in the mixture between Being and Not-being, or between <em>stress</em> and <em>slack</em>. However, the dynamic apprehension of unity in diversity depends on the perception of the observer. Hopkins' metaphysic broke down when he was spiritually and physically unable to perceive the incarnate word embodied in created forms. It is in this condition of <em>slack, </em>in which he felt himself to be devoid of the sensations of both God's <em>stress</em> and of his own answering <em>instress</em> that the Terrible Sonnets were written.</p> <p>The experience of <em>slack </em>in the Terrible Sonnets is distinct from the experience of <em>stress, </em>which is the generative impulse at the heart of mot of Hopkins' poetry, and especially his Nature Sonnets. The distinguishing features of the Terrible Sonnets are revealed by an examination of the imagery, metrical patterning, and structure of these six poems. In each area, the experience of <em>slack</em> is manifest in the thought and expression of the poetry. I conclude by noting that <em>slack</em> is a temporary condition, and that the possibility for returning to <em>stress,</em> and for re-establishing a dynamic relationship with God, was always present for Hopkins.</p>