June 20, 2006
-
Hopkins on Parallelism
“The structure of poetry is that of continuous parallelism,
ranging from the technical so-called Parallelism of Hebrew Poetry and the
antiphons of Church music up to the intricacy of Greek or Italian or English
verse. But parallelism is of two kinds necessarily – where the opposition
is clearly marked, and where it is transitional rather or chromatic. Only the
first kind, that of marked parallelism is concerned with the structure of verse
– in rhythm, the recurrence of a certain sequence of rhythm, in alliteration,
in assonance and in rhyme. Now the force of this recurrence is to beget a
recurrence or parallelism answering to it in the words or thought and, speaking
roughly and rather for the tendency than the invariable result, the more marked
parallelism in structure whether of elaboration or of emphasis begets more
marked parallelism in the words and sense. And moreover parallelism in
expression tends to beget or passes into parallelism in thought. This point
reached we shall be able to see and account for the peculiarities of poetic
diction. To the marked or abrupt kind of parallelism belong metaphor, simile,
parable, and so on, where the effect is sought in likeness of things, and
antithesis, contrast, and so on, where it is sought in unlikeness. To the
chromatic parallelism belong gradation, intensity, climax, tone, expression (as
the word is used in music), chiaroscuro, perhaps emphasis: while the
faculties of Fancy and Imagination might range widely over both kinds, Fancy
belonging more especially to the abrupt than to the transitional
class.”– From Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Poetic Diction,” 1865
For an application to Hopkins’s poetry, see an excerpt from Stephen Prickett, Words and the Word: Language,
Poetics and Biblical Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1986).See also the publisher’s description of Maria R. Lichtmann’s
The Contemplative Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Princeton University Press, 1989.
