"Churlsgrace": Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Working-Class Male Body
1992; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 59; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2873448
ISSN1080-6547
Autores Tópico(s)American Constitutional Law and Politics
ResumoIn his Retreat Notes of January 1888, Gerard Manley Hopkins subjects baptism of Jesus to a richly imaginative and necessarily Ignatian form of contemplation. Focusing in main on first chapter of John where apostle anticipates imminent appearance of Lord, Hopkins examines John's declaration that he must humble himself before Son of God: He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose (John 1:27; Authorized Version). Hopkins attempts to revivify this initiatory scene 'between and John by elaborating each and every textual element, and picture he develops of Christ's ministry draws on evidence to be found elsewhere in New Testament. The act of baptism, he remarks, must have been performed with shell or such as fan mentioned in Luke 3:17 where John states that although he shall baptize his brethren with water, Jesus will, by contrast, purge humanity with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' And so John figures this fiery baptism in winnower removing grain from chaff where wheat is duly garnered and husk burnt with unquenchable flames. Hopkins viewed this analogy as a very precise one. It enabled him to see exactly how fan -a sort of scoop, a shallow basket with a low back, sides sloping down from back forwards, and no rim in front, like our dustpans -could serve as a metonymy for unnamed implement used by John in act of dousing or affusion. But John's affusive water, as Hopkins knows, cannot compare with Christ's winnowing fire, and incommensuration of two reveals John as weak and ineffective and everything about Christ as strong. In fact, Hopkins lingers on Christ's heroic figure, projecting his gigantic size, strength, and equipment. Looming up before him, comes to represent invincible Messiah for whom Hopkins believed Jews had for centuries been yearning. There is, however, some difficulty in this figuration. Lest image of mighty winnower should seem lacking in dignity when such terrorstriking thoughts are taken into account, Hopkins turns his attention to John's imperative to Behold Lamb of God (John 1:29). In other words, powerful
Referência(s)