Gerard Manley Hopkins, selected poems Contents
Alliterative patterns in The Wreck of the Deutschland
Hopkins also patterns his work with alliterations and caesurae.
Traditional alliterative patterns
In traditional alliterative verse, there's a set number of alliterating syllables before the mid-line break, or caesura, and a set number after.
Some of the lines in Hopkins' scheme are too short for him to do this, but in the long last lines, that pattern is well established.
- thus, in the last line of stanza 33, the f-alliteration occurs once before a mid-line break, marked by a comma, once after, supplemented by an s-alliteration, exactly the same pattern as in the last line of the next stanza
- by contrast, in stanza 32, the caesura is delayed till near the end of the line, giving greater significance to ‘bodes but abides', where the b-alliteration is very insistent.
Investigating alliterative patterns in The Wreck of the Deutschland
- Take several other last lines.
- See where the caesura comes, and what the alliterative pattern is.
- Now take some of the pentameters (5-stressed lines).
- Can you see a similar pattern or not?
- Hopkins' flexible structure enables whole stanzas to vary greatly, not just individual lines.
- Compare stanza 30 with 31.
- How do the two stanzas contrast?
- How does Hopkins achieve this?
- Look also at the enjambement.
- Compare stanza 30 with 31.
A pause, often indicated in text by a comma or full stop, during a line of blank verse.
A line containing five stressed syllables or feet.
The technique used in blank verse and other verse forms in which the sense of a line runs on without a pause to the next one; this often gives a sense of greater fluency to the lines.
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