HOPKINS SOCIETY: THE MAKING OF A WORLD-CLASS POET1, THE

Renascence, Summer 2005 by Downes, David Anthony

LITERARY societies featuring single English authors are short lived. The exceptions are, unsurprisingly, societies still engaged with Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton in the classical English poetic canon. There are only five single author societies from nineteenth century English literature listed as active participants in the Modern Language Association. There are some single author societies unaffiliated with the MLA. And not all of these societies publish quarterly or annual journals. Some publish newsletters.

Thus it is surprising that the society and journal dedicated to the reading and celebration of Gerard Manley Hopkins is in its twenty-eighth year. Having been a participant in the early years of the International Hopkins Association, a member of the founding Board of Scholars and an early contributor to The Hopkins Quarterly, provoked me to write this short, informal history of this notable literary engagement. Moreover, no one has told the full story of the contribution that both the Hopkins Society and the journal have made in establishing Hopkins's world-class literary status.

Of course, the Hopkins society and its journal were the work of individuals who took on the task of building Hopkins's literary reputation. As is often the case, the major work was done by one or two very dedicated lovers of Hopkins's writings. The central figures in this story are Fr. Alfred Thomas, S.J., and Richard F. Giles; the first, the founder of the English Hopkins Society (1969) and the second, the founder (with an associate, John R. Hopkins) of The Hopkins Quarterly in America (1974) and eventually the International Hopkins Association. These scholars were the prime movers in what might be called the Hopkins literary movement.

This is not to say each did not receive major assistance from Hopkins scholars and other dedicated readers. Among the earliest supporters and advisors were Mr. Tom Dunne and Professor Norman White helping Fr. Thomas, and Professor John Pick counseling and assisting Giles and Hopkins. Others soon joined their literary enterprise and made important contributions; however, these persons were the prime movers of what became a most significant literary and scholarly effort to raise Hopkins's poetic reputation to a world-class level.

In researching and writing the untold story of their achievements, I have become even more impressed with what they have done. Part of my effort in writing this short history is not only to document their efforts, but to honor them for their dedication and accomplishment, as well as to thank them on behalf of all lovers of Hopkins's writings.

I never met Fr. Thomas in person, though we exchanged letters about his Hopkins's Research Bulletin and his lecture and sermon programs. Nor have I met Mr. Dunne, though I have used his major bibliography of Hopkins's scholarship. Norman White, a major Hopkins scholar and author of the current standard biography of Hopkins, is a friend and colleague to whom I directed some inquiry about his work with Thomas and the early days of the English Hopkins Society, but he declined, I believe out of professional humility, to detail his significant contributions. White also contributed significantly to Giles's efforts to establish and maintain The Hopkins Quarterly.

Professor John Pick I knew well. He was my mentor while completing my MA at Marquette University where he was a distinguished teacher and author of a foundational book on Hopkins. When Pick died, Richard Giles acknowledged that it was Pick who was his tutor, guide, counselor, editorial advisor, and friend who gave the vital help he and Hopkins needed to start and maintain the journal he and Hopkins founded. This professional and scholarly generosity was characteristic of John Pick as a scholar and gentleman.

In writing this short, informal history I have attempted to stress the main movements of the activities and their character constituting the English Hopkins Society and the International Hopkins Society. I do not delve to any degree into the personal lives or individual professional accomplishments of the founders. My focus is always on the actions and activities they undertook to make their literary enterprises work towards their shared goal of making known Hopkins's writings to the world at large. Of course, there is a personal side to such ventures. Difficulties, frustrations, temporary failures, along with collisions with the complicating professional circumstances that surround any person's life, are always present. I am aware of some of these, some I am not. These substrata, which are part of any human accomplishment, I have attempted to omit or keep very much in the background of the major story of their extraordinary achievements.

Also I am fully aware that no writer moves to the highest ground of literary reputation without the responses of avid readers, professional and nonprofessional. Reader responses are vital to the scholarly apparatus that showcases a writer's work. This is especially true in Hopkins's case, for among the facets of the making of his literary reputation, none are more astonishing than the outpouring of scholarship, critique, and public attention contributed by his readers from all over the world - east and west. These readers contributed their critical insights, adulations, and praises that Thomas and Giles made a home for as they recorded readers' responses in bulletins, journals, lectures, sermons, symposia, exhibitions, and the major conferences that they organized and sponsored. I have made significant efforts to cite and record these contributions as an adjunct chapter of G.M. Hopkins's literary history.