Why G.M. Hopkins is considered a great poet?

               Gerald Manley Hopkins was recognized as a great Victorian poet only after his death. His poems are about religion, nature and sadness.

               Hopkins was born on July 28th, 1844. In 1874, he was admitted to St. Beuno’s College, where he studied theology.

               Saddened by a shipwreck that claimed the life of five Franciscan nuns, Hopkins wrote ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’, in 1875. The language and rhythm of his sonnets were remarkably original. ‘The Windhover’, his great sonnet, attracted the attention of critics. ‘Carrion Comfort’ was the first in a series of sonnets he began writing in 1885.

               Typhoid fever claimed the life of the poet on 8th June 1889. His grave is at the Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

               A volume of his poems was published posthumously in 1918. A second collection appeared in 1930, and won him recognition as a great poet.