Beşliu Maria, 2nd year, Group 2, English A – German B Victorian Literature, Seminar Tutor: Eliana Ionoaia

The Most Crucial Event in the History of Mankind

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Hopkins’ favourite creation dedicated “to Christ our Lord”, “The Windhover”,
represents, undoubtedly, an epitome of his complex, intricate poetry, the brilliant poem having
generated sundry readings. In this essay, I am going to approach the poem from a religious
perspective, which I consider to be the closest from form of truth, bearing in mind the poet’s
Jesuit background. My analysis is chiefly based upon George Montag and David Urban’s
interpretation provided in their journal articles dealing with this subject.

According to Montag, the central theme of the poem is represented by Jesus Christ’s
figure and His supreme act of salvation towards mankind. Urban’s interpretation completes the
picture, relating the theme to Hopkins’ Ignatian exercise of contemplating Christ’s physical
figure, the incarnate Word, seen here as a valiant medieval knightly character. Moreover, the
poem is perhaps Hopkins’ best illustration of his philosophy of “inscape” and “instress”, inspired
by Duns Scotus, and his logocentric approach to poetry, based on the “Imago Dei” doctrine.

The opening line of the octet contains a key phrase, “I caught”, an event of crucial
importance to Hopkins, who believes in the power that meditation upon the inscape of a certain
element of nature has in the revelatory event called “instress”, which ultimately turns one’s
attention to the Creator of all things. The iterated time adverbial “morning” refers, in its first
occurrence, to the moment of the day, and then becomes a symbol for God, while “minion”
alludes to a child figure, thus “morning’s minion” becomes the image of the beloved Son of God,
image which is doubled by the second line’s “daylight’s dauphin”. Following Montag’s
approach, it seems that the hyphen placed at the end of the first line is not accidental: it splits into
two the word “kingdom”. The first part, “king”, is certainly a title of Jesus, while “dom” stands
for the clipped form of the Latin word, “dominus”, meaning “Lord”, another title of Christ. The
subsequent image is that of the “falcon”, a central symbol of the poem, alluding, no doubt, to
Christ. The type of bird is certainly not randomly chosen. More specifically, the falcon refers to
the “kestrel”, a fowl with a most interesting manner of flying, that is, hovering – the ability to

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progress through the air while maintaining a stable position towards the earth. Moreover, not
only is Hopkins careful in selecting the proper term for conveying his meaning, but he also
makes use of the properties of his particular “sprung rhythm” and alliteration, his favourite
poetic devices, in a truly wonderful manner, to render a musical impression of movement: “I
caught this morning morning's minion, king-dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn
Falcon”. Furthermore, this bird mingles the fierceness of the falcon with the meekness of the
domestic kestrel, alluding to Christ’s majestic but humble figure. In addition, the icon of the bird
“striding high there” hints to Jesus’ ascending way to the cross and the falcon’s spread wings
symbolize His crucifixion. Reflecting upon the splendid image of the falcon with its entire
meaning behind, the speaker is overwhelmed with “ecstasy”, as he compares it to his beloved
Saviour. The “mastery of the thing” represents the falconer who directs the flight of the kestrel,
becoming a symbol for the Father.

The oxymoronic construction in the opening of the sestet, “Brute beauty”, may be a
possible suggestion to Christ’s double nature – human and divine. The verse continues with a
summary of the Saviour’s “act”: the peak of His sacrifice is reached at the Crucifixion (the cross
lifted in the “air”), which is an astonishing paradox: in the Eternal Kingdom, the condition of life
is death, as Jesus says in the Gospel of John: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” (The Holy Bible, John 12:24,
AKJV, pp. 96). The next stage after that of “pride” and “plume” (the glory of the cross) is hidden
in the imperative form of the verb “Buckle!” – as the falcon follows its master’s order and
plummets down to the earth, so Christ, in obedience to the will of the Father, yields His life and
collapses into death. And the outcome is overwhelmingly surpassing the human power of
expression – the mission has been accomplished, the end attained: mankind is redeemed through
the “chivalric” sacrifice of God’s Son. As Isaiah had prophesied hundreds of years ago: “He shall
see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant
justify many.” (The Holy Bible, Isaiah 53:11, AKJV, pp. 587). Again, the speaker is
overwhelmed with ecstasy when contemplating the tremendous sacrifice of his Redeemer and
exclaims in adoration: “O my chevalier!”. The phrase may send us to the warrior-like image of
Christ found in one of the Psalms: “Put on your sword, O mighty warrior! You are so glorious,
so majestic!” (The Holy Bible, Psalms 45:3, NLT). The last three lines contain a compressed
history of the redemption of man. Consequently, in the last verse, “fall” hints at the original sin,

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“gall” at the subsequent wretched condition of man, and “gash gold-vermilion” at the precious
blood of Christ, which was shed for man’s salvation. “Gold” could allude to the restorative
power of Christ’s sacrifice – to make peace between man and God and to give man a new, divine
nature through the new birth.

To summarize, after a brief analysis of Hopkins’ “The Windhover”, one can now
understand the reason why this represented the poet’s dearest creation. To him, as a devout
Christian, Jesus Christ’s supreme act of redemption was the most significant event that has ever
taken place in the history of mankind, its importance being absolutely crucial for every human
being. An image taken from the visible world, the flight of the falcon with its distinct inscape,
triggers the poet’s act of meditation upon the unseen world, the result being that of bringing an
ecstatic feeling of tremendous joy mingled with wonder and adoration in his heart. This impels
him thus to dedicate the poem to his Saviour, as a humble offering of praise and thanksgiving for
His exceedingly great love, Christ being the incarnate Word, of whom the Apostle Paul says in
his epistle to Colossians:

who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for by him were all things
created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, (...): all things were created by him,
and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. (...) For it pleased the Father that in
him should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile
all things unto himself. (The Holy Bible, Colossians 1:15-17, 19-20a, pp. 177).

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 Bibliography

Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House
Foundation

Montag, George E. “‘The Windhover’: Crucifixion and Redemption.” in Victorian

Poetry, vol. 3, no. 2, 1965, pp. 109–118. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40001315

The Holy Bible. Authorized King James Version, Iowa Falls: Riverside Book & Bible
House, pp. 96, 177, 587

Urban, David. "Ignatian Inscape And Instress In Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Pied
Beauty,” “God’s Grandeur,” “The Starlight Night,” And “The Windhover”: Hopkins’s
Movement Toward Ignatius By Way Of Walter Pater". in Religions, vol 9, no. 2, 2018, p.
49. MDPI AG, doi:10.3390/rel9020049.

Wenzell, Tim. “Flight of the Kestrel: The Two Cities of St. Augustine in the Verse of
Gerard Manley Hopkins ‘The Windhover’” in The Call of Two Cities: Citizenship and Christian
Identity, Center for Catholic Studies, Seton Hall University, 2006, Center for Catholic Studies
Faculty Seminars. Paper 2, pp. 13
http://scholarship.shu.edu/summer-seminars/2

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