How to Structure Your Essay

Introduction

A. Through a philosophical lens, the poems of Gerard Manly Hopkins, taken alongside his
idea of instress, can be viewed as a means of understanding the ontological necessity of
God by way of understanding that the singularity afforded by inscapes to all things does
not divide them but unites all in a shared state of being.

B. Syllogisms

C. Through a philosophical lens, the poems of Gerard Manly Hopkins can be used as a
framework for an ontological argument in favor of God’s existence when placed
alongside Hopkins’ process of using instress to come to know the inscape of anything
external to oneself.

Teleology

A. Aristotle

1. Seeing inscape as actualizing potential that works through the delicate interplay of
moving parts, like a clock made by man, shows intelligent design. It is seen in Pied
Beauty through considering the perfect imperfections that give every creature, from
the patchwork spotting of cows to the sometimes freckled, sometimes not of people
and animals.

2. For Hopkins, all objects existing in the world contain within them the potential of
actualization. The state of becoming is a shared nature that suggests an ordered
universe with all things having within them an end or telos. The structuring of
limitless chaos strongly suggests the presence of a primary mover, an “overwhelming,
contagious influence,” namely God (Sansom 35).

3. The idea that humans enter this world to live and then die is explored in one of
Hopkins’ self-proclaimed ‘terrible’ sonnets. It (death) is the blight man was born for.”

4. The biggest problem for a teleological argument is subjectivity, but that is NEVER
going to be resolved, so we must proceed as if it is not a problem.
Parmenides and Being/Nonbeing

A. The first record of Hopkins referring to inscape comes from a set of notes he wrote
regarding a poem by presocratic Greek philosopher Parmenides. Not yet a fully
developed idea, it hints at what the term will eventually come to define. The term define
is possibly too strong as Hopkins tends to use it, and its cohort instress, in different ways.
Loosely defined inscape is an intrinsic quality held by all beings that makes them
qualitatively unique while also uniting them in this shared state of being. It is
Parmenides’ ideas on the nature of being and its counterpart ‘non-being’ that leads
Hopkins to ponder how anything can truly be understood. This is the underpinning of
instress: the coming to know of one entity of another that is outside of oneself
profoundly. Parmenides did not recognize change as being a natural process that existed
in the world. It is because nothing can come from nothing that he believed change to be a
trick of the senses, as anything that exists must have come from something and not
nothing. So, to know anything and avoid being fooled by the phenomenal world, one
must use some means other than what is provided via the sensory organs. Using that
knowledge, Hopkins developed the idea that one can better understand God through the
inscapes of other things, both living and not, as well as through concepts and aesthetics.

One of Hopkins’ most discussed works, often cited as highly representative of his
concept of discovering an inscape through instress, is “The Windhover.” In it, the speaker
observes a falcon in its element, “gliding” and “striding” (4-6) against the wind, in total
control of its ascent and momentum. Like the concept referred to in psychology as flow
state, the bird's mastery of flight despite strong winds is effortless. The speaker is moved
by the realization that what he sees is the fulfillment of a purpose. This experience
inspires awe as it is God’s creation, expressing the intrinsic nature he bestowed upon it. A
piece of the speaker that has been “in hiding” (7) is restored through this observation and
the meaning behind it. In the first half of the sestet that follows the opening octet, there is
a call to action from the speaker to the aspects he views as the falcon’s defining qualities.
“Buckle!” in line 10 is an emphatic request that the “brute beauty” (9) pull together these
parts of its being into the whole of itself, culminating in accomplishing God’s ideal. The
poem closes with the speaker, less excitedly, coming to see the falcon as a part of
something larger than itself. Even nonliving things, like the “plod” (12) made by a plow
in a field, are worthy of praise when they take part in actualizing the design of God.

1. A soul can start to find a kind of “Carrion Comfort” in misery, which, if unchecked, can
take one down a path to blaming God for the trials one endures as a natural consequence
of living. Job is a prime example. The epiphany that ends the poem, “(my God!) my
God)” (17-18), can be viewed as the result of having inscaped his soul (in a kind of self-
reflecting) and seen the self-defeating nature of fighting with God, as he is a part of God
like all things.
Scotus’ Haecceity

A. Haecceity – individuating means forcing subjectivity that only resolves through instress
(thoughtful contemplation and communion with God)

1. Example

2. Example

A. Support

1. Example

2. Example

B. Support

1. Example

2. Example

Conclusion

A. Restate topic

B. Summarize three main points

C. Revisit introduction or tie all ideas together

Side note: Instress seems to be something that, like the Tao, once named, is no longer an
accurate version of itself. Words rob it of its profundity. This opposes Hopkins’ feeling
that “words are among the things the poet sees or hears, components of what the poet has
made with sounds or marks” (Llewelyn 16).