Dr Brian Willems 
Hopkins and Heidegger [PDF ebook] 

Hopkins and Heidegger is a new exploration of Gerard Manley Hopkins” poetics through the work of Martin Heidegger. More radically, Brian Willems argues that the work of Hopkins does no less than propose solutions to a number of hitherto unresolved questions regarding Heidegger”s later writings, vitalizing the concepts of both writers beyond their local contexts. Willems examines a number of cross-sections between the poetry and thought of Hopkins and the philosophy of Heidegger. While neither writer ever directly addressed the other”s work – Hopkins died the year Heidegger was born, 1899, and Heidegger never turns his thoughts on poetry to the Victorians – a number of similarities between the two have been noted but never fleshed out. Willems” readings of these cross-sections are centred on Hopkins” concepts of ”inscape” and ”instress” and around Heidegger”s reading of both appropriation (
Ereignis) and the fourfold (
das Geviert).

This study will be of interest to scholars and postgraduates in both Victorian literature and Continental philosophy.