In 1918, Poet Laureate Robert Bridges published the first extended collection of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poetry—The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. This edition is known for Bridges's somewhat harsh prefatory material, where he criticizes Hopkins’s strange poetic style and calls it superfluous. However, it is precisely through Hopkins’s superfluous or unnecessary style—represented by features like additional accents and intentional obscurity—that Hopkins disrupts the expectations of his readers and teaches them how to behold and appreciate the natural world around them.

To read a related blog post, click here: http://blogs.baylor.edu/19crs/2020/01/15/injured-by-a-nat…nge-poetic-style/