University College in Dublin, Ireland: The Location Where Hopkins Wrote “Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves”

In 1884 the Jesuits transferred Hopkins from the beautiful countryside of St. Beuno's to Dublin’s newly formed University College to teach Greek Literature. This displacement became a  tumultuous time for Hopkins. He was overworked, grading nearly 1,000 papers each term, and felt trapped within the confounds of the dirty section of this deary city. He eventually dies here in 1889, one month before he turns 45, from typhoid. As his depression weighs heavily on him here, he becomes increasingly taken with the idea of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics. This law states that useful energy will ultimately unravel to the point of destruction leading to the absence of life. His poem, “Spelt from Sibyl's Leaves” (1886), reflects this idea. He wrote this poem while he taught in Dublin. This impacts the way the reader understands the whole of this poem, for, through techniques, such as the rhyme and the sprung rhythm, Hopkins enables the reader to grasp the affective turmoil he is stuck with at this time. Although this poem was written at this time in Dublin, it was not until 1918 that this work was published within The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, now first published. Edited with notes by Robert Bridges. Robert Bridges did not fully understand what Hopkins was accomplishing through his powerful rhyme and rhythm, as he powerfully displays in his concluding remarks. Yet, these techniques struck readers and continued to be implemented in poetry past Hopkins’s lifetime.

Coordinates

Latitude: 53.308244000000
Longitude: -6.224165200000