The Wreck of the Deutschland - Softcover

Nigel Foxell’s first and scholarly book, Ten Poems Analysed (Pergamon Press, 1966), concluded with his study of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ masterpiece, ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’, that “magisterially eccentric work of genius” in the phrase of Geoffrey Hill. Over fifty years on, this is the chapter Foxell has chosen to reprint.

    Along with the poem, the new book contains his Introduction to the poem from 1966 as well as detailed notes, which have been corrected where necessary and occasionally updated. One of the great long poems in the English language, ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’‚ deserves and requires close and subtle attention from the imagination and intellect of critics. A new generation of readers will be grateful to Nigel Foxell, poet, novelist and scholar, for the diligence and love he has brought to bear on this formidable task.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) was one of the greatest English poets of the 19th century, but published only one poem during his lifetime. His reputation dates from 1918, when Robert Bridges edited the first volume of his work for publication - although Robert Bridges had managed to include some of the poems in anthologies prior to that date. The edition of 750 copies sold out only after tenyears. Hopkins had written extensively as a young man, but destroyed all of his poems upon becoming a Jesuit, at the age of 24, and ceased to write for another seven years. His mature work is suffused with religion and melancholy, but also deals powerfully with nature. More importantly, the poetry is startlingly original, many of the poems demonstrating his use of 'sprung rhythm', the influenceof Anglo-Saxon and Welsh verse, and the avoidance of latinate vocabulary. He served as a priest in Oxford, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. In 1884 he took up a position teaching Latin and Greek at University College Dublin, and died in that city in 1889, after a bout of typhoid fever.Nigel Foxell was born in London in 1931. Also republished in recent years is A Sermon in Stone, the author's pamphlet on John Donne's monument and epitaph in St Paul's Cathedral. Foxell is the author of five novels, poetry and La Sardegna senza Lawrence (Aipsa Edizioni), which he then translated into English as Sardinia without Lawrence (Hearing Eye). He has also written perhapsthe longest guide to a village church: Amberley Church: A Critical Appreciation (2005).