Gerard M.

Hopkins

 Spring

 Inversnaid
Mind Map
Use this space to create a mind map to chart the most important points you have learned about
_______________________. Firstly, chart each poem you are studying, then add its main themes,
some key words and one or two relevant biographical details. Try to include visuals where possible.
You can use the sample mind map as a guide. Use different colours!!
Word Bank
The following words may be helpful when discussing ____________ poetry. You can add to this word
bank as you study _____________, and use it to assist you when writing about her poetry.
 Poem Aspects of the biography that helped me understand this poem.

Spring

Inversnaid

Biography Task
Explain how a knowledge of ___________________________ life helped you to understand his/her
poems.
 Spring
BY GERARD M ANLE Y H OPK I NS

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –

When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and
lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?

A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
Inversnaid
This darksome burn, horseback brown,

His rollrock highroad roaring down,

In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam

Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fáawn-fróth

Turns and twindles over the broth

Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,

It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew,

Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,

Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,

And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft

Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,

O let them be left, wildness and wet;

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Themes
Select the themes that __________ explores in her poetry and fill in the table below with quotations
that illustrate your selected themes. Add a brief note explaining how each quotation relates to your
selected theme. Remember to keep your responses personal. This will help you keep to the P.Q.E
structure in your answers.

Theme 1
Poem Quotation What this told me
Themes
Select the themes that __________ explores in her poetry and fill in the table below with quotations
that illustrate your selected themes. Add a brief note explaining how each quotation relates to your
selected theme. Remember to keep your responses personal. This will help you keep to the P.Q.E
structure in your answers.

Theme 1
Poem Quotation What this told me
Language and
Style
Fill in the table below with the quotations from each __________ poem you are studying. Iclude a
literary technique (such as imagery, alliteration, personification etc…) for the quotation, and add a
brief note on the impact the quotation had on you.

Poem 1
Literary feature Quotation What this told me
Language and
Style
Fill in the table below with the quotations from each __________ poem you are studying. Iclude a
literary technique (such as imagery, alliteration, personification etc…) for the quotation, and add a
brief note on the impact the quotation had on you.

Poem 1
Literary feature Quotation What this told me
Revision Guide
Use this table to construct a quick revision guide, briefly summarising one poem per box. Your
summary may take the form of a mini mind-map, bullet points or a short paragraph.
Language Quote/proof

Mood Quote/proof

Setting Quote/proof
Relevance Quote/proof

Collections Quote/proof

Language Quote/proof

Mood Quote/proof
Setting Quote/proof

Relevance Quote/proof

Collections Quote/proof

Writing about
‘Spring’
1. (a) Identify an image from the above poem that you like and explain why you like it. (10)

(b) Describe a feeling or emotion expressed by the poet in this poem. Support your answer
with reference to the poem. (10)
 (c) Explain what you think the poet means when he says, “What is all this juice and all this
joy?” (10)

2. Answer ONE of the following. [Each part carries 20 marks]

(i) Explain what you learn about Hopkins’ relationship with nature from the above
poem.
Support you answer with reference to the poem.
OR
(ii) Does the language and imagery used by the poet add to your enjoyment of the
above poem? Support your answer with reference to the language and imagery used
in the poem.
OR
(iii) Imagine you are the poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins. Write a letter to a friend in which
you express your thoughts and feelings about spring and what it means to you
spiritually. Your letter should demonstrate your knowledge of the poem.

Writing About
‘Inversnaid’
1. (a) Identify an image from the above poem that you like and explain why you like it. (10)
 (b) Would you agree that the mood or tone of this piece shifts several times? Can you
identify where the tone is happy and full of celebration, and where it is darker and more
anxious? (10)

(c) The poet uses the word ‘drowning’ in connection with this little pool. Is he speaking
literally or metaphorically? What thoughts or emotions is he trying to convey? (10)

2. Answer ONE of the following. [Each part carries 20 marks]

(i) In your opinion is Hopkins despairing or hopeful about the future of nature in this
poem? Refer to the text in your answer.

OR

(ii) ‘Hopkins puts a lot of sound effects into his poetry. He uses a lot of unusual rhyming,
alliteration and compound words to capture the specific feel of a local location’. Discuss
this statement with reference to the poem.

OR

(iii) What collection of poems does this belong to? Answer with reference to the poem