{"id":8126,"date":"2022-06-26T07:37:50","date_gmt":"2022-06-26T07:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=8126"},"modified":"2022-06-26T07:37:50","modified_gmt":"2022-06-26T07:37:50","slug":"ocr-hopkins-and-the-windhover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2022\/06\/26\/ocr-hopkins-and-the-windhover\/","title":{"rendered":"OCR, Hopkins and the Windhover"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gerard Manley Hopkins has been excluded from the <a href=\"https:\/\/ocr.org.uk\/blog\/introducing-our-revised-gcse-english-literature-poetry-anthology\/\">OCR GCSE English Literature<\/a> list. \u00a0Happily, <a href=\"https:\/\/hopkinspoetry.com\/poems\/\">Hopkins<\/a> wrote brilliantly about nature and so is a good candidate to be part of the new natural history GCSE syllabus. \u00a0One possible choice would seem to be:<\/p>\n<h4>The Windhover<\/h4>\n<div class=\"o-vr o-vr_12x\">\n<div class=\"c-feature\">\n<div class=\"c-feature-bd\">\n<div class=\"o-poem o-poem_withHighlights isActive\" data-view=\"PoemView\">\n<div class=\"o-vr o-vr_6x\">\n<div class=\"c-epigraph\">\n<div>\n<p>To Christ our Lord<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>I caught this morning morning's <span id=\"annotation-3\" class=\"annotation\" aria-describedby=\"annotation-3-text\">minion<\/span>, king-<\/div>\n<div>dom of daylight's <span id=\"annotation-4\" class=\"annotation\" aria-describedby=\"annotation-4-text\">dauphin<\/span>, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding<\/div>\n<div>Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding<\/div>\n<div>High there, how he rung upon the rein of a <span id=\"annotation-5\" class=\"annotation\" aria-describedby=\"annotation-5-text\">wimpling<\/span> wing<\/div>\n<div>In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,<\/div>\n<div>As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding<\/div>\n<div>Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding<\/div>\n<div>Stirred for a bird, \u2013 the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here<\/div>\n<div><span id=\"annotation-6\" class=\"annotation\" aria-describedby=\"annotation-6-text\">Buckle!<\/span> AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion<\/div>\n<div>Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my <span id=\"annotation-7\" class=\"annotation\" aria-describedby=\"annotation-7-text\">chevalier!<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>No wonder of it: <span id=\"annotation-8\" class=\"annotation\" aria-describedby=\"annotation-8-text\">sh\u00e9er pl\u00f3d<\/span> makes plough down <span id=\"annotation-9\" class=\"annotation\" aria-describedby=\"annotation-9-text\">sillion<\/span><\/div>\n<div>Shine, and blue-bleak embers, <span id=\"annotation-10\" class=\"annotation\" aria-describedby=\"annotation-10-text\">ah my dear<\/span>,<\/div>\n<div>Fall, <span id=\"annotation-11\" class=\"annotation\" aria-describedby=\"annotation-11-text\">gall<\/span> themselves, and gash gold-<span id=\"annotation-12\" class=\"annotation\" aria-describedby=\"annotation-12-text\">vermilion<\/span>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"o-grid\">\n<div class=\"o-grid-col o-grid-col_10of12\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>As will be obvious, a windhover is a kestrel, and where I live the name is still in use: such an expressively accurate description of the bird and its flight. \u00a0I read that Hopkins said that Windhover was the best thing he'd ever written. \u00a0I'm not surprised; as a piece of nature poetry it is wonderfully inventive and is as much about the human appreciation of the bird as of the bird itself. \u00a0It's also a bit \"difficult\" of course, even though it rhymes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gerard Manley Hopkins has been excluded from the OCR GCSE English Literature list. \u00a0Happily, Hopkins wrote brilliantly about nature and so is a good candidate to be part of the new natural history GCSE syllabus. \u00a0One possible choice would seem...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}