Depression in Hopkins' Desolation SonnetsGerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) was above all a man of the cloth. He seems to have placed his gifts in musical composition, drawing and poetry far behind his ecclesiastical duties for most of his life, leading to terrible bouts of depression. Hopkins expressed this depression in what are known as the Sonnets of Desolation, including "I wake and feel nightfall, not day", "Nay, I will carry comfort, despair, I will not feast on you” and “No. The worst part is that there is none beyond grief." In his 1970 essay "The Dark Night of the Soul," Paul L. Mariani tells us that "even if [l Hopkins' friend, Robert] Bridges thought Carrion Comfort was probably the sonnet Hopkins told him in May, it was written in blood, "No Worse" seems to fit rather firmly into the Valley Most. low of this depression, and the cumulative effect of unrealized professional goals, political visions and artistic skills contributed to its construction The very finality of the phrasing Hopkins chose to open the sonnet without any argument; cannot get worse. Part of this despair stems from Hopkins's abstinence from writing He was a Jesuit who converted to Catholicism in 1866. religious beliefs, he tried to deny his talents; The pleasure he derived from poetic expression approached sin and "burned his youthful verses, determined 'to write no more, as not belonging to my profession'" (Britannica 1). Yet Hopkins seems to have been uncontrollably drawn to poetry. In 1875 he had started writing again; agitated by the deaths of five nuns who drowned...... middle of paper ...... literature, history and culture in the Victorian era (Brown University Background 61). Ed. George P. Landow. 1995 http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/hopkins/hopkins12.htmlMariani, Paul. “The dark night of the soul.” Originally appeared in A Commentary on the Complete Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Cornell University Press, 1970. From Modern Critical Views: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Harold Bloom, eds. Chelsea House Publishers, New York. 1986. Hopkins, Gerard Manley. “No Worse, There Is None,” “I Wake and Feel the Fall of Darkness,” and “My Own Heart Lets Me Pity More” 1918. London: Humphrey Milford, 1918. New York, Bartleby Online, October 1999. http://www.bartleby.com/122/45.htmlReid, John Cowie. “Hopkins, Gerard Manley,” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. (c) 1999-2001 Britannica.com Inc. http://www.britannica.com/ed/article?idxref=503256