Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
‘Touching God: Hopkins and Love’ is the first book devoted to love in the writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins, illuminating our understanding of him as a romantic poet. Discussions of desire in Hopkins’ poetry have focused on his unrequited attraction to men. In contrast, Duc Dau turns to Luce Irigaray and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theories of mutual touch to uncover the desire Hopkins cultivated and celebrated: his love for Christ. ‘Touching God’ demonstrates how descriptions of touching played a vital role in the poet’s vision of spiritual eroticism. Forging a new way of reading desire and the body in Hopkins’ writings, the work offers fresh interpretations of his poetry.
‘Duc Dau has written an exciting and provocative book, […] a worthy and timely addition to the world of Hopkins scholarship, bringing a fresh, innovative, and at times deliberately challenging approach to the too-often-overlooked area of love in the writing of Hopkins. […] Far from denying the corporeal, this approach rightly draws attention to a frequently overlooked rich spiritual eroticism found nestling at the very heart of so much of Hopkins’s writing.’ — Hannah Dunleavy, ‘Hopkins Quarterly’
Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Introduction: Love and Touch; Chapter One: Confluence and Reflection; Chapter Two: Virgin Marriage and the Song of Songs; Chapter Three: Conception, Pregnancy, Birth; Chapter Four: Caressing, Conversing, Kissing; Chapter Five: Homecoming; Notes; Bibliography; Index