Deconstructing Hopkins

Abstract

Acknowledges that a book on Hopkins’ aesthetic theory is needed, but finds serious fault with this attempt to explain Hopkins’ aesthetics by relying too heavily on theoretical works of critics such as Harold Bloom, J. Hillis Miller, and Jacques Derrida. Finds Sprinker sometimes makes provocative suggestions about the origins of Hopkins’ poetics, but too frequently fails to follow up his assertions with careful textual analysis.