ABSTRACT
Hopkins was a Jesuit for almost half his life; his mature poems were written either shortly before he was ordained a priest or during his varied ministries. From 7 September 1868, the day that Hopkins joined the Victorian Jesuit Novitiate, to the day of his death, the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius were the centre of his spiritual life. The history of the Jesuits in England, for almost the three centuries up to the year of Hopkins's ordination, 1877, is one of persecution. If the spirit of much of Hopkins's poetry is Ignatian, its structure seems equally so. The essence of the Ignatian meditation is 'to see with the eyes of the imagination'. Scotus's belief in the principle of individuation clearly lies behind Hopkins's commentary on the opening of the Spiritual Exercises, already quoted, with its great celebration of selfhood. Hopkins preached on the Feast of St Stanislaus 1869; and his sermon was later remembered as 'brilliant and beautiful'.
