William Butler Yeats and Gerard Manley Hopkins as Innovators

Type :

School essay

Pages :

2 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

12/11/2007

Category :

Philosophy & literature

Sub category :

Literature

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Summary :

Introduction
The concept of sprung rhythm
Creating the curtail sonnet
Writing in conventional forms
Conclusion

Abstract

In literature there can be two major types of innovation, innovation in style and innovation in content. At the turn of the 18th Century innovations were huge as writers were creating what we now refer to as modernist poetry. gerard manley hopkins and william butler yeats are two of the central figures that influenced the way poetry was read and the way it would be written by those that would follow. Between the two the whole look and feel of a poem changed. Both hopkins and yeats tried to restore writing and/or culture and in doing so were, somewhat ironically, innovative. hopkins wished to revert to the way English was written and sounded when it was first created through his idea of sprung rhythm and his use of kennings. yeats looked further back than hopkins for inspiration and in doing so used Irish and some Greek mythology in the content of his works. The restoration effort of these two poets is a large contribution to the innovation of poetry.