Chapter 24 - Eroticism

Summary

In Hopkins’s writing, eroticism centres on eros or amor and loving the body of Christ. In the framework of Hopkins’s spiritual eroticism, eros or amor is love. Understanding the significance of love and the body in Hopkins’s writings – his poems, sermons, spiritual writings, diaries, essays, and letters – allows us to come to a fuller understanding of his relationship with Christ. Hopkins’s vow of celibacy afforded him the freedom to express his passion for Christ through romantic and sexual tropes such as touching hands, melting and merging subjects, beating hearts, magnetic attraction, mutual gazes, kisses, embraces, fecundity, and homecoming. We shall look at some of these tropes in this chapter, many of which can be traced back to ancient Greece and the early church fathers. Ultimately, Hopkins wrote about erotic desires and tactile pleasures in a manner that was broad and expansive.