Gerard Manley Hopkins

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             One of his major innovations was a new metrical form, called "sprung rhythm." In sprung rhythm, the poet counts the number of accented syllables in the line, but places no limit on the total number of syllables. As opposed to syllabic meters (such as the iambic), which count both stresses and syllables, this form allows for greater freedom in the position and proportion of stresses. Whereas English verse has traditionally alternated stressed and unstressed syllables with occasional variation, Hopkins was free to place multiple stressed syllables one after another as in the line " All felled, felled, are all felled- from "Binsey Poplars", or to run a large number of unstressed syllables together as in " Finger of a tender of, O of a feathery delicacy- from "The Wreck of the Deutschland". This gives Hopkins great control over the speed of his lines and their dramatic effects.
             In general, sprung rhythm, as Hopkins claimed, is the most natural of things. He tabulated the reasons: .
             (1) "It is the rhythm of common speech and of written prose, when rhythm is perceived in them." .
             (2) "It is the rhythm of all but the most monotonously regular music, so that in the words of choruses and refrains and in song closely written to music it arises." .
             (3) "It is found in nursery rhymes, weather saws, and so on; because, however these may have been once made in running rhythm, the terminations having dropped off by the change of language, the stresses come together and so the rhythm is sprung." .
             (4) "It arises in common verse when reversed or counter pointed, for the same reason.".
             Another unusual approach to his poetry was they way in which he repeated and juxtaposed his words or the sounds of the words. He would do this through elaborate use of alliteration and internal rhyme; in Hopkins's hands this creates an unusual thickness and resonance, we can see and hear this in poems such as "The Wreck of the Deutschland" - " the down-dugged ground-hugged grey- this is a very heavy image and constitutes to the suffering of the victims of the massacre.