Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems
It's on Hopkins' use of aposiopesis in "The Wreck of the Deutschland."
I am translating Hopkins’ “The Wreck of the Deutschland”, which, to me, is a complex poem. But what makes it even more difficult to understand is the use of aposiopesis (stanza 28). Can anyone help me by answering a few questions? (1) third verse: (A) the two pronouns “it” refer to what? (B) What is it “that looms there”? (C) The pronoun “you” refers to Christ or to the person the persona is addressing in the poem? (D) It also crossed my mind that maybe in this verse the narrator is talking as if he were the “tall nun”; does it make sense? (2) Fourth verse (“thing that she”): What does the pronoun “she” refer to: to the “tall nun” or to the sinking ship? (3) How would you fill in the blanks there? Any ideas?