As an undergraduate studying Literae Humaniores at Balliol College, Oxford, in the 1860s, Hopkins found himself at the centre of the Victorian Platonic revival. This essay charts the contours of classical scholarship in the mid-nineteenth century and the outsize role played by Hopkins’s tutor Benjamin Jowett in promoting Presocratic and Platonic philosophy as the necessary foundation of modern thought. This early encounter with ancient Greek thought provided Hopkins with a philosophical framework through which he could prosecute one of his most fundamental intuitions: that reality is complex, and that it is necessary to pay careful attention to the proper relations between the individual and the whole. It was as he studied these early philosophers that Hopkins first formulated his key concepts of inscape and instress and, more importantly, found the prompt for his own self-consciously modern experiments in verse-writing.

Not only was it the place of Hopkins’s birth and formative education, London also sired many of his poems. Its galleries provided deep insights into art, and the city’s variegated landscape, invaluable to Hopkins’ earliest poetry, also influenced poems he would compose later in Wales, Oxford, and Dublin. Hopkins’s readings in secular and sacred literature, poetic composition, the development of his poetics, illustrations, and sketches all occurred in London, which was also the place of entry into university teaching, the priesthood, and his first sermon. Hopkins’s understanding of nature fathering-forth the divine, as in his famous observations of bluebells and fresh fire-coals, was formed in London. The embryonic development of Hopkins’s theory of inscape and instress also occurred in London. Put simply, London looms large in Hopkins’s observations of nature, aesthetic development, theories on art, and religious preparation.

While Hopkins’s poetry has long ignited the imaginations of religious readers, surprisingly few theologians have engaged deeply with his work. This chapter considers the limited body of theological discourse that engages directly and substantively with Hopkins’s work, focusing on the way that his poetry has been taken up in the field of Christian systematic theology (narrowly conceived). Much of the chapter is dedicated to unpacking a highly influential essay by Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. As I demonstrate, while Balthasar’s essay offers numerous valuable insights, it also exhibits several of the most ubiquitous limitations in theological receptions of Hopkins. Thus, at the conclusion of the chapter I propose a way forward for renewed engagement with Hopkins’s theological vision, building on the innovative approach of contemporary Anglican theologian Ben Quash.