Teasing simple sight: Physiological optics and the science of perception. A study of selected works from Gerard Manley Hopkins

When science attempts to observe that which can not be seen, or when it begins to challenge the validity of perception, knowledge of the external world may be judged unreliable. In the nineteenth century, the science of physiological optics attempted to define perception in a way that would allow the observer to gauge the accuracy of visual observation, while recognizing the subjective influence of the human mind. Gerard Manley Hopkins, like many Victorian writers, took advantage of the detailed observation that science encouraged in order to write more accurately about the world around him. When visual perception becomes destabilized through new discoveries by scientists like the German physiologist Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz, Hopkins struggles to create a model of perception that would allow for an observable external world. Using developments in optics and the physics of light, Hopkins enhances his ability to describe the physical world in spite of the influence of the subjective mind. Developments in wave theory and physiological optics allow Hopkins to develop his idiosyncratic use of the terms instress, inscape, and especially pitch, to augment the accuracy of his perception. He is also enabled to describe the traditionally metaphysical, that which cannot be perceived through ordinary physical sensation, like the self.; This dissertation first addresses the developments in physiological optics that influenced Hopkins through a study of several of his undergraduate essays and poems that demonstrate the necessity and limitation of both objective sensation and subjective interpretation in perception. The concluding chapter will examine how wave theory and Hopkins's use of the term pitch enabled him to attempt an analysis of the self. Although he is not always successful in these poems, Hopkins does develop a methodology by which he renders the metaphysical world visible.