The context of writing » Hopkins' beliefs about religion and poetry

Is there a link?

To study Hopkins’ poetry in detail, we need to know a little more about his beliefs, especially

• why he became a Catholic
• what it meant to him
• why he wrote his poetry in the form he did.

If we can understand some of these things now, the poetry itself may not seem quite so difficult as it might if we were to just plunge straight into it.