"Margaret, are you grieving over Goldengrove unleaving?" : "Spring and Fall" in the poetic thoughts of Gerard Manley Hopkins (and Charles Taylor's : Philosophy)

Abstract

The article has been written to celebrate the academic jubilee of Professor Andrzej Wicher whose historical, literary, and aesthetic writings and reflections on the Middle Ages have always aroused my interest, curiosity, and highest admiration. They have been much resistant to major trends in literary studies especially in the times of postmodernism, which tends to forget about traditional values (and virtues) as messaged in literature, history, and aesthetics. It is my “hero-worship” (as in Thomas Carlyle) of Professor Wicher’s indomitable character and his historical devotion to medievalism and Old English literature that inspired my literary contribution to the volume. Although Andrzej Wicher stays and works now “alas! away” (Hopkins) from our university, he will always remain with us at the Institute of English Cultures and Literatures. I have always seen Professor Wicher as a guardian of medieval values which, despite the present world’s “disassociation of sensibility,” remain still permanent and eternal in the aesthetic space of the humanities.