The Thermodynamics of Inscape: Scientific Premonition and Ecological Lament in Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Binsey Poplars”

Abstract

This paper offers an ecocritical re-evaluation of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ 1879 lyric “Binsey Poplars,” positioning it as a pivotal synthesis of Victorian scientific anxiety and theological ecology. Beyond a mere aesthetic lament for the felled aspens of Oxford, the poem serves as a sophisticated indictment of the ontological blindness facilitating environmental destruction. By interrogating the text’s engagement with the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the biochemical principles of photosynthesis, this study demonstrates how Hopkins frames ecological “havoc” as both a physical entropic loss and a spiritual catastrophe. Utilizing Hopkins’ idiosyncratic framework of inscape and instress, the analysis reveals how the “unselving” of the landscape critiques the industrial commodification and subsequent objectification of nature. Hopkins’ Scotian-influenced perception of the “Logos” within the particular challenges the burgeoning alienation of humanity from the natural world. Ultimately, this article argues that “Binsey Poplars” provides a prophetic environmental ethic, suggesting that the “materialist worldview” of the nineteenth century—symbolized by the locomotive expansion—represents a fundamental failure to perceive the intrinsic divinity and energetic interconnectedness of the ecosystem.