Inscape

Inscape is a concept derived by Gerard Manley Hopkins from the ideas of the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus. The term itself means the unique, distinctive, and inherent quality of a thing. Hopkins believed that everything in the world was characterized by inscape and in turn inscape was what designed an individual's dynamic, never static, identity.

Hopkins use of the concept is filtered through his conviction that God the Creator is endlessly inventive and makes no two things alike. This is related to a logocentric theology and the imago Dei. A logocentric theology of creation is based on correlation of the Genesis account and John 1. Since all creation is by the Word (divine fiat) human identity in God's image is grounded in God's speech and no two creation words are ever spoken alike. This idea is mirrored by JRR Tolkien who compares the Creator to a perfect prism and creation to the refraction of perfect light. Tolkien writes,

'Dear Sir,' I said -- 'Although now long estranged,Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changedDis-grace he may be, yet is not de-throned,and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned:Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Lightthrough whom is splintered from a single Whiteto many hues, and endlessly combinedin living shapes that move from mind to mind.*

Because humans are the most highly selved in the world, we can recognize the inscape in other beings of the world through a process called instress, says Hopkins; and to recognize a being's inscape through instress requires a divine intervention. Inscape and instress play a major part in organizing the structure of Hopkins's poetry.

The idea is strongly embraced by the famous Trappist monk and literary genius Thomas Merton who admired both Scotus and Hopkins. In "New Seeds of Contemplation" Merton equates the unique "thingness" of a thing, its inscape, to sanctity. The result is that holiness itself is grounded in God's idea of being. To the extent that any "thing" (include humans) honors God's unique idea of them they are holy. Holiness thus connects to "vocation" (from the Latin vocare for "voice") in two ways. First, God creates through the word; and second, when being responds rightly to God's speech by expressing his unique word the result is Holiness.

References

* The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Victorian Age, page 1649
* JRR Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories,' in Essays Presented to Charles Williams, CS Lewis Ed.