Geoffrey Hill and his Contexts

272 Pages·2012·1.944 MB·English

by  Hill, Geoffrey, Sperling, Matthew, Pennington, Piers, Hill, Geoffrey

M
Geoffrey Hill is one of the most significant poets currently at work in o
the English language. The essays gathered in this book present a number d
of new contexts in which to explore a wide range of his writings, from P e
the poems he wrote as an undergraduate to the recent volumes A Treatise e
n r
of Civil Power (2007) and Collected Critical Writings (2008). Connections n n
are made between the early and the later poetry, and between the poetry in
and the criticism, and archival materials are considered along with the g P
t
published texts. The essays also make comparisons across disciplines, o o
n
discussing Hill’s work in relation to theology, philosophy and intellec­ a e
tual history, to literature from other languages, and to the other arts. n t
d
In doing so, they cast fresh light upon Hill’s dense, original and some­ r
S y
times challenging writings, opening them up in new ways for all readers p
of his work. e
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H
il Geoffrey Hill
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and his Contexts
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Piers Pennington is completing a doctoral thesis on modern poetry at s

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Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
o
n
Matthew Sperling is Fellow by Special Election in Modern English t
e
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Literature at Keble College, Oxford. He is at work on a monograph
t
s
on Geoffrey Hill, etymological thinking and the history of linguistic
thought, and has published essays on the work of Roy Fisher and J.H.
Prynne.
Edited by Piers Pennington
and Matthew Sperling
ISBN 978-3-0343-0185-5
www.peterlang.com
PEtEr LanG
M
Geoffrey Hill is one of the most significant poets currently at work in o
the English language. The essays gathered in this book present a number d
of new contexts in which to explore a wide range of his writings, from P e
the poems he wrote as an undergraduate to the recent volumes A Treatise e
n r
of Civil Power (2007) and Collected Critical Writings (2008). Connections n n
are made between the early and the later poetry, and between the poetry in
and the criticism, and archival materials are considered along with the g P
t
published texts. The essays also make comparisons across disciplines, o o
n
discussing Hill’s work in relation to theology, philosophy and intellec­ a e
tual history, to literature from other languages, and to the other arts. n t
d
In doing so, they cast fresh light upon Hill’s dense, original and some­ r
S y
times challenging writings, opening them up in new ways for all readers p
of his work. e
r
l
i
n
g

(
e
d
s
)

•

G
e
o
f
f
r
e
y

H
il Geoffrey Hill
l

a
n
d
and his Contexts
h
i
Piers Pennington is completing a doctoral thesis on modern poetry at s

C
Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
o
n
Matthew Sperling is Fellow by Special Election in Modern English t
e
x
Literature at Keble College, Oxford. He is at work on a monograph
t
s
on Geoffrey Hill, etymological thinking and the history of linguistic
thought, and has published essays on the work of Roy Fisher and J.H.
Prynne.
Edited by Piers Pennington
and Matthew Sperling
www.peterlang.com
PEtEr LanG
Geoffrey Hill and his Contexts
M o d e r n P o e t r y
Series editors:
David Ayers, David Herd & Jan Montefiore, University of Kent
Volume 6
Peter LAng
Oxford l Bern l Berlin l Bruxelles l Frankfurt am Main l new York l Wien
Piers Pennington and
Matthew Sperling (eds)
Geoffrey Hill
and his Contexts
Peter LAng
Oxford l Bern l Berlin l Bruxelles l Frankfurt am Main l new York l Wien
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Die Deutsche nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the
Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
geoffrey Hill and his contexts / Piers Pennington and Matthew Sperling,
editors.
p. cm. -- (Modern poetry ; 6)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBn 978-3-0343-0185-5 (alk. paper)
1. Hill, geoffrey--Criticism and interpretation. I. Pennington,
Piers. II. Sperling, Matthew, 1982-
Pr6015.I4735Z677 2011
821’.914--dc23
2011029011
Cover image: Christopher Wood, The Jumping Boy, Arundel (1929).
Courtesy of Museums Sheffield.
ISSn 1661-2744
ISBn 978-3-0343-0185-5 E‐ISBN 978‐3‐0353‐0232‐5
© Peter Lang Ag, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2011
Hochfeldstrasse 32, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
[email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net
All rights reserved.
All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.
Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without
the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.
this applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming,
and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.
Printed in germany
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Abbreviations ix
Introduction 1
Steven Matthews
Hill’s Uncollected Oxford Poems 5
Piers Pennington
The Manuscripts and Composition of ‘Genesis’ 25
Charles Lock
Beside the Point: A Diligence of Accidentals 43
Kathryn Murphy
Hill’s Conversions 61
Michael Molan
Milton and Eliot in the Work of Geof frey Hill 81
Matthew Sperling
Hill and Nineteenth-Century Linguistic Thought 107
Marcus Waithe
Hill, Ruskin, and Intrinsic Value 133
vi
Sheridan Burnside
The ‘Tenebrae’ Poems of Paul Celan and Geof frey Hill 151
Matthew Paskins
Hill and Gillian Rose 171
Hugh Haughton
‘Music’s Invocation’: Music and History in Geof frey Hill 187
Kenneth Haynes
‘Perplexed Persistence’: The Criticism of Geof frey Hill 213
Geof frey Hill
from Odi Barbare, XXI–XXIII 227
Afterword 231
Bibliography 235
Notes on Contributors 247
Index 251
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to a number of institutions and individuals for making the
conference and the proceedings documented in this book possible. We
should like to thank all those involved at Keble College, Oxford, and, for
their generous awards of funding, the British Academy, the English Faculty,
Oxford, the Keble Association, and Oxford University Press. We should
like to thank the college’s then Warden, Averil Cameron, for her whole-
hearted support of the project, from beginning to end, and Janet Betts,
the Domestic Bursar, for her assistance with the practical elements of its
organisation. We are grateful to Ruth Cowan, the college’s Development
Of ficer, and to Robert Petre, the archivist, for his curation of the exhibi-
tion which included the manuscripts of ‘Genesis’, among other items. We
remain deeply grateful to Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury,
for his presence at the conference and his contribution to it. We should
also like to thank Kenneth Haynes, Peter McDonald, and John Lyon for
their keynote talks, and, more generally, all those who made the confer-
ence such a memorable occasion, by chairing sessions, presenting papers, or
simply coming along – from across the globe. We should especially like to
thank Christopher Ricks, Valentine Cunningham, and Andrew McNeil-
lie. We should also both like to acknowledge the support of the Arts and
Humanities Research Council, for funding our graduate studies in Oxford.
We are grateful to Hannah Godfrey, our editor, for believing in the book
from such an early stage, and to all those at Peter Lang, and particularly
Gemma Lewis, for their support in its production. Finally we should like
to thank Geof frey Hill, for being closely involved with the conference and
for contributing to this volume.
The following materials are reproduced by kind permission of the copy-
right holders:
viii Acknowledgements
Excerpts from Geof frey Hill’s published and unpublished writings and
from his conversation with Rowan Williams are used by permission of the
author. Many thanks to Kenneth Haynes for his assistance in this matter.
Excerpts from Collected Poems, The Orchards of Syon and Scenes from Comus
by Geof frey Hill, © 1985, 2002, 2005 by Geof frey Hill. Reprinted by per-
mission of Penguin Books Ltd. Excerpts from New and Collected Poems
1952–1992 by Geof frey Hill, © 1994 by Geof frey Hill. Used by permission
of Houghton Mif f lin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Excerpts from Canaan and The Triumph of Love by Geof frey Hill, © 1996,
1998 by Geof frey Hill. Used by permission of Penguin Books Ltd and
Houghton Mif f lin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Excerpts from Without Title and A Treatise of Civil Power by Geof frey
Hill, © 2006, 2007 by Geof frey Hill. Reprinted by permission of Penguin
Books Ltd and Yale University Press. The typescript of ‘Genesis’ is repro-
duced by kind permission of the Warden and Fellows of Keble College,
Oxford. Quotations from ‘Pensées’ appear with the kind permission of
the Brotherton Collection, Leeds University Library. Ezra Pound, ‘In a
Station of the Metro’, from Personae, © 1926 by Ezra Pound. Reprinted by
permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. Paul Celan, ‘Tenebrae’
is taken from Poems of Paul Celan, translated by Michael Hamburger.
Translation © 1972, 1980, 1988, 2002 by Michael Hamburger. Reprinted
by permission of Persea Books, Inc., New York, and Anvil Press Poetry.
Third edition published by Anvil Press Poetry in 2007.
The cover image, Christopher Wood’s The Jumping Boy, Arundel (1929),
is reproduced here by permission of Museums Shef field. Thanks to Julie
Taylor for her generous help.
Every ef fort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their
permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for
any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful for notifi-
cation of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints
or editions of this book.