Sir Geoffrey William Hill,
FRSL
The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...
(18 June 1932 – 30 June 2016) was an English poet, professor emeritus of English literature and religion, and former co-director of the
Editorial Institute, at
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
. Hill has been considered to be among the most distinguished poets of his generation and was called the "greatest living poet in the English language."
[Harold Bloom, ed. ''Geoffrey Hill (Bloom's Modern Critical Views)'', Infobase Publishing, 1986.]
From 2010 to 2015 he held the position of
Professor of Poetry
The Professor of Poetry is an academic appointment at the University of Oxford. The chair was created in 1708 by an endowment from the estate of Henry Birkhead. The professorship carries an obligation to lecture, but is in effect a part-time po ...
in the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
.
Following his receiving the
Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism The Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism is awarded for literary criticism by the University of Iowa on behalf of the Truman Capote Literary Trust. The value of the award is $30,000 (USD), and is said to be the largest annual cash prize for l ...
in 2009 for his ''Collected Critical Writings'', and the publication of ''Broken Hierarchies (Poems 1952–2012)'', Hill is recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry and criticism in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Biography
Geoffrey Hill was born in
Bromsgrove,
Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, in 1932, the son of a police constable. When he was six, his family moved to nearby
Fairfield in Worcestershire, where he attended the local primary school, then the grammar school in Bromsgrove. "As an only child, he developed the habit of going for long walks alone, as an adolescent deliberating and composing poems as he muttered to the stones and trees." On these walks he often carried with him
Oscar Williams' ''
A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry'' (1946), and Hill speculates: "there was probably a time when I knew every poem in that anthology by heart." In 1950 he was admitted to
Keble College, Oxford, to read English, where he published his first poems in 1952, at the age of twenty, in an eponymous
Fantasy Press
Fantasy Press was an American publishing house specialising in fantasy and science fiction titles. Established in 1946 by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach in Reading, Pennsylvania, it was most notable for publishing the works of authors such as Robert A. He ...
volume (though he had published work in the ''Oxford Guardian''—the magazine of the
University Liberal Club—and ''
The Isis
"The Isis" () is an alternative name for the River Thames, used from its source in the Cotswolds until it is joined by the Thame at Dorchester in Oxfordshire. It derives from the ancient name for the Thames, ''Tamesis'', which in the Middle ...
'').
Upon graduation from
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
with a
first
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
, Hill embarked on an academic career, teaching at the
University of Leeds
, mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased
, established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds
, ...
from 1954 until 1980, from 1976 as
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
of
English Literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...
. After leaving Leeds, he spent a year at the
University of Bristol
, mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'')
, established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter
, type ...
on a Churchill Scholarship before becoming a teaching fellow at
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican mon ...
, where he taught from 1981 until 1988. He then moved to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, to serve as
University Professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professor ...
and Professor of Literature and Religion at Boston University. In 2000, with
Christopher Ricks
Sir Christopher Bruce Ricks (born 18 September 1933) is a British literary critic and scholar. He is the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University (US), co-director of the Editorial Institute at Boston Un ...
, he was co-founder of the Editorial Institute at Boston University, dedicated to training students in editorial method.
In 2006, he moved back to Cambridge, England.
Hill was married twice. His first marriage to Nancy Whittaker, which produced four children, Julian, Andrew, Jeremy and Bethany, ended in divorce. His second marriage to the American librettist, and Anglican priest,
Alice Goodman
Alice Goodman, Lady Hill is an American poet and librettist. She is also an Anglican priest, working in England.
Biography
Goodman was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and attended and graduated from Breck School.
She was educated at Harvard Univ ...
occurred in 1987. The couple had a daughter, Alberta. The marriage lasted until Hill's death. Hill was a
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
.
Awards and honours
''Mercian Hymns'' won the
Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize
The Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize was awarded by the Poetry Society of London for a collection of poetry. It is named after Alice Hunt Bartlett who was the American editor of the society's '' Poetry Review'' from 1923 to 1949. The prize was establis ...
and the inaugural
Whitbread Award for Poetry in 1971. Hill won as well the
Eric Gregory Award
The Eric Gregory Award is a literary award given annually by the Society of Authors for a collection by British poets under the age of 30. The award was founded in 1960 by Dr. Eric Gregory to support and encourage young poets. In 2021, the seven ...
in 1961.
He delivered the 1998
Warton Lecture on English Poetry.
Hill was awarded an honorary
D.Litt.
Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Doctor ...
degree by the University of Leeds in 1988, the same year he received an
Ingram Merrill Foundation The Ingram Merrill Foundation was a private foundation established in the mid-1950s by poet James Merrill (1926-1995), using funds from his substantial family inheritance.J. D. McClatchyBraving the Elements ''The New Yorker'', 27 March 1995. Retrie ...
Award. Hill was also an
Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford; an Honorary Fellow of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican mon ...
; a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...
; and a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
. In 2009 his ''Collected Critical Writings'' won the
Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism The Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism is awarded for literary criticism by the University of Iowa on behalf of the Truman Capote Literary Trust. The value of the award is $30,000 (USD), and is said to be the largest annual cash prize for l ...
, the largest annual cash prize in English-language literary criticism.
Hill was created a
Knight Bachelor
The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are the ...
in the 2012
New Year Honours
The New Year Honours is a part of the British honours system, with New Year's Day, 1 January, being marked by naming new members of orders of chivalry and recipients of other official honours. A number of other Commonwealth realms also mark this ...
for services to literature.
Oxford candidacy
In March 2010 Hill was confirmed as a candidate in the election of the
Professor of Poetry
The Professor of Poetry is an academic appointment at the University of Oxford. The chair was created in 1708 by an endowment from the estate of Henry Birkhead. The professorship carries an obligation to lecture, but is in effect a part-time po ...
in the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
, with a broad base of academic support. He was ultimately successful, and delivered his 15 lectures in the academic years 2010 to 2015.
The lectures progressed chronologically, beginning with
Shakespeare's sonnets and concluding with a critique of
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, ''The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, ''Jill'' (1946) and ''A Girl in Winter'' (1947 ...
's poem "Church Going".
Writing
Hill's poetry encompasses a variety of styles, from the dense and allusive writing of ''King Log'' (1968) and ''Canaan'' (1997) through the simplified syntax of the sequence "The Pentecost Castle" in ''Tenebrae'' (1978), on to the more accessible poems of ''Mercian Hymns'' (1971), a series of 30 poems (sometimes called "prose-poems", a label which Hill rejects in favour of "versets") which juxtapose the history of
Offa, eighth-century ruler of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of
Mercia
la, Merciorum regnum
, conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia
, common_name=Mercia
, status=Kingdom
, status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex ()
, life_span=527–918
, era=Heptarchy
, event_start=
, date_start=
, ye ...
, with Hill's own childhood in the modern Mercia of the
West Midlands
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
.
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Justin Heaney (; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. said of Hill: "He has a strong sense of the importance of the maintenance of speech, a deep scholarly sense of the religious and political underpinning of everything in Britain." Kenneth Haynes, editor of ''Broken Hierarchies'', commented: "the annotation is not the hard part with Hill's poems... the difficulty only begins after looking things up". Elegy is Hill's dominant mode; he is a poet of phrases rather than cadences. Regarding both his style and subject, Hill is often described as a "difficult" poet. In an interview in ''
The Paris Review
''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...
'' (2000), which published Hill's early poem "Genesis" when he was still at Oxford, Hill defended the right of poets to difficulty as a form of resistance to the demeaning simplifications imposed by 'maestros of the world'. Hill also argued that to be difficult is to be democratic, equating the demand for simplicity with the demands of tyrants. He makes circumspect use of traditional rhetoric (as well as that of modernism), but he also transcribes the idioms of public life, such as those of television, political sloganeering, and punditry.
Hill has been consistently drawn to morally problematic and violent episodes in British and European history and has written poetic responses to the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
in English, "Two Formal Elegies", "September Song" and "Ovid in the Third Reich". His accounts of landscape (especially that of his native Worcestershire) are as intense as his encounters with history. Hill has also worked in theatre – in 1978, the
National Theatre in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
staged his 'version for the English stage' of
''Brand'' by
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...
, written in rhyming verse. Hill's distaste for conclusion, however, has led him, in 2000's ''Speech! Speech!'' (118), to scorn the following argument as a glib get-out: '
ACCESSIBLE / traded as
DEMOCRATIC, he answers / as he answers móst things these days , easily.' Throughout his corpus Hill is uncomfortable with the muffling of truth-telling that verse designed to sound well, for its contrivances of harmony, must permit. The constant buffets of Hill's suspicion of lyric eloquence—can it truly ''be'' eloquent?—against his talent for it (in ''Syon'', a sky is 'livid with unshed snow') become in the poems a sort of battle in style, where passages of singing force (''ToL'': 'The ferns / are breast-high, head-high, the days / lustrous, with their hinterlands of thunder') are balanced with prosaic ones of academese and inscrutable syntax. In the long interview collected in
Haffenden's ''Viewpoints'' there is described the poet warring himself to witness honestly, to make language as tool say truly what he believes is true of the world.
Criticism
The violence of Hill's aesthetic has been criticised by the Irish poet-critic
Tom Paulin
Thomas Neilson Paulin (born 25 January 1949 in Leeds, England) is a Northern Irish poet and critic of film, music and literature. He lives in England, where he was the G. M. Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford.
Earl ...
, who draws attention to the poet's use of the
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
ian trope of 'rivers of blood' – as deployed infamously by
Enoch Powell
John Enoch Powell, (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, classical scholar, author, linguist, soldier, philologist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (1950–1974) and was Minister of Health (1 ...
– to suggest that despite Hill's multi-layered irony and techniques of reflection, his lyrics draw their energies from an outmoded nationalism, expressed in what
Hugh Haughton
Hugh Haughton is an academic, author, editor and specialist in Irish literature and the literature of nonsense.
Born in Cork, Ireland and educated at Leighton Park School and then Cambridge and Oxford, Haughton is a professor at the Universi ...
has described as a 'language of the past largely invented by the Victorians'. Yet as Raphael Ingelbien notes, "Hill's England ... is a landscape which is fraught with the traces of a history that stretches so far back that it relativizes the Empire and its aftermath".
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking wor ...
has called him "the strongest British poet now active."
For his part, Hill addressed some of the misperceptions about his political and cultural beliefs in a ''
Guardian
Guardian usually refers to:
* Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another
* ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper
(The) Guardian(s) may also refer to:
Places
* Guardian, West Virginia, Unite ...
'' interview in 2002. There he suggested that his affection for the "radical Tories" of the 19th century, while recently misunderstood as reactionary, was actually evidence of a progressive bent tracing back to his working-class roots. He also indicated that he could no longer draw a firm distinction between "Blairite Labour" and the Thatcher-era Conservatives, lamenting that both parties had become solely oriented toward "materialism".
Hill's style has been subjected to parody:
Wendy Cope
Wendy Cope (born 21 July 1945) is a contemporary English poet. She read history at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She now lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire, with her husband, the poet Lachlan Mackinnon.
Biography
Cope was born in Erith in Kent (no ...
includes a two-stanza parody of the ''Mercian Hymns'' entitled "Duffa Rex" in ''Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis''.
Bibliography
Books of Poems
* Geoffrey Hill. Oxford:
Fantasy Press
Fantasy Press was an American publishing house specialising in fantasy and science fiction titles. Established in 1946 by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach in Reading, Pennsylvania, it was most notable for publishing the works of authors such as Robert A. He ...
, 1952. "The Fantasy Poets," no. 11. 8 pp.
* ''
For the Unfallen: Poems 1952-1958.'' London: Andre Deutsch, 1959.
* ''Preghiere''. Leeds: School of English, University of Leeds, 1964. "Northern House Pamphlets Poets" series. Contains 8 poems, all of which were subsequently published in ''King Log''.
* ''King Log''. London: Andre Deutsch,1968.
* ''Mercian Hymns''. London: Andre Deutsch, 1971.
* ''Tenebrae''. London: Andre Deutsch, 1978,
* ''The Mystery of the Charity of Charles Péguy''. London: Agenda Editions /Andre Deutsch, 1983.
* ''Canaan''. London: Penguin, 1996.
* ''The Triumph of Love''. London: Penguin, 1997.
* ''Speech! Speech!'' Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 2000. Long poem, comprising 120 12-line stanzas
* ''The Orchards of Syon''. Washington DC: Counterpoint, 2002.
* ''Scenes from Comus''. London: Penguin, 2005.
* ''A Treatise of Civil Power''. Thame: Clutag Press, 2005. Limited edition of 400 copies.
* ''
Without Title''. London: Penguin, 2006. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007, .
* ''A Treatise of Civil Power'' (London:
Penguin
Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...
, 2007. (“In Penguin’s new printing, a number of the book’s other poems survive intact, but the "Treatise" has been smashed up, rewritten (or sub-edited) into a number of smaller poems and fragmentary lyrics. Then other stuff’s gone in as well.” Tim Martin, ''The Guardian'' (8 Sept. 2007)
* ''Oraclau , Oracles: The Daybooks III''. Thame: Clutag Press, 2010.
* ''Clavics: The Daybooks IV''. London:
Enitharmon Press
Enitharmon Press is an independent British publishing house specialising in artists’ books, poetry, limited editions and original prints.
The name of the press comes from the poetry of William Blake: Enitharmon was a character who represented ...
, 2011.
[Enitharmon Press](_blank)
* ''Odi Barbare: The Daybooks II''. Thame: Clutag Press, 2012.
* (Posthumous)
Poetry Collections and Selections
*''Somewhere Is Such a Kingdom: Poems 1952-1971'', introduction by Harold Bloom. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975. (Contains ''For the Unfallen'' (1959), ''King Log'' (1968), ''Mercian Hymns'' (1971)
*Edwin Brock /Geoffrey Hill /Stevie Smith. Penguin Modern Poets, 8. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966
*''Collected Poems''. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985. 1
st hardback edition, London: André Deutsch, 1986.
*''New & Collected Poems, 1952-1992. '' Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
*''Selected Poems.'' Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2006. 1st hardback edition, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Published 1 April.
*''Broken Hierarchies: Poems 1952-2012'', ed. Kenneth Haynes''.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Published November. Includes all published collections, and four hitherto unpublished sections of “The Daybooks”: a) Ludo: Epigraphs and Colophons to ''The Daybooks'', b) I. Expostulations on the Volcano, c) II. Liber Illustrium Virorum, d) VI. Al Tempo de’ Tremuoti
Prose and Drama
* Brand, by Henrik Ibsen: A Version for the English Stage, trans. Geoffrey Hill. 1978.
* ''The Lords of Limit: Essays on Literature and Ideas''. London: Andre Deutsch, 1984.
* ''The Enemy's Country: Words, Contexture, and other Circumstances of Language.'' Stanford University Press, 1991.
* ''Style and Faith'' (2003)
* ''Collected Critical Writings'', ed. Kenneth Haynes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008
Notes
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Oxford Professor of Poetry Faculty Page featuring Hill's Lectures*
*
''Selected Poems'' in ''The Critical Flame''.
Profile at Poets.org
Profile and poems at Poetry Foundation
celebrating his 70th birthday
BBC 18 June 2010 "Geoffrey Hill named Oxford poetry professor"
'Subduing the reader'by Laurie Smith in ''Magma'', No. 23, Summer 2002
'Language and Grace' review of ''The Orchards of Syon'' in the ''
Oxonian Review
''The Oxonian Review'' is a literary magazine produced by postgraduate students at the University of Oxford. Every fortnight during term time, an online edition is published featuring reviews and essays on current affairs and literature. It is ...
''
'The Violent Bear it Away'Audio recording of a lecture on English translations of the Bible given at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
* Archival material at
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, Geoffrey
People from Bromsgrove
People from Bromsgrove District
Formalist poets
Alumni of Keble College, Oxford
Fellows of Keble College, Oxford
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Fellows of Emmanuel College, Cambridge
1932 births
2016 deaths
Knights Bachelor
Academics of the University of Leeds
Oxford Professors of Poetry
English male poets
20th-century English poets
21st-century English poets
21st-century English male writers
20th-century English male writers
Writers from Worcestershire