Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The work of Geoffrey Hill (1932-2016) often provokes bemusement or even hostility; however, he was often referred to as 'the greatest living poet' and variants thereof. Oxford Professor of Poetry from 2010-2015, Hill published in 2013 his collected poems, Broken Hierarchies: Poems 1952-2012, which included four previously-unpublished collections and substantial expansions and revisions of existing works, and in 2008 published his Collected Critical Writings, a volume comprising all his published criticism and two new major collections of essays, Inventions of Value and Alienated Majesty. This book sets this later work - from 1996 to 2016 - in its contexts. Providing exegetical and interpretive readings of this work, it reflects, and refracts, its dazzling radiance, setting it within its literary, cultural, intellectual, and historical contexts, and bringing it to specialists on Hill and modern poetry and to a wider audience.
Synopsis
Sir Geoffrey Hill (1932-2016) was often referred to as 'the greatest living poet' during his lifetime, but his work often provokes bemusement or even hostility, and much of his later work has not received any serious critical commentary. This book provides a thorough analysis of the prolific twenty-year period between 1996 and 2016, from The Triumph of Love to Al Tempo de Tremuoti.
This study provides exegetical and interpretive readings of Hall's later work, including the four previously-unpublished collections and substantial expansions and revisions of existing works included in his 2013 collected poems, Broken Hierarchies: Poems 1952-2012, setting it within its literary, cultural, intellectual and historical contexts. It also considers Hill's later criticism in depth, including the two collections of essays first published in 2008's Collected Critical Writings (Alienated Majesty and Inventions of Value), as well as the Oxford Professor of Poetry lectures, illuminating archival materials from the Hill archive at the University of Leeds, and uncollected critical pieces.
Alex Wylie explores the poetry and prose thematically, chapter by chapter, providing the reader with a key to the underlying concerns of Hill's later work, and to its influences and exemplars. This book brings a valuable and underappreciated body of work not just to specialists on Hill and modern poetry, but to a wider audience of scholars and readers of modern poetry and modern intellectual history.
Synopsis
An exploration of the later work of Geoffrey Hill, often described as 'the greatest living poet' in his lifetime. This book reads, interprets, evaluates, and sets in context the work of Hill's prolific later period from 1996 to 2016, the year of his death.