Collected Critical Writings [Hardcover]

Geoffrey Hill (Author), Kenneth Haynes (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0199208476 | ISBN-13: 978-0199208470 | Publication Date: May 29, 2008

The Collected Critical Writings gathers more than forty years of Hill's published criticism, in a revised final form, and also adds much new work. It will serve as the canonical volume of criticism by Hill, the pre-eminent poet-critic whom A. N. Wilson has called "probably the best writer alive, in verse or in prose." In his criticism Hill ranges widely, investigating both poets (including Jonson, Dryden, Hopkins, Whitman, Eliot, and Yeats ) and prose writers (such as Tyndale, Clarendon, Hobbes, Burton, Emerson, and F. H. Bradley). He is also steeped in the historical context - political, poetic, and religious - of the writers he studies. Most importantly, he brings texts and contexts into new and telling relations, neither reducing texts to the circumstances of their utterance nor imagining that they can float free of them. A number of the essays have already established themselves as essential reading on particular subjects, such as his analysis of Vaughan's "The Night", his discussion of Gurney's poetry, and his critical account of The Oxford English Dictionary. Others confront the problems of language and the nature of value directly, as in "Our Word is Our Bond", "Language, Suffering, and Value", and "Poetry and Value". In all his criticism, Hill reveals literature to be an essential arena of civic intelligence.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If you are allowed one work of literary criticism to be marooned with on a desert island, take Geoffrey Hill's Collected Critical Writings, painstakingly edited by Kenneth Haynes." --Christianity and Literature

About the Author

Born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire in 1932, Geoffrey Hill is the author of a dozen books of poetry. From 1988 to 2006 he taught as a University Professor and Professor of Literature and Religion at Boston University. He is also Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford; Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He currently lives in Cambridge, England.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 832 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199208476
• ISBN-13: 978-0199208470
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #546,463 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Complex but Decent Respect for Language, July 19, 2008

By 

Michael Greenebaum (Amherst, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Collected Critical Writings (Hardcover)

Students of Hill should know that there is much in this "Collected" that does not appear in his previously published volumes. It is dense and tough going (and has the virtue of making Hill's great poetry appear pellucid). However, the rewards are great if one reads the prose in the same way one would read the poetry -- pausing after the difficult sentences, struggling with the references, working through the knots. I find the newer, previously unpublished work more congenial than the earlier essays. Just as Hill seems to have discovered a new kind of fluency in his poetry in the '90s, so too his prose seems more reader-friendly. Hill stands to the second half of the 20th century as Yeats stands to the first; they are the poet-theorists one returns to. In both cases, it is the poetry that is truly imperishable, but it is the prose that provides a glimpse into the workshop whence the poetry emanates.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Alienated Majesty", June 21, 2010

By 

Hannah M. Vanderhart (Annapolis, MD) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Collected Critical Writings (Paperback)

is a phrase from Thoreau which Hill considers as a springboard in the final group of essays in this volume (essays addressing poetics of Emerson, Hopkins, Eliot, and Whitman, among others).

While I'm thrilled to have Hill's essays all in one place as reference, I admit, they are weary going. I certainly agree with the first reviewer: the terse, compressed language of these essays makes Hill's poetry appear in its true form: seriously beautiful poetry. Modern readers who complain over the difficulty of Hill's poetry need not bother with this volume, in this collection, Hill is intertextual on a very serious level with English history, prose, and poetry; the weight of Hill's intellectual background and a lifetime of academia have a heavy hand to play in the text, as should be expected.

If you want insight into Hill's intellectual process without reading his critical writings, it can be done. I recommend Eliot's selected essays (a volume Hill has owned since his youth), Hopkins' poetry (but especially his journals and letters), and of course get you to some Milton (especially his political sonnets & prose tracts, and his "masque" or play "Comus").

Good luck.