Style and Faith: Essays [Hardcover]

Geoffrey Hill (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Geoffrey Hill is probably the best writer alive, in verse or in prose." -- A. N. Wilson, Evening Standard

About the Author

Geoffrey Hill was born in 1932, in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. His books include nine volumes of poetry and two previous collections of essays. Since 1988 he has lived in Massachusetts and taught at Boston University, where he is Professor of Literature and Religion and co-director of the Editorial Institute.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint; 1 edition (May 13, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582431078
• ISBN-13: 978-1582431079
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,773,982 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An important collection of previously published articles, May 24, 2003

By 

The Light Fantastic - See all my reviews

This review is from: Style and Faith: Essays (Hardcover)

Geoffrey Hill is most commonly recognised as one of the most difficult, and important, poets of our day. Born in Bromsgrove, England, in 1932, Hill has written several volumes of excellent poetry. However, he is also a first-class literary historian and critic, as is evident from this collection of seven previously published articles, which date from 1989 to 1999. Five of them stem from the Times Literary Supplement, such as the first two, which are review articles on the publication of the Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, in 1989, and on a 'modernized spelling' version of Tyndale's bible, and the Revised English Bible, a new translation. With a skill few others could hope to match, Hill weighs the value and inadequacies of the works. Other articles include a rumination on Henry Vaughan's "The Night" and other forays into 16th and 17th century literature, his area of expertise.

While I would heartily recommend Hill's first two volumes of criticism, "The Lords of Limit", and "The Enemy's Country", to anyone interested in poetry, 16th/17th century literature, or Geoffrey Hill himself, it is harder to unreservedly praise this latest offering. This is not because it offers "nothing new" -- that is not my chief reservation. It is rather that the selection seems at times to lack coherence. One would have liked to have had perhaps another article, written especially for this volume, or at least an introduction of sorts that placed the individual essays in relation to one another and to the poet-critic's work as a whole.

Despite this minor criticism, this work offers a serious perspective unavailable elsewhere, and contains enough gems to warrant a good deal of study.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Erudite but bizarre, October 22, 2004

By 

James Clark (Haverhill, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Style and Faith: Essays (Hardcover)

I was introduced to Geoffrey Hill, both as poet and critic, by a friend whom I told of my love for 17th-century English literature. Style and Faith has only deepened this love, but it was an entangling, rather than enchanting, encounter for me.

I found Hill to be at his best when he tackles the literature directly, as in the essay on Vaughn's "Night" and, to a lesser degree, the essay paralleling Hooker and Burton. Hill's gratitude for this literary and spiritual heritage is profound and infectious. In addition, the bibliographical reach of the book is wonderful and has led me to make many further related purchases.

But his loyalty to these distant icons of an age with a greatly different "pitch" than ours can handicap Hill as well. This shows most in his book reviews, which, though pointed and learned, are impossibly crabbed and narrow. For instance, while there is no doubt (in my mind, at least) that the power of Scripture as written in English is closely dependent on the translator's style, to insist, as Hill does, that it is an abomination of the highest order to publish Tyndale's New Testament with modern spelling is patently ridiculous. Style and faith are definitely linked, but faith and orthography are not.

Nevertheless, there are few critics writing for the public who are as steeped in our literary inheritance as Hill, and these essays, while erratic, are highly valuable.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!, January 10, 2007

By 

Harold Wright (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Style and Faith: Essays (Hardcover)

John Hollander calls Hill "the finest British poet of our time." The praise is worthilly placed. He is a powerful force in the realm of literary thought, and beyond. Any souls who have read the essayist work of Dorothy Sayers or G.K Chesterton will find in these pages of Hill a literary kinship of souls. Although their ideas may differ, one can easilly imagine these three essayists gathered around the same table exchanging vigorous thoughts. Hill seems to possess the temperament of ruggedness with contemplation that is Seamus Heaney.

Some of the previous reviewers criticized the essays as lacking coherence; they forget these are essays, not a formal treatise. The essays are Hill's look from various angles and postures of thought along one line of thought.

As far as what one reviewer referred to as his crankiness, it is refreshing to find a contemporary writer standing firmly upon thoughts not influenced merely by the latest literary fads. In this way he is, as all the best artists, brilliantly and refreshingly original.