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Reflexivity Aid Impersonality in the Poetry of Geoffrey Hill

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Reflexivity Aid Impersonality in the Poetry of Geoffrey Hill REFLEXIVITY AID IMPERSONALITY IN THE POETRY OF GEOFFREY HILL bY ANDREW MICHAEL ROBERTS A thesis submitted for the degree of Ph.D. at University College London 1991 ProQuest Number: 10609405 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10609405 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ABSTRACT This thesis is a critical study of the distinctive qualities and the development of Hill's poetry. It identifies two characteristic features of his work. The first is the pervasive presence of reflexivity. While there is a reflexive element in much poetry, Hill's poems are marked by a sustained scrutiny of their own medium, expressing an intense concern with the moral and intellectual risks of poetic utterance. The second feature is the aspiration to impersonality. This has a direct source in T.S. Eliot's critical writing, but Hill's poetry exhibits a high degree of sophistication in its engagement with this modernist ideal, employing a range of strategies to renegotiate the role of the subject in poetry. The first two chapters of the thesis seek to locate these two features in relation to Romanticism, modernism, the Movement, aspects of contemporary poetry, and certain strands in twentieth-century philosophy. In the remaining chapters the changing relationship between reflexivity and impersonality is used to chart Hill's poetic development and to articulate the relationship of his work to modernism and postmodernism. An early phase in which reflexivity serves as an alternative to the presence of the speaking subject is seen to lead to a crisis of self-revocation, in which reflexive mistrust generates increasing obscurity. This crisis is resolved in the late 1960s by the location of the poet's subject-posit ion, most crucially in 'September Song' (1967). Various forms of mediation of the subject are analysed in 'Funeral Music' <1966), 'The Songbook of Sebastian Arrurruz' (1965-68) and Kercian Hymns (1971). It is shown that the first two sequences of Tenebrae (1978) achieve a form of resolution of mystical and sceptical impulses through the use of musical models, while 'An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England' (1973-77) and The Hystery of the Charity of Charles P6guy (1983) use reflexivity to explore the relationship between history as event and history as discourse or representation. Finally, Hill's most recent poems are assessed in the light of this account of his development. - 3 - CONTESTS Abbreviations and note on texts 5 Introduction 8 Notes 13 Chapter 1 Impersonality 1.1 Introduction 15 1.2 Readings of Eliot's Principle of Impersonality 17 1.3 Versions of Romantic Subjectivity 26 1.4 Modernist Mediations of the Self 34 1.5 Subjectivity in Hill's Poetic 37 1.6 The Lyric of Occasion and Subjectivity 40 1.7 Hill and the Movement 44 1.8 Hill and Heaney: Reactions to the Romantic model 52 1.9 Conclusion 60 Notes 63 Chapter 2 Reflexivity 2.1 Introduction: Definition of Reflexivity 71 2.2 Reflexivity in Literature, Philosophy and Criticism 77 2.3 Hill's Poetic of Reflexivity 86 2.4 Poetry as Action 88 2.5 Poetry as Exemplary 95 2.6 Language as Register 102 2.7 Language and Physicality 104 2.8 Conclusion 107 Notes 109 Chapter 3 The Crisis of Hill's Early Poetry 3.1 Introduction 113 3.2 The Myth of the Imagination: 'Genesis' 115 3.3 Reflexivity and Paradox: 'Solomon's Mines' 121 3.4 Mystical and Sceptical Paradox: 'An Order of Service' 125 3.5 Psychological Paradox: 'The Turtle Dove' 134 3.6 Paradox in History: For The Unfallen 138 3.7 The Crisis: 'Annunciations' and 'September Song' 143 3.8 Conclusion 160 Notes 163 - 4 - Chapter 4 Mediations of the Self 4.1 Introduction 167 4.2 'The Songbook of Sebastian Arrurruz' 168 4.3 Modernism and Postmodernism in 'The Songbook' 184 4.4 The Voices of 'Funeral Music' 188 4.5 'Funeral Music' and Transcendence 194 4.6 Conclusion 211 Motes 214 Chapter 5 Mutuality in Mercian Ryans 5.1 Introduction 219 5.2 The History of the Self 220 5.3 Rhetoric of Closeness and Distance 225 5.4 Reflexivity and Mutuality 228 5.5 Images of Vriting: Digging, Raking and Collating 230 5.6 The Poet's Voice and the Performative Utterance 234 5.7 Conclusion 238 Motes 240 Chapter 6 Tenebrae and Reconciliation 6.1 Introduction: Paradox and Mediation 241 6.2 'The Pentecost Castle' and 'Lachrimae': Epigraphs 244 6.3 'The Pentecost Castle': Sources 250 6.4 'The Pentecost Castle' and Musical Variations 254 6.5 'Lachrimae' and False Relation 269 6.6 Conclusion 281 Motes 283 Chapter 7 History and Representation 7.1 Introduction 289 7.2 'An Apology': Title and Epigraphs 291 7.3 'Quaint Mazes' and Muddy Ghosts 298 7.4 'The Herefordshire Carol' and Kitsch Nostalgia 307 7.5 The Mystery: P6guy as Antithetical Mask 309 7.6 Event and Representation in The Mystery 314 7.7 Pseudo-Pastiche 326 Notes 335 Chapter 8 'Scenes with Harlequins' and ‘Carnival' 8.1 Introduction: Hill and Blok 340 8.2 Epigraphs: The Self and the Sounds of History 341 8.3 Violence and the 'Prophetic Intelligence' 344 8.4 Dialogue, Distance and Duality 348 8.5 'Carnival' 361 Notes 365 Conclusion 368 Notes 375 Bibliography 376 - 5 - ABBREVIATION AID FOTE 01 TEXTS Forks of Geoffrey Hill: Poetry FTU For the On fallen: Poems 1952-1958 (London: Andr6 Deutsch, 1959) KL King Log (London: Andr6 Deutsch, 1968) KH Mercian Hymns (London: Andr6 Deutsch, 1971) T Tenebrae (London: Andr6 Deutsch, 1978) TM The Mystery of The Charity of Charles P6guy (London: Agenda Editions and Andr6 Deutsch, 1983) CP Collected Poems (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985; hardback edn, London: Andr6 Deutsch, 1986) Poems are quoted from the volume in which they were included (FTU, KL, MH, T, TM) unless otherwise indicated. At the first mention of a poem, and subsequently if relevant to the context, the following information is given in brackets: (1) date of first publication, or of first broadcast, or of composition where this is given in the text of the poem (whichever is earliest); (2) The volume in which the poem was subsequently included; e.g. 'The Turtle Dove' (1954, FTU). Page numbers are not given, except in references to CP. In the cases of The Mystery of the Charity of Charles PGguy and 'Scenes with Harlequins', section and stanza are indicated in the form: 3.9 (= section 3, stanza 9); IV.2 (= section IV, stanza 2). Forks of Geoffrey Hill: Prose and Interviews CF Interview with Hermione Lee, Book Four, 2 Oct 1985, Channel Four television CM '"The Conscious Mind's Intelligible Structure": A Debate', Agenda 9.4-10.1 (Autumn / Vinter 1971-72), 14-23. JR * 'Vhat Devil Has Got Into John Ransom?' (1980) JS * 'Jonathan Swift: the Poetry of "Reaction"' (1968) OV t 'Our Vord Is Our Bond' (1983) PMA * 'Poetry as "Menace" and "Atonement"' (1977) PP # "'Perplexed Persistence": the Exemplary Failure of T.H. Green' (1975) RS t 'The Absolute Reasonableness of Robert Southwell' (1979) RT * 'Redeeming the Time' (1972) Sermon A Sermon Delivered at Great St Mary's University Church, Cambridge, 8 May 1983 TC t '"The True Conduct of Human Judgment": Some Observations on Cymbeline' (1969) UJ 'Under Judgment': interview with Blake Morrison, The New Statesman, 8 February 1980, pp. 212-14 VP Interview with John Haffenden, Quarto, 15 (March 1981), pp. 19 -22, reprinted in Viewpoints: Poets in Conversation with John Haffenden (London: Faber and Faber, 1981), pp. 76-99 VP * '"The Vorld's Proportion": Jonson's Dramatic Poetry in Sejanus and Catiline' (1960) Those essays and lectures marked with an asterisk are included in The Lords of Limit: Essays on Literature and Ideas (London: Andr6 Deutsch, 1984) and page references are to that volume . The dates given are those of delivery, in the case of those essays that were originally lectures, and those of first publication in other cases. References are given in brackets in the text, with page number; e.g. (VP, 99). Excerpts from Hill's broadcast interview with Hermione Lee are taken from a transcript. - 7 - Primary Texts by Other Authors CPPE The Complete Poems and Plays of T.S. Eliot (London: Faber and Faber, 1969) SE T.S. Eliot, Selected Essays 1917-1932 (London: Faber and Faber, 1932) Secondary Works Agenda 1979 Agenda: Geoffrey Hill Special Issue, 17.1 (Spring 1979) Hart Henry Hart, The Poetry of Geoffrey Hill (Carbondale / i Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986) Knottenbelt E.M. Knottenbelt, Passionate Intelligence: The Poetry of Geoffrey Hill (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1990) Ricks Christopher Ricks, The Force of Poetry (1984; rpt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987) Robinson Peter Robinson, ed., Geoffrey Hill: Essays on his Vork (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1985) Sherry Vincent Sherry, The Uncommon Tongue, The Poetry and Criticism of Geoffrey Hill (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1987) The separate articles in Agenda 1979, Ricks and Robinson are listed in the bibliography. References to all the above works are given in brackets in the text, with page numbers; e.g.
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