'Not an Idle Spectator': Geoffrey Hill as Model Reviewer. (February 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Vincent, Bridget
• Is Part Of: Diogenes. Volume 60:Number 1(2013)
• Page Start: 86
• Page End: 96
• Publication Date: 2013-02
• Subjects: Philosophy -- Periodicals; Humanities -- Periodicals; 001
• DOI: 10.1177/0392192113520095
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0392-1921

Abstract

Geoffrey Hill's prose has prompted longstanding critical controversy, much of which turns on the perceived difficulty, intransigence and anachronism of his oeuvre as a whole. This paper proposes that new ways to navigate this controversy can be found in Hill's preoccupation with the exemplary dimensions of writing – that is, in his interest in the poet's capacity to offer examples (positive and negative) to a community of readers. The discussion pays particular attention to the connections Hill's reviews establish between style and ethical choice and between literary difficulty and democracy; connections which are intertwined with his ethics of exemplarity in fundamental ways. The paper also engages with those dimensions of literary exemple-use which emerge in new or unusual ways in his prose: his presentation of 'models' or ideals for the organisation of civil society; his treatment of certain literary works as exemplars or embodiments of philosophical ideas; and his procedural tic of 'sampling' regularly for the purpose of chastisement the 'bad example' set by some of the works he criticises.