Geoffrey Hill and Lyric Voice in The Orchards of Syon (2002)
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79
The purpose of this paper is to address tentatively the difficult issue of the lyrical voice in the poetry of Geoffrey Hill, a poet regarded as one of the greatest in the language today. To polyphony is opposed an ethical concern for an inalienable utterance apt to impart significance to poetry and private identity. The example of Speech! Speech! (2000) sums up and briefly illustrates Hill’s effort to negotiate the proliferating discourses of contemporary culture, discourses which may be defined as the poetic voice’s profane Other. Yet, it is in The Orchards of Syon (2002) that Hill seems to turn to a mode of writing which may be assimilated to a quest in its own right by the lyrical voice. Despite its largely introspective mode, this poetic sequence dismisses a strictly expressive lyricism and, mostly under the influence of Paul Celan, Hill seems to outline the possibility of a neutral voice, hard to acquire and distrustful of rhetorical flourishes and merely egotistical preoccupations.
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