Geoffrey Hill facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Geoffrey Hill
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| Born | Geoffrey William Hill 18 June 1932 Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England |
| Died | 30 June 2016 (aged 84) Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England |
| Occupation | Poet, Writer, Professor of English Literature |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Notable awards | Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism |
| Spouse | Alice Goodman |
| Children | 5 |
Sir Geoffrey William Hill (born June 18, 1932 – died June 30, 2016) was an important English poet. He was also a professor of English literature. Many people thought he was one of the best poets of his time. Some even called him the "greatest living poet in the English language."
From 2010 to 2015, he was the Oxford Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford. He won the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in 2009. His book Broken Hierarchies (Poems 1952–2012) was also very well-known. Geoffrey Hill made big contributions to poetry and literary criticism in the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Geoffrey Hill's Early Life and Education
Geoffrey Hill was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England, in 1932. His father was a police officer. When Geoffrey was six, his family moved to Fairfield. He went to primary school there. Later, he attended grammar school in Bromsgrove.
As an only child, he often went for long walks by himself. During these walks, he would think and create poems. He sometimes carried a poetry book called A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry. He believed he knew many of the poems in that book by heart.
In 1950, he started studying English at Keble College, Oxford. He published his first poems in 1952 when he was 20. These poems appeared in a special book by Fantasy Press. He had also published work in student magazines like Oxford Guardian and The Isis.
Geoffrey Hill's Teaching Career
After finishing his studies at Oxford, Geoffrey Hill became a teacher. He taught at the University of Leeds from 1954 to 1980. From 1976, he was a professor of English Literature there.
After leaving Leeds, he spent a year at the University of Bristol. Then, he became a teaching fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He taught there from 1981 to 1988.
Later, he moved to the United States. He became a professor of Literature and Religion at Boston University. In 2000, he helped start the Editorial Institute at Boston University. This institute helped students learn about editing texts. In 2006, he moved back to Cambridge, England. Geoffrey Hill was a Christian. He passed away in Cambridge on June 30, 2016.
Geoffrey Hill's Family Life
Geoffrey Hill was married two times. His first marriage was to Nancy Whittaker. They had four children: Julian, Andrew, Jeremy, and Bethany. This marriage later ended.
His second marriage was in 1987 to Alice Goodman. She was an American writer and an Anglican priest. They had one daughter named Alberta. Their marriage lasted until Geoffrey Hill's death.
Awards and Special Honours
Geoffrey Hill received many awards for his poetry. His book Mercian Hymns won the Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize. It also won the first-ever Whitbread Award for Poetry in 1971. He also received the Eric Gregory Award in 1961.
In 1988, the University of Leeds gave him an honorary degree. He was also an honorary member of Keble College, Oxford and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was a member of the Royal Society of Literature.
In 2009, his book Collected Critical Writings won the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism. This was a very large prize for literary criticism. In 2012, he was made a Knight Bachelor for his contributions to literature. This means he was given the title "Sir."
Professor of Poetry at Oxford
In March 2010, Geoffrey Hill became a candidate for the Oxford Professor of Poetry position. This is a special role at the University of Oxford. He won the election and gave 15 lectures between 2010 and 2015. His lectures covered different poets and their works, from Shakespeare's sonnets to Philip Larkin's poem "Church Going".
Geoffrey Hill's Writing Style
Geoffrey Hill's poetry used different styles. Some of his poems, like those in King Log (1968), were complex. Others, like "The Pentecost Castle" in Tenebrae (1978), were simpler.
His book Mercian Hymns (1971) was more accessible. It was a series of 30 poems. These poems connected the history of Offa of Mercia, an old ruler of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, with Hill's own childhood in the West Midlands. The famous poet Seamus Heaney said that Hill had a strong sense of how important language is.
Some people found Hill's poems "difficult" to understand. Hill explained that this "difficulty" was a way for poets to resist things being made too simple. He believed poets should be able to explore complex ideas.
Hill often wrote about difficult and violent moments in history. He wrote poems about the Holocaust, like "Two Formal Elegies" and "September Song." He also wrote about landscapes, especially his home area of Worcestershire. In 1978, his version of Henrik Ibsen's play Brand was performed in London.
Views on Geoffrey Hill's Work
Some critics had different ideas about Geoffrey Hill's work. The Irish poet Tom Paulin thought some of Hill's poems used old-fashioned ideas about nationalism. However, others, like Raphael Ingelbien, noted that Hill's England showed a history that went back so far it made later events seem less important. Harold Bloom, another famous critic, called him "the strongest British poet now active."
In a 2002 interview, Hill talked about some misunderstandings of his beliefs. He said his interest in certain 19th-century politicians, which some saw as old-fashioned, actually came from his working-class background. He also felt that modern politics had become too focused on money and material things.
Geoffrey Hill's unique writing style has even been parodied. For example, Wendy Cope wrote a funny version of his Mercian Hymns called "Duffa Rex."
See also
In Spanish: Geoffrey Hill para niños
