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A clear introductory account of the work of Geoffrey Hill widely regarded as one of the finest British poets of our time. ... Read more

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More Than Mere Cultural Engagement
Mahan's book is nothing less than a marvel.He has done for modernist poetry what Begbie has done for music, Siedell has done for modern art, and (some will say) Johnston has done with cinema: he's given the church an articulate, brilliant, scholarly model of how to engage culture.A serious Christian, Mahan doesn't simply come to poetry with a particular worldview and offer commentary from a distance - instead he demonstrates that there are specific ways in which poetry is uniquely suited to unpacking the Christian gospel and the Christian life.An Unexpected Light is not without problems, I suppose, but they're minor.It really is essential reading for several groups of people:

(1) Anyone who has a low view of modernist poetry: As a group, analytic philosophers tend not to be very fond of poetry;and certainly not modernist poetry, which can come across as simply unclear.I say this from personal experience as such a philosopher.Mahan gently, but powerfully, shows that such a view is utterly mistaken (and mistaken in important ways). His posture isn't at all defensive, he simply models an approach to the poetic text that demonstrates how important poetry is for our understanding of theology in general, the gospel in particular, and the evangelistic task broadly construed.
(2) Anyone with a high view of modernist poetry: Mahan's careful, patient, yet enthusiastic reading of the poets is infectious to those who need convincing of poetry's value, but for those who need no convincing, his scholarship shows just how deeply its significance runs.Certainly, the chapter on Geoffrey Hill shows Mahan's powers as a scholar at their highest.His reading of Hill is informative, subtle and convincing.
(3) Pastors: Chapters 1 and 5 are fantastic, easily worth the price of the book, will give pastors a vision for what cultural engagement can look like, and will revitalize their own personal reading (it also helps model how their reading relates to both their evangelistic efforts and preaching).It also adds a layer of theological sophistication to a missional understanding of the local church's worship.(In this respect, I'd suggest reading these chapters alongside Begbie's Resounding Truth or Theology, Music and Time.) Chapters 2-4 will be hard-going for anyone who isn't trained in the close reading of texts, but will repay the effort expended.After reading chapters 1 and 5, the pastor will likely be able to make immediate use of the chapter on O'Siadhaill's "Gossamer Wall" in their preaching.
(4) Campus ministers:Whether parachurch staff, university employed, or volunteer, Mahan's model of engagement with the poetic text cannot fail to be an encouragement and example to those whose labors center on the university campus. To many, the mindset of the artist can seem impenetrable and totally foreign and even profoundly mistaken.Reading this book is incredibly helpful in helping the reader both to understand and (more importantly) to appreciate the artistic mindset. In addition, Mahan is a sure-footed guide who shows the reader how to see the themes of the gospel where they can seem obscured.And these are essential skills and instincts for the evangelist - especially when the mission field is the university campus.

One can only hope that Mahan will produce more work along this score.The church needs it desperately.

Luke Potter, University of Notre Dame ... Read more

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Geoffrey Hill was a genius
I had the pleasure of knowing the author of this book and participating in his film group. Geoffrey was incredibly gifted. He was a wonderful poet, psychotherapist and friend. I miss him terribly. If you read his brilliant book you will be enriched by it. You will never look at films the same way.

The BEST book on film myth EVER!
I can do no better than QUOTE:
Comments On
ILLUMINATING SHADOWS: THE MYTHIC POWER OF FILM

I was intrigued by Geoffrey Hill's highly creative collection of essays on the mythic power of film. These deeply felt and carefully crafted writings analyze the current tragic war on Mother Earth caused by an imbalance of patriarchal mythology. I commend Hill's well articulated call for a cinemasophia, the wise voice of the Goddess calling for change.

--the late MARIJA GIMBUTAS, Professor Emerita of European archeology at UCLA, author of Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, The Language of the Goddess, and other works.
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The embers of a bonfire may appear to be dead until someone breathes on them - then they burst into flames. So it is with film: though thousands of people may see a film, its essential meaning may remain hidden until an observer with clear understanding reveals its mythic beauty, making its song resound for one and all. A great peace comes over me when reading what Geoffrey Hill has written about these films: thanks to his inspired analysis, they come to life with a new significance. May the cinema always have commentators of his caliber.
--ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY, director of El Topo, Holy Mountain and Santa Sangre ... Read more

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She, This in Blak takes a fresh look at Chaucer's great Trojan romance, Troilus and Criseyde, in light of recent scholarship on late scholastic discourses on representation and causality as they pertain to human perception and judgment. This study also contributes to a growing literature on the impact of scholastic psychological theory upon contemporary cultural forms by examining the way in which late medieval accounts of perception and cognition can illuminate the construction of the poem's subjects, including one of the most compelling and controversial figures in medieval literature, Chaucer's Criseyde. By examining Chaucer's depiction of Troilus, Pandarus, and Criseyde within this contemporary cultural context, She, This in Blak offers a better grounded and more historically illuminating view of the poem than is provided by psychological readings based on modern constructions of intentionality.

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Geoffrey Hill is University Professor at Boston University. He holds an honorary D. Litt. from the University of Leeds and is an Honorary Fellow of both Keble College, Oxford and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Amongst many other recognitions of his work as a poet, he has received the Hawthornden Prize and the Whitbread Award. He gave the Clark Lectures, on which this book is based, in 1986. 'Well done!' is a familiar cry with a complex sense. It may applaud the merest knack, patronize a decent competence, or squarely recognize something at once finely-achieved and morally just. The language of true valuing is constantly shadowed by parodies of itself - sales-talk, sociable politeness, or gush. The Enemy's Country is concerned with the ways in which judgement is conveyed through language, and with the difficulty of clearing the terms of judgement not from but for the pressures of circumstance so that what is said may be fitting. Poetry has sometimes been credited with a special place as a form of conduct in language, as if it were a world of words of its own from which the poet masterfully dispenses a distinctly free speech.These essays enquire whether such high praises, even when sincere, are apt to the real conditions of poets' work, to their share of drudgery, their fears of misapprehension or their need to please, to the entanglements of meaning in historical communities. The 'sheer perfection' of lyric utterance is shown to involve a recognition and acceptance of the poet's place in 'the scheme of things', a scheme of business and accommodation which is not ideally clean but which remains a ground of the art's refinement. Dryden is at the centre of the book. Around his exemplary figure, Geoffrey Hill describes with biting erudition and minutely sympathetic imagination the perplexities and felicity of genius in writers such as Donne, Hobbes, and Marvell. The book closes with a study of Pound's 'Envoi:1919' in which Hill, characteristically, brings together humour, scrupulousness, and enquiring commitment to the hopes of poetry. The Enemy's Country enacts 'virtue's struggle to clear and maintain its own meaning amid the commonplace approximation, the common practice of men'. ... Read more

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Dense but brilliant book of criticism by a great poet
The Enemy's Country is Hill's second book of criticism, collected from lectures he gave at Cambridge University. Each essay takes on a different topic, ranging from Dryden, Walton and Donne to Ezra Pound. Yet they all fit together in complex ways. The overall theme is the poet's need to operate within the 'contextures' of language and society. The poet should not give way to 'compleasance', yet he must realize the dangers and cannot simply pretend to operate his art from a non-topos, or utopia. He is very much within the world around him, and so is his art. Only the artist who realizes this can struggle against it - his language becomes his resistance.

Hill has given more to the English language than any other 20th century poet, and this volume of criticism only continues that. His prose is almost as dense as his poetry; it makes very hard reading for the uninitiated, but (as with his poetry) over time it yields its secrets and proves very deep and provocative.

For those interested in 16th and 17th century literature in English, this book is indispensible, but even for others, there is much to learn here from a master. ... Read more

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Brilliant, Imaginative Prose Poems by a Master
"Mercian Hymns" which is now available only in Hill's "New and Collected Poems, 1952-1992" is a book of 30 prose poems about the King of Mercia, Offa, who is mentioned in the poem Beowulf. Yet the poems are hardly (merely) historical. Hill uses Offa as a name to conjure with, and goes off in several directions, including reminisces of his own childhood, explorations of the nature of worldly power, and the history of the British Midlands. The language is so creative, the diction so startling at times, and the poetry so real and immediate, that few will be untouched. Although Hill remains obscure today (this will change in time), Mercian Hymns has received much critical acclaim from scholars and poets.

No other poet can meld sounds like Hill, or make obscure words new again. No other poet in the 20th century has given so much to the English language. This is one of his masterpieces, and a masterpiece of English poetry -- read, enjoy, learn. ... Read more

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The first book of a master
Even though this book was written while Hill was a young man in his early 20's, it contains excellent poems, including the riveting opener "Genesis" and the longer sequence "Of Commerce and Society", which still stand among Hill's best works even 50 years later.

The book is now collected in "Geoffrey Hill: New and Collected Poems 1952-1992), which contains Hill's first five books of poetry, and some additional poems that later came out in "Canaan".

No other poet in the 20th century has given more to the English language than Hill. This fact will be recognized in the 21st century. But we can still enjoy his poetry now, and count ourselves among the lucky few. ... Read more

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In such a competitive market as the car industry, buying a fleet of company cars, or even one car alone, can be a difficult task. This book provides information on all issues surrounding the company car, from reasons why company cars are provided, categories of car, costs and maintenance, to leasing, financing and tax implications. It also includes a chapter on the new concept of the car as an office and a section on the new tax legislation. The text also incorporates a list of the most popular company cars in the UK. ... Read more

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Water: an essential element that sustains our world and a powerful metaphor that has been used by artists and writers as a way of expressing emotion for centuries. Fusing images and poems that share water as a common theme, "The Water's Edge" explores the complexities of expression through a series of screenprints by the acclaimed artist Ardyn Halter. Beautiful imagery is complemented by a range of poems that, while quite separate from the prints, are linked by the notion of water as a primary element in the emotional consciousness of the creative being. Indeed, though none of the prints were produced to illustrate the poems, the words and images sit together effortlessly. Including the work of an impressive roll-call of modern-day poets - Seamus Heaney, Geoffrey Hill, Paul Muldoon and Don Paterson feature, amongst others - "The Water's Edge" also reproduces original hand-written drafts of selected poems, and correspondence between artist and writer regarding specific pieces as well as the elements that went into the making of individual prints: elements tried, used, altered or discarded. This is the creative mind at work.The result is not only a beautiful homage to a life-sustaining element but a fascinating insight into the complexities of artistic expression and how artists and writers translate emotional impulses into finished works. ... Read more

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Emotional and Accessible- Hill's best work
Having read Geoffrey Hill's poetry from time to time in "Poetry Magazine" and in online sites,in spite of the many poetry critics and readers who extolled his work, it was to me unnecessarilydense and rather difficult to parse.However, this collection (Without Title) is a overwhelming display of poetic expertise, clarity, and unveiled emotion that I believe will become his transcendent work.One of the poems in this collection, "Broken Hierarchies," captures the essence of the environment and music of America's Appalachian region which is no small feat, given that Geoffrey Hill is a quintessentially British poet.An absolute poetic gem and strongly recommended. ... Read more