Hill, Geoffrey William

(1932- )

   Born in Worcestershire, and after graduating in English from Keble College, Oxford, he taught at Leeds University from 1954 until 1980. From 1981 until 1988-after a year at Bristol University on a Churchill Scholarship-he became a teaching fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Leeds University awarded him doctor of literature in 1988, when he became university professor and professor of literature and religion at Boston University, USA, a post he still holds. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1972 and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996. The power and beauty of poetry was awakened through reading William Palgrave's anthology The Golden Treasury (1964). He has written two books on literary criticism, The Lords of Limit (1984) and The Enemy's Country (1991). Some of his recent poetry publications: New and Collected Poems, 1994. The Triumph of Love, 1998. The Orchards of Syon, 2002. Scenes from Comus, 2005. Some of his poems: "Churchill's Funeral," "Ovid in the Third Reich," "Requiem for the Plantagenet Kings," "Scenes with Harlequins," "The Bidden Guest," "The White Ship."

   Sources: A Web Guide to Geoffrey Hill (http://www.literaryhistory.com/20thC/HillG.htm). Literary Heritage, West Midlands (http://www3.shropshire-cc.gov.uk/hillgeo.htm). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). New and Collected Poems, 1952-1992, of Geoffrey Hill. Houghton Mifflin, 1994. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Who's Who. London: A & C Black, 2005.