Jewish Humanism in the Late Work of Geoffrey Hill

Abstract

Abstract Throughout much of his career, Geoffrey Hill has been pilloried for his alleged conservativism as well as his positive treatment of Christianity in his poetry. A careful reading of his works, however, reveals a complex thinker who was attentive to the moral fallout of the Holocaust and the Second World War as he was a lover of England and European culture. Moreover, Hill’s writings reflect the apparent influence of a host of personalist, existentialist and what could also be called “humanist” twentieth century Jewish thinkers such as Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas. Throughout his poetry—especially his later work—Hill attempts (whether successfully or not) to fuse together this Jewish humanism with his own Christian and English voice.