‘The Violent and Formal Dancers’: John Berryman and Geoffrey Hill

Abstract

In the 2005 Clutag Press version of his poetry collection A Treatise of Civil Power, Geoffrey Hill proposed a ‘trawl of gratitude’ in celebration of the example and influence of John Berryman. This article dredges the connections between Hill and his American near contemporary. Building on the revisionary treatment of Berryman by Philip Coleman which convincingly challenges the ‘Confessional’ label, the author argues that such sensitivity to Berryman’s work was already implicit in Geoffrey Hill’s 1984 Essays in Criticism review of biographies of the poet. The comparable trajectory of both Berryman and Hill from strict adherence to Eliotic New Critical orthodoxy regarding the impersonality of the artist to more nuanced positions is examined.