Silence and Geoffrey Hill’s Poetics of Witness

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Silence and Geoffrey Hill’s Poetics of Witness "
Caleb Caldwell

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	1081627
Doc. No	:	LA125256
Call No	:	‭10.1163/15685292-12341300‬
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Caleb Caldwell
Title & Author	:	Silence and Geoffrey Hill’s Poetics of Witness [Article]\ Caleb Caldwell
Publication Statement	:	Leiden: Brill
Title of Periodical	:	Religion and the Arts
Date	:	2013
Volume/ Issue Number	:	17/5
Page No	:	545–567
Abstract	:	Focusing on Geoffrey Hill’s early poetry concerning atrocity and the Holocaust, this essay argues that Hill presents his poems as shared events between the poles of the impossibility and the actuality of witness, instead of as poetic speech that fully signifies witness. Through close readings of “Funeral Music” and “September Song,” this article shows that Hill’s heavy use of negative rhetorical devices, his famous ambiguities, and his thematic explorations of silence do not debunk the possibility of witness but rather awaken awareness to the complications inherent in any response to atrocity. Focusing on Geoffrey Hill’s early poetry concerning atrocity and the Holocaust, this essay argues that Hill presents his poems as shared events between the poles of the impossibility and the actuality of witness, instead of as poetic speech that fully signifies witness. Through close readings of “Funeral Music” and “September Song,” this article shows that Hill’s heavy use of negative rhetorical devices, his famous ambiguities, and his thematic explorations of silence do not debunk the possibility of witness but rather awaken awareness to the complications inherent in any response to atrocity.
Descriptor	:	aporia
Descriptor	:	contemporary poetry
Descriptor	:	Geoffrey Hill
Descriptor	:	Shoah
Descriptor	:	silence
Descriptor	:	witness
Location & Call number	:	‭10.1163/15685292-12341300‬