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the complete review - poetry

The Mystery of the Charity
of Charles Péguy

by
Geoffrey Hill

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

N o t e :

• This poem is also included in Hill's New & Collected Poems, 1952-1992

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Our Assessment:

B+ : an excellent poem, richly expounding on a single historical event

See our review for fuller assessment.

Please also refer to reviews for New and Collected Poems.

  From the Reviews:

• "This is a passionate and controlled elegy for a major mode of heroic poetry and for the celebration of active ideals." - John Hollander, The Yale Review

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Unlike his earlier collections, this volume is devoted almost entirely to a single, expansive poem. Asking "Did Péguy kill Jaurès ? Did he incite / the assassin ?" Hill spins out a cycle that deals with questions of politics, history, religion, and the role of the artist and the individual in shaping the events of that time. Hill uses World War I and its horrors here, writing in part with great historical specificity, but as always his concerns are larger ones -- and as usual he conveys them well.
       It is a very powerful poem, a sustained forceful effort that engages the reader. It is also very complex, and readers without sufficient familiarity with the historical context might not be able to find it rewarding. (If you can identify Péguy and Jaurès you should be able to work your way through without too much difficulty, otherwise -- be wary !)

       N O T E that this poem is included in Hill's New and Collected Poems, 1952-1992, and while there is an argument to having it separate, the New and Collected volume is a better bargain

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Links:

• See general reviews regarding New and Collected Poems

• Charles Péguy at the Poetry Foundation
• Charles Péguy at books and writers

• The complete review's Geoffrey Hill page.
• Geoffrey Hill at the Poetry Foundation
• Profile in The Guardian

• The Book of Baruch by the Gnostic Justin
• Canaan
• For the Unfallen
• King Log
• Mercian Hymns
• New and Collected Poems
• The Orchards of Syon
• Speech ! Speech !
• Style and Faith
• Tenebrae
• A Treatise of Civil Power
• The Triumph of Love
• Without Title

• See also the index of Poetry under review

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About the Author:

       English poet Geoffrey Hill was born in 1932. A graduate of Keble College, Oxford, he has taught at the University of Leeds, at Cambridge, and at Boston University.

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