[.ca] The Enemy's Country: Words, Contexture, and Other ... (ISBN 0804723680)

Dense but brilliant book of criticism by a great poet:
The Enemy's Country is Hill's second book of criticism, collected from lectures he gave at Cambridge University. Each essay takes on a different topic, ranging from Dryden, Walton and Donne to Ezra Pound. Yet they all fit together in complex ways. The overall theme is the poet's need to operate within the 'contextures' of language and society. The poet should not give way to 'compleasance', yet he must realize the dangers and cannot simply pretend to operate his art from a non-topos, or utopia. He is very much within the world around him, and so is his art. Only the artist who realizes this can struggle against it - his language becomes his resistance. Hill has given more to the English language than any other 20th century poet, and this volume of criticism only continues that. His prose is almost as dense as his poetry; it makes very hard reading for the uninitiated, but (as with his poetry) over time it yields its secrets and proves very deep and provocative. For those interested in 16th and 17th century literature in English, this book is indispensible, but even for others, there is much to learn here from a master.