Geoffrey Hill's concern with history has to do with myth and language.
Mercian Hymns, the most compressed and enigmatic book by Hill, shows
the three elements working in their mutual implications. Should this
correlation be neglected, the Hymns become baffling to the reader. On such
grounds, this essay analyzes the hymns in their historical dimension and
reveals subsequently how hystory is fused with myth. The fusion of both
factors conceals biographical implications, and language —by way of
anachronisms, etymological puns, allusiveness, juxtaposition, and fusion of
levels— contributes to stress the fluctuation among history, myth, and
biography.
