Region Today: Some Reflections on Geoffrey Hill, D. H. Lawrence and Regional Tone

Abstract

I don’t profess to understand the Mercian Hymns but I agree with Offa in liking that, and wanting to have it sung again. I like the humorous sense of continuity which links Welsh Bridge and Iron Bridge, the ‘historic rampart and ditch’ with the M5, and modern building and commerce with ‘the perennial holly-groves’ and ‘the friend of Charlemagne’. In his note to the Collected Poems Hill obligingly explains that ‘The historical King Offa reigned over Mercia (and the greater part of England south of the Humber) in the years AD 757-96’. But, as he goes on to say, ‘The Offa who figures in this sequence might perhaps most usefully be regarded as the presiding genius of the West Midlands, his dominion enduring from the middle of the eighth century until the middle of the twentieth (and possibly beyond)’ (201). That tentative final parenthesis is perhaps ominous, as if Hill feels that the accommodation which Offa represents between the past and the present is now under threat. Nevertheless, what is primarily communicated is the sense of a genial (or, at least, not uncongenial) genius loci presiding over a regional consciousness that is balanced and at ease.

King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sand-stone: overlord of the M5: architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at Tamworth, the summer heritage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh Bridge and the Iron Bridge: contractor to the desirable new estates: saltmaster: money-changer: commissioner for oaths: martyrologist: the friend of Charlemagne.

I liked that,’ said Offa, ‘sing it again.’

(Geoffrey Hill: Mercian Hymns I)¹