2026 Symposium Archive (Statesboro)
"Sing That Again": Linguistic Medievalisms in Geoffrey Hill and Seamus Heaney
Faculty Mentor
Dr. Joe Pellegrino
Location
Russell Union Room 2047
Type of Research
On-going
Session Format
Oral Presentation
College
College of Arts & Humanities
Department
English
Abstract
This project examines the use of early medieval structure and language in twentieth-century British and Irish poetry, considering the use of specific words and poetic structures in reconstituting an imagined medieval past. Such structures look backwards, and serve as means of accessing past linguistic forms even as they evolve. Leveraging these structures in poetry, digging them out of the past like a material artifact, allows different times to exist simultaneously in a text. This project uses two poetry collections published in the early 1970s—Seamus Heaney’s North and Geoffrey Hill’s Mercian Hymns—as its subject, examining both on a structural level to gain a deeper understanding of modern medievalism. Both authors use the early medieval period as a means to discuss their personal and cultural pasts, producing work that collapses time into a linguistic space where both can coexist. Focusing on the strong Anglo-Saxon borrowings present in both authors, this project reveals the debt to which modern poetry owes to early forms of English poetry: its reified and reinterpreted remains placed in a new framework in the twentieth century.
Program Description
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Start Date
4-23-2026 3:30 PM
End Date
4-23-2026 3:45 PM
Copyright
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Recommended Citation
Cotten-Dixon, Christian, ""Sing That Again": Linguistic Medievalisms in Geoffrey Hill and Seamus Heaney" (2026). GS4 Student Scholars Symposium. 257.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/research_symposium/2026/2026/257
"Sing That Again": Linguistic Medievalisms in Geoffrey Hill and Seamus Heaney
Russell Union Room 2047
This project examines the use of early medieval structure and language in twentieth-century British and Irish poetry, considering the use of specific words and poetic structures in reconstituting an imagined medieval past. Such structures look backwards, and serve as means of accessing past linguistic forms even as they evolve. Leveraging these structures in poetry, digging them out of the past like a material artifact, allows different times to exist simultaneously in a text. This project uses two poetry collections published in the early 1970s—Seamus Heaney’s North and Geoffrey Hill’s Mercian Hymns—as its subject, examining both on a structural level to gain a deeper understanding of modern medievalism. Both authors use the early medieval period as a means to discuss their personal and cultural pasts, producing work that collapses time into a linguistic space where both can coexist. Focusing on the strong Anglo-Saxon borrowings present in both authors, this project reveals the debt to which modern poetry owes to early forms of English poetry: its reified and reinterpreted remains placed in a new framework in the twentieth century.
