I found his work fascinating when I first read his lecture on the divide between the sciences and the humanities on the higher values given to the humanities in British and also I see it in an Irish context. The role of intelligence agencies in art is usually linked to the C.I.A. interest in abstract expressionism but they keep an eye on all forms of thought within their range with poetry no exception. DB's point on Peter Reading and Ted Hughes is valid given that both of these writers were in modern techspeak SHOUTERS in their style of poetry. To say that in no way means I am critical of either though their work does not interest me as much as Geoffrey Hill's or Jeremy Prynne's. In the era of C.P. Snow polymaths were legion and intellectual thought was encouraged in the media as well as in politics. The standard of debate in the arts back in Snow's era was very high indeed with no stones left unturned. To rate Hill and Prynne highly does not mean a focus that excludes many other worthy poets still with us with some on this list having personal appeal as writers.
Intelligence operatives I presume read poetry as well as in a universal sense follow the thinking within their areas of operations. Culture is important in terms of tracking thought as well as activities they are concerned with from Peru to Iceland to Papua New Guinea to Britain and Ireland. The key issue Snow addressed was in lots of ways within a Cold War ethos of social engineering as the world recovered from the debris of WW2. It was a time of social change on both these islands on a scale we are unlikely to see again. This phase ended with the oil crisis as well as the end of the smokestack era and jobs went down the tubes in huge numbers. Snow's fears were realised leaving the establishments on both these islands fearing their dominance was under threat. Despite the opening up of intelligence agencies in limited ways their work is covert and secretive to the general public. To assume they have lost power is to misunderstand the recent points made by David Davis M.P. in a lecture broadcast on B.B.C. Parliament Television expressing very serious fears on how cultailed and contained modern communications are by the intelligence communities on a global scale. C.P. Snow or indeed George Orwell never foresaw such erosions of personal freedoms. It makes the C.I.A. head of art acquisitions seem an art expert.
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From: Tim Allen <[log in to unmask]>
To: BRITISH-IRISH-POETS <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Fri, Oct 31, 2014 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: Hill and Prynne
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To put Prynne and Hill in the same box because of their 'intelligence' is daft, as though they are the only examples of intelligence within the poetry of their time. They stick out intelligence wise because of the contrast with the general anti-intellectualism and self imposed limits of the post-movement mainstreams, that's all. But I would be interested in hearing what Giles has to say about their shared concerns.
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Cheers
Tim
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On 31 Oct 2014, at 11:46, David Bircumshaw wrote:
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Correction: although I do not have the article to hand but it did make an explicit comparison with the code-breakers at Bletchley Park.
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On 31 October 2014 11:32, David Bircumshaw
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There was a little thing in the New York Times once that very explicitly linked Hill and Prynne, it kind of made them representative of that intellectual strand in British culture that came to the fore with the intelligence services in WWII and continued through Jodrell Bank and the Brains Trust etc etc. I suppose the implication was that they were poetic equivalents of Alan Turing. I reckon it would be more fun if they'd been like Fred Hoyle (suppose that role fell between Hughes and Peter Reading :) )
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