Requiem for the Plantagenet Kings (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Geoffrey Hill
- First Published: 1959
- Type of Work: Sonnet
- Genres: Poetry, Sonnet
- Subjects: History, France or French people, Religion, England or English people, War, Kings, queens, or royalty, Greed, Caves
The Poem
Geoffrey Hill’s poem “Requiem for the Plantagenet Kings” is one of a series of lyrics in an elegiac mood which appears in an early group of poems ironically entitled For the Unfallen (1959). The requiem focuses on events and figures of the turbulent medieval period dominated by the formidable Plantagenet rulers of England, (1154-1399), and postulates a curious, paradoxical vision of them that questions the one-dimensional view given by history (which is concerned with cause and effect).
The ironic tone of the poem is immediately evident in the...
[The entire page is 1511 words long]
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