C. H. Sisson
| C. H. Sisson | |
|---|---|
C. H. Sisson, by Patrick Swift, c. 1960
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| Born |
22 April 1914 Bristol |
| Died | 5 September 2003 (aged 89) |
| Occupation | Poet, Writer, Translator. |
| Nationality | English |
| Education | University of Bristol |
Charles Hubert Sisson, CH (22 April 1914 – 5 September 2003), usually cited as C. H. Sisson, was a British writer, best known as a poet and translator.
Born in Bristol in 1914, C. H. Sisson was noted as a poet, novelist, essayist and an important translator. He was a great friend of the critic and writer Donald Davie, with whom he corresponded regularly.
Sisson's parents were Richard Percy Sisson and Ellen Minnie Sisson (née Worlock). He was educated at the University of Bristol where he read English and Philosophy, and in France and Germany. As a poet he first came to light through the London Arts Review, X, founded by the painter Patrick Swift and the poet David Wright. He reacted against the prevailing intellectual climate of the 1930s, particularly the Auden Group, preferring to go back to the anti-romantic T. E. Hulme, and to the Anglican tradition. The modernism of his poetry follows a 'distinct genealogy' from Hulme to Eliot, Pound, Ford Madox Ford and Wyndham Lewis. His novel Christopher Homm experiments with form and is told backwards.
Sisson entered the Ministry of Labour as Principal Assistant in 1936. During the Second World War he served in the British Army, in the ranks, in India (1942–45). He was Simon Senior Research Fellow (1956–57), Director of Establishments, Ministry of Labour (1962–68), and Director of Occupational Safety and Health, Ministry of Employment (1972). 1972 was also the year of his retirement from the Civil Service, with the rank of Under-Secretary. A standard text, The Spirit of British Administration (1959), was the product of his Simon Senior Research Fellowship; it contains the main fruit of his reflection on the British Civil Service. The work notably compares British with French, (then West) German, Swedish, Austrian, and Spanish administrative methods; Sisson sees the British Civil Service as emerging favourably from the comparison. Only slight and negative mention is made of the United States of America. Sisson was no blind admirer of British methods, however. He was a 'severe critic of the British Civil Service and some of his essays caused controversy'. In his collection The London Zoo he writes this epitaph 'Here lies a civil servant. He was civil/ To everyone, and servant to the devil.'
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