TILLER, TERENCE

born Sept. 19, 1916, Truro, Cornwall, Eng. died Dec. 24, 1987, London in full Terence Rogers Tiller English playwright, translator, and gifted metaphysical poet whose best verse is noted for its perfect form and intense emotional content. Until the outbreak of World War II, Tiller was a research scholar and eventually lecturer in medieval history at the University of Cambridge. From 1939 to 1946 he lectured in English history and literature at Fu'ad I University, Cairo, and from 1946 to 1976 he was employed by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as a radio writer and producer, first in the features department (194665) and then in the drama department (196576). From 1976 Tiller worked as both a free-lance writer and broadcaster. Of his major poetry collections, The Inward Animal (1943) and Unarm, Eros (1947) are his most highly acclaimed. Strong formal pattern, heraldic imagery, and striking sensuousness are combined to produce a masterly and genuinely witty effect. His later volumes, Reading a Medal and Other Poems (1957), Notes for a Myth and Other Poems (1968), and That Singing Mesh and Other Poems (1979), contain many outstanding poems; however, on the whole, the collections lack the tension and concreteness that give The Inward Animal and especially Unarm, Eros their immediacy. In addition to his poetry and the hundreds of radio plays and feature broadcasts he wrote for the BBC, Tiller wrote several prose pieces and edited and translated a number of books.