... on John Betjeman: A Triumphant Misfit. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Don't miss this link: In the Bivouac of Life: Longfellow and the Fate of Poetry. I am rather fond of Longfellow myself and think that any theory of poetry that excludes him must be a defective theory.
I would go further out on that limb and say that ANY theory of ANY form of literature is defective. Quite apart from that bold and probably foolish statement, I like Longfellow, too. "Tales of a Wayside Inn" -- do I have the title right?
ReplyDeleteI stand corrected, Melville. Any theory of any form of literature is defective. And yes, it is Tales of a Wayside Inn and it's wonderful.
ReplyDeleteAbout Betjeman -- *Judith Priestman* (I couldn't remember her name in an earlier post) wrote a book on him about his time at Oxford (she's a librarian at the Bodleian) and curated the exhibit that's now on there.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned this in an earlier post on J.B. and silly A.N. Wilson, who was fooled by the fake lover letter making fun of him (A.N.), but I'll mention it here again.
Look up Priestman online and you'll find an article from the Oxfordian about the fraught relationship between J.B. and his tutor, C.S. Lewis. Lewis was only 8 years older but from another era -- WW I, where Lewis was wounded and many of his friends died, aged him before his time. Basically, they despised each other, and when J.B. flunked out of Oxford, he blamed Lewis for his failure to get a good teaching job thereafter: Lewis refused to write him a good letter saying that J.B. had never given a fig before, so why should he now?
Reading "Summoned by Bells" in light of that is a much richer experience. And I actually like J.B.'s conversational tone. Far from finding it jejune, it reminds me of what T.S. Eliot does in the Four Quartets.