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Foreword by Norman Vance
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations (and Textual Note)
Chapter One Introduction
Teddy Bear to the Nation
A Question of Upbringing
Betjeman Today
Chapter Two The 1930s
The Opening World
Chapel and Spa
Bourgeois Verses
Architectural Revue
Onward and Upward
Chapter Three The 1940s
Home Fires
Ireland
Flag Stones
A Poet for All?
Chapter Four The 1950s
Love is Dead
Over-work and Under Pressure
Church Matters
Campaign and Caveats
A Star is Born
Chapter Five The 1960s–70s
The Euston Murder
Live in Metroland
TV Personality
Past and Present
Faith and Doubt
Knight Bachelor
Chapter Six The 1970s–80s
Royal Rhymester?
Battling with Bulldozers
Autumn Chill
Belief . . . and Unbelief
Jubilee Jingle
Coda
Chapter Seven Summoned by Bells
Changing Horizons
The Epic
The Journey Begins
Chapter Eight Conclusion
The Identity of Betjeman
Appendix:?Glossary of nineteenth-century poets listed by Betjeman
in the preface to Old Lights for New Chancels (1940)
Notes
Bibliography
Betjeman Filmography and Audiography
Index |
| “The
cover image of Greg Morse’s book, depicting the new
statue of John Betjeman gazing into the ceiling of St. Pancras
Station, masterfully implies his theme: this icon of Englishness
who welcomes international rail visitors into London metonymizes
the vitality of Victorianism in contemporary English identity.
In addition to his countless public campaigns to save nineteenth-century
landmarks from the wrecking ball, Betjeman achieved equal
fame and success as a poet. These achievements have not translated,
however, into widespread scholarly recognition; other than
a few general appreciation studies and a handful of critical
articles, Betjeman has generally been ignored by the academic
community. John Betjeman: Reading the Victorians,
an analysis of the influence of Victorian writers in Betjeman’s
poetry and of Victorianism more generally in his prose and
his preservation campaigns, is therefore a welcome mitigation
of critical neglect and will likely serve to enhance a wider
scholarly appreciation and recognition of Betjeman.
… Morse reveals how Victorianism shaped Betjeman’s
thinking and writing across the decades, how his understanding
and appreciation of it evolved from an early playfulness to
a profound, scholarly commitment, and how he used his status
as a public figure to make his case for the relevance of Victorianism
in a modern nation. Taking a decade-by-decade approach, Morse
surveys Betjeman’s professional activities before exploring
at length the Victorian influences and appropriations in his
writings. He thoroughly analyzes the patterns of influence,
especially of Tennyson, Hardy, William Morris, and, in the
case of Betjeman’s epic autobiography, Summoned
by Bells (1960), of Wordsworth. Morse also examines his
prose, revealing that Betjeman’s obsession was not simply
with obscure Victorian poets (Calverley, Prout, Austin, Henley,
Lampson), but also with Victorian life and building: Nonconformist
chapels, railway stations and branch lines, gas lights, seaside
piers, terraced housing for labourers, and the vanishing ways
of life associated with those threatened hallmarks of Victorian
design. Indeed, it is not just Victorian poetry that Betjeman
‘reads’; it is a wider Victorian culture that
infuses his thinking.
… In his analysis of how Betjeman “reads”
the Victorians, Morse succeeds admirably. His own reading
of Victorianism – and of Betjeman – is extensive,
and the resulting book, which began life as a doctoral thesis,
is an impressive piece of scholarship. His recourse to Betjeman’s
largely uncollected prose is all the more admirable considering
that he completed his research without the benefit of William
Peterson’s masterful new bibliography, John Betjeman:
A Bibliography (Clarendon Press, 2006), or Stephen Games’s
new anthologies of Betjeman’s prose. With its chronological
approach, this book will serve as an effective introduction
to Betjeman, and Victorian scholars will surely want to read
it for its account of the fate of Victorianism in the twentieth
century. A thematic organization might have been a more useful
structure, however, as some portions of the book may prove
repetitive to readers already versed in Betjeman’s life
and works; for instance, Morse’s second chapter, ‘The
1930s’, covers much of the same material entailed by
Timothy Mowl in Stylistic Cold Wars: Betjeman Versus Pevsner
(John Murray, 2000), and his attention to the production,
design and reception of Betjeman’s books has been thoroughly
covered in Bevis Hillier’s biographical triptych. However,
Morse is the first critic to treat Betjeman’s laureate
verse with seriousness, and he is only the second, following
Dennis Brown’s brief but excellent monograph, John
Betjeman (Northcote House, 1999), to treat Summoned
by Bells with the seriousness that it deserves. Morse
convincingly explains how Betjeman made Victorianism not merely
palatable to English taste but central to English Identity.”
English Studies
“Morse teases out the Victorian
roots of Betjeman (1906–84), celebrated as Britain’s
most popular poet laureate since Tennyson. He follows the
poet’s career decade by decade beginning with the 1930s,
looking at such aspects as chapel and spa, flag stones, campaign
and caveats, the Euston murder, faith and doubt, battling
with bulldozers, changing horizons, and the epic.” Reference
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