Review Essay John Betjeman: Centenary Publications

RELIGION and the ARTS Religion and the Arts 11 (2007) 98–117 www.brill.nl/rart

Kevin J. Gardner Baylor University

Betjeman, Sir John. Collected Poems. Intro. Andrew Motion. 1958. Rpt. and rev. London: John Murray, 2006. Pp. xxvi + 498. £12.99 paper. ——— . John Betjeman. Ed. Hugo Williams. Poet to Poet Series. London: Faber and Faber, 2006. Pp. xvii + 93. £3.99 paper. ——— . Letters. Volume One: 1926–1951. Ed. Candida Lycett Green. 1994. Rpt. London: Methuen, 2006. Pp. xxvi + 584 + 75 illustrations. £14.99 paper. ——— . Letters. Volume Two: 1951–1984. Ed. Candida Lycett Green. 1995. Rpt. London: Methuen, 2006. Pp. xxiv + 616 + 79 illustrations. £14.99 paper. ——— . Trains and Buttered Toast: Selected Radio Talks. Ed. Stephen Games. London: John Murray, 2006. Pp. xi + 353. £14.99 cloth. Hillier, Bevis. John Betjeman: Th e Biography. London: John Murray, 2006. Pp. xviii + 590 + 61 illustrations. £18.99 paper. Wilson, A. N. Betjeman. London: Hutchinson, 2006. Pp. viii + 375 + 72 illustrations. £20.00 cloth.

* ugust 28, 2006, marked the centenary of the birth of Sir John Betjeman, A a date that went almost entirely unnoticed in the United States but that occasioned innumerable publications, exhibitions, broadcasts, and retrospec- tive celebrations in the United Kingdom.1 Books by and about Betjeman are

1) These included a star-studded West End charity gala attended by the Prince of Wales, a Cornish birthday party and concert, a steam locomotive dedication, numerous literary events

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enjoying sales in the UK unimaginable for any other poet of our time: among these are new editions of his verse, new and reissued prose collections, and two new biographies. Betjeman’s success is attributable to the delightful accessibility of his poems as well as to his extensive work in broadcasting and documentary filmmaking and to the leading role he took in architectural and cultural preservation. As a result of his celebrity, various myths have been perpetuated about Betjeman’s antimodernist stance: that he was an eccentric poet of light verse, a nostalgic preserver of a vanishing myth of England and Englishness, and the jocular and loveable “teddy bear to the nation,” as he was dubbed by the Times upon his selection as poet laureate in 1972. Th us far Betjeman has not generated much literary criticism; however, the recent publication of several serious reassessments of the intellectual and literary qualities of his poetry, together with these new publications, has reopened the field of Betjeman studies.2 One of the things that makes John Betjeman such an interesting case is that he was a devout and practicing Christian who openly confessed his faith in his poems and broadcasts. At least a third of his poems touch on religious subjects; they describe ecclesial architecture and the beauty of worship, his will to believe and his frustrations with religious hypocrisy, and the church’s role in providing a cultural identity and spiritual framework for the nation. Th ough Christianity was sufficiently central in Betjeman’s poetic imagination for him to title his blank-verse autobiography Summoned by Bells, belief was never easy for him, and questions of faith and doubt remain essential to understanding both his public and private per- sonæ. In the end, John Betjeman’s jolly public façade masked many deep anxieties both personal and theological. Th is complex life can be appreciated through any of a number of new publications of his poetry and prose. An updated edition of Betjeman’s Col- lected Poems, introduced by Andrew Motion, has been released by his long- standing publisher, John Murray (in the US by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux). Originally published in 1958, it has remained in continuous print, selling an astounding three million copies. Th e new edition contains for the first time Summoned by Bells, previously available only as an individual volume. Th e

and festivals, exhibitions at the Bodleian, the British Library, and Sir John Soane’s Museum, a week of dedicated Betjeman-themed programming on BBC Radio 4, three new films on BBC Two, and rebroadcasts of Betjeman’s own documentary films on BBC Four and ITV. 2) In addition to the critical evaluations of Betjeman’s verse by poets Hugo Williams and Andrew Motion in the volumes reviewed here, see Professor Dennis Brown’s monograph in the Writers and Their Work series, John Betjeman, and my own essay, “Anglicanism and the Poetry of John Betjeman.”

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