Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
John Betjeman
-
Standard Name: Betjeman, John
JB
was a writer of popular, plangent, often nostalgic poems, who served as Poet Laureate from 1969. He also published an autobiography in blank verse, a novel about a teddy bear, and books and articles on architecture.
John Betjeman
, reviewing this book in the Daily Herald, called it a beautiful novel. . . . Full of acute feminine observation, drinks, jokes, talk in keeping with its varied characters, atmosphere and...
Book critic Ivor Brown
of the New York Times Book Review commented on the academic neglect of DDM
's work in his review of The Parasites: When the academic professors of Literature in Our...
Intertextuality and Influence
U. A. Fanthorpe
UAF
was anthologized by Adrian Barlow
in Calling Kindred: Poems from the English Speaking World, 1993. At Poetry International 2000, she chose Robert Browning
as her Presiding Spirit.
Connolly, Sally. “Woolly whispers of the past”. Times Literary Supplement, p. 25.
25
Other influences she claimed are...
Friends, Associates
Antonia Fraser
Family friends and frequent visitors to the Pakenham household included J. M. Keynes
, William Beveridge
(whom AF
's father had assisted in plans for the postwar Welfare State), Hugh Gaitskell
, and (particularly good...
Literary responses
Rumer Godden
This was one of RG
's great successes. Her agent Spencer Curtis Brown
said of the central idea, [y]ou do go out of the way to make things difficult. A little boy complained that she...
She had a remarkably catholic talent for friendship. During her student days she became a friend of Philip Larkin
and Kingsley Amis
. Her correspondents at this and later periods of her life included her...
Literary responses
Philip Larkin
This collection was a Poetry Book Society
choice. It received an award from the Arts Council
and brought Larkin the Queen's Medal for Poetry in June 1965.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Brennan, Maeve. The Philip Larkin I Knew. Manchester University Press.
His selection was resolutely unfashionable, favouring Hardy
and Betjeman
at the expense of Eliot
and Pound
. He was, however, remarkably generous in his selection of women poets (often for just one or two poems...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Philip Larkin
The central subject is the period which saw the rise of modernism and its assimilation—or not—into the native English tradition,
Motion, Andrew. Philip Larkin: A Writer’s Life. Faber and Faber.
PL
declined the poet laureateship, which was offered him after John Betjeman
died (on 19 May 1984), on the grounds that he was no longer a practising poet. His many honorary doctorates included those with...
Literary responses
Rose Macaulay
The Towers of Trebizond won the James Black Tait prize.
Babington Smith, Constance. Rose Macaulay. Collins.
203
Bensen, Alice. Rose Macaulay. Twayne.
154
A reprint of 1959 quotes on its dustjacket a chorus of praise. John Betjeman
and Sir Compton Mackenzie
called the novel RM
's...
Literary responses
Nancy Mitford
NM
's essay became notorious, causing the issue of Encounter to sell out almost immediately. It was reprinted (with the pieces by Ross and Waugh, cartoons by Osbert Lancaster
, and the poem How to...
Timeline
Late October 1955: The Welsh poet R. S. (Ronald Stuart) Thomas...
Writing climate item
Late October 1955
The Welsh poetR. S. (Ronald Stuart) Thomas
first came to wide notice with his collection Song at the Year's Turning (with an introduction by John Betjeman
), which drew on three earlier volumes.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
