John Betjeman : Reading the Victorians.

Cover -- Title page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Foreword by Norman Vance -- Acknowledgements -- List of Abbreviations (and Textual Note -- 1. Introduction -- Teddy Bear to the Nation -- A Question of Upbringing -- Betjeman Today -- 2. The 1930s -- The Opening World -- Chapel and Spa -- Bourgeois Verses -- Architectural Revue -- Onward and Upward -- 3. The 1940s -- Home Fires -- Ireland -- Flag Stones -- A Poet For All? -- 4. The 1950s -- Love is Dead -- Over-work and Under Pressure -- Church Matters -- Campaign and Caveats -- A Star is Born -- 5. The 1960s and 70s -- The Euston Murder -- Live in Metroland -- TV Personality -- Past and Present -- Faith and Doubt -- Knight Bachelor -- 6. The 1970s and 80s -- Royal Rhymester? -- Battling with Bulldozers -- Autumn Chill -- Belief . . . and Unbelief -- Jubilee Jingle -- Coda -- 7. Summoned by Bells -- Changing Horizons -- The Epic -- The Journey Begins -- 8. 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 -- Back Cover.

John Betjeman was the popular Poet Laureate since Tennyson. But beneath the modern window on Britain that he opened during his lifetime lay the influence of his nineteenth-century forbears. This book explores his identity through such Victorianism via the verse of that period, but also its architecture, religious faith and religious doubt.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.