John Betjeman

[YesNo]

I do like the poem though yes, though I'd almost forgotten about it, even though it is one of those modern classics that have seeped into the general consciouness, in England at least. I'm wondering though is this just popular in the UK? Have you heard of it before? I wondered if Betjeman travelled well.

I haven't heard of the poem before, but others in the US might have. I'm probably not representative of people who read literature in the US, but I realized that I did have a copy of his collected poems on my bookshelf. I think I bought it long ago in a used book store because I could see that it was metered verse. I've finally started reading it based on your thread.

[OrphanPip]

I think I read Betjeman in secondary school, but I'm not too excited by his poetry.

[prendrelemick]

I would be very interested in what non-Brits think of A Subaltern's Love Song. It is so English - the Hillman in the drive, the pictures of Egypt (We know why they are there and what they tell us about the Hunter-Dunns, just as the upstart Austins among the Rovers at the Golf Club have significance.) Aldershot and the healthy Deb, the sexual delight at being beaten by her (obviously a Public Boarding School chap.) every detail and association is English and comforting. I wonder if such a place and time ever really existed, is it another safe place he yearns for and invented?.

[Emil Miller]

I would be very interested in what non-Brits think of A Subaltern's Love Song. It is so English - the Hillman in the drive, the pictures of Egypt (We know why they are there and what they tell us about the Hunter-Dunns,) Aldershot, Suburbia and the young Subaltern, the healthy English Deb, every detail is English and comforting. I wonder if such a place and time ever really existed, is it another safe place he yearns for and invented?.

I doubt that he invented it but it is seen through the prism of nostalgia so that any rough edges have been smoothed over and we are presented with a picture that, although ostensibly true, is probably not quite as it was. Nostalgia appears to be the basis for a number of Betjeman's poems and that may explain their popularity but it's something integral to human beings and anyone who doesn't occasionally experience it is probably dead already.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think I read Betjeman in secondary school, but I'm not too excited by his poetry.

Oh OK, is there anything in particular you don't like, say the nostalgia or the Englishness or is it just a general thing? What do you think of the poems posted on page 1?

I haven't heard of the poem before, but others in the US might have. I'm probably not representative of people who read literature in the US, but I realized that I did have a copy of his collected poems on my bookshelf. I think I bought it long ago in a used book store because I could see that it was metered verse. I've finally started reading it based on your thread.

Oh OK great stuff, let us know how you get on with it.

I doubt that he invented it but it is seen through the prism of nostalgia so that any rough edges have been smoothed over and we are presented with a picture that, although ostensibly true, is probably not quite as it was. Nostalgia appears to be the basis for a number of Betjeman's poems and that may explain their popularity but it's something integral to human beings and anyone who doesn't occasionally experience it is probably dead already.

Yes I was going to add such a nostalgia point as well.

[YesNo]

I would be very interested in what non-Brits think of A Subaltern's Love Song. It is so English - the Hillman in the drive, the pictures of Egypt (We know why they are there and what they tell us about the Hunter-Dunns, just as the upstart Austins among the Rovers at the Golf Club have significance.) Aldershot and the healthy Deb, the sexual delight at being beaten by her (obviously a Public Boarding School chap.) every detail and association is English and comforting. I wonder if such a place and time ever really existed, is it another safe place he yearns for and invented?.

I had to look up the word "subaltern". I assume it means a military officer. I don't know what a Hillman is nor what the pictures of Egypt signify--maybe some military adventure in Egypt? I could sense that the Hunter-Dunns were privileged, but the reference to the Austins and Rovers didn't make much sense to me. Also "full Surrey twilight" probably has meanings I'm unaware of.

No doubt, I missed a large part of the sense of place in the poem.

I liked the sound of the line, "And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells", as a way to describe a wooded area, but that could be anywhere.

The poem starts with the subaltern being defeated by Joan at tennis, but ends with him winning an engagement to her. That's what I found attractive about the poem.

[Lokasenna]

It's certainly very true that the poem is grounded in the world of the priveleged upper middle-classes: the young officer-class man, the hint of colonial endeavour, tennis in the garden, dances at the golf club, quality cars (and several of them), the southern setting, and so on. Slough, clearly, is much more to do with the working classes and the nouveau riche that have emerged from them. It's very clear which world Betjeman feels more comfortable in, but I think there is an undercurrent of compatriotic sensiblity in Slough, even if the clerks depicted there aren't not 'one of us' in the way the Hunter-Dunns are.

[Emil Miller]

I had to look up the word "subaltern". I assume it means a military officer. I don't know what a Hillman is nor what the pictures of Egypt signify--maybe some military adventure in Egypt? I could sense that the Hunter-Dunns were privileged, but the reference to the Austins and Rovers didn't make much sense to me. Also "full Surrey twilight" probably has meanings I'm unaware of.

No doubt, I missed a large part of the sense of place in the poem.

I liked the sound of the line, "And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells", as a way to describe a wooded area, but that could be anywhere.

The poem starts with the subaltern being defeated by Joan at tennis, but ends with him winning an engagement to her. That's what I found attractive about the poem.

A subaltern was a juniior officer in the British army while a Hillman was a make of car and the pictures of Egypt refer to the British occupation of the country.
Austins and Rovers were also makes of car and 'full Surrey twilight' refers to the county of Surrey in southern England which is where many people like those in the poem lived and still do.

[YesNo]

It makes sense, now that you mention it, that the Hillmans, Austins and Rovers are makes of cars.

I saw the poem "A Shropshire Lad" and confused it with a book of Housman's poems. Here is a recital of it: http://www.geoffwilkins.net/fragments/Betjeman.htm I wouldn't have thought that "Severn" rhymed with "heaven".

It is an unusual story of Captain Webb's ghost.

[Emil Miller]

It makes sense, now that you mention it, that the Hillmans, Austins and Rovers are makes of cars.

I saw the poem "A Shropshire Lad" and confused it with a book of Housman's poems. Here is a recital of it: http://www.geoffwilkins.net/fragments/Betjeman.htm I wouldn't have thought that "Severn" rhymed with "heaven".

It is an unusual story of Captain Webb's ghost.

It seems an unusual subject for Betjeman as Captain Webb was the first man to swim the English Channel and, apart from the fact that he was English, doesn't seem to have any other connection with the poet. Severn does rhyme with heaven incidentally.

[prendrelemick]

I had to look up the word "subaltern". I assume it means a military officer. I don't know what a Hillman is nor what the pictures of Egypt signify--maybe some military adventure in Egypt? I could sense that the Hunter-Dunns were privileged, but the reference to the Austins and Rovers didn't make much sense to me. Also "full Surrey twilight" probably has meanings I'm unaware of.

No doubt, I missed a large part of the sense of place in the poem.

I liked the sound of the line, "And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells", as a way to describe a wooded area, but that could be anywhere.

The poem starts with the subaltern being defeated by Joan at tennis, but ends with him winning an engagement to her. That's what I found attractive about the poem.

The Surry twilight and these lines;-

And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

Adds a feeling that these things are fading away. The Austins are a Cheap basic car and are encroaching on the former preserve of expensive and luxurious Rovers. The path is gathering moss, standards are slipping.

[YesNo]

A few lines puzzled me in A Subaltern's Love-song.

By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways
She drove to the club in the late summer haze

I assume she took some sort of back road, but it must have been smooth enough for the Hillman to travel on. There are back roads I used to take a truck on in Maine that I wouldn't expect a car to survive for long. These roads do remind me of things that are fading away.

And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.

I don't think they ever got to the dance since they sat in the car until nearly one o'clock, but why is the dancing "ominous"?

[Emil Miller]

A few lines puzzled me in A Subaltern's Love-song.

By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways
She drove to the club in the late summer haze

I assume she took some sort of back road, but it must have been smooth enough for the Hillman to travel on. There are back roads I used to take a truck on in Maine that I wouldn't expect a car to survive for long. These roads do remind me of things that are fading away.

And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.

I don't think they ever got to the dance since they sat in the car until nearly one o'clock, but why is the dancing "ominous"?

I don't know the meaning of by roads "not adopted" but the fact that it's given in quotes indicates that it has an already established meaning that may be from another poet's work. I'm rather ignorant of poetry and I haven't come across it before but perhaps someone else will pick it up.

I take it that the ominous, ominous dancing refers to the fact that they are expected at the dance and the sound of the music is reminding them that they should leave the car, which they don't want to do.

Because England is very much smaller than the US there is a fairly comprehensive road network where even minor roads are surfaced so that the type of back roads often encountered in large parts of the USA are not nearly as frequent.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I thought that roads 'not adopted' referred to quiet, seldom used roads and having done a quick search it seems that they are such things more or less, being roads that the council have no responsibility for. Presumably he is avoiding the dance as much as possible going the long way around as to spend more time with her. Likewise the dancing is ominous because it parts them, as Emil says.

There are a few parellels between that poem and the one below:

http://poemsandprose.blog.co.uk/2007...g_pam~2965863/

Betjeman often appears to express a longing to be mastered by large, athletic women!

In this poem he begins by admiring Pam (a nanny?) as she pushes a pram through the Surrey countryside.

He eulogises over her playing tennis and, in the final verse, imagines himself marrying her, while we look on.

Andrew Motion in the introduction also comments upon the frequency of Betjeman's athletic women.


POT POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Miles of pram in the wind and Pam in the gorse track,
Coco-nut smell of the broom. and a packet of Weights
Press'd in the sand. The thud of a hoof on a horse-track -
Conifer county of Surrey approached
Through remarkable wrought-iron gates.

Over your boundary now, I wash my face in a bird-bath,
Then which path I shall take? that over there by the pram?
Down by the pond! or - yes, I will take the slippery path,
Trodden away with gym shoes,
Beautiful fir-dry alley that leads
To the bountiful body of Pam.

Pam, I adore you, Pam, you great big mountainous sports girl,
Whizzing them over the net, full of the strength of five:
That Old Malvernian brother, you zephyr and khaki shorts girl,
Although he's playing for Woking,
Can't stand up
To your wonderful backhand drive.

See the strength of her arm, as firm and hairy as Hendren's;
See the size of her thighs, the pout of her lips as, cross,
And full of pent-up strength, she swipes at the rhododendrons,
Lucky the rhododendrons,
And flings her arrogant love-lock
Back with a petulant toss.

Over the redolent pinewoods, in at the bathroom casement,
One fine Saturday, Windlesham bells shall call,
Up the Butterfield aisle, rich with Gothic enlacement,
Licensed now for embracement,
Pam and I, as the organ
Thunders over you all.

John Betjeman

[YesNo]

See the strength of her arm, as firm and hairy as Hendren's;
See the size of her thighs, the pout of her lips as, cross,
And full of pent-up strength, she swipes at the rhododendrons,
Lucky the rhododendrons,

He does seem to have an attraction to those athletic, feisty, tennis-playing females.