John Betjeman
.jpg)
Sir John Betjeman CBE (born August 28, 1906 in London , † May 19, 1984 in Daymer Lane, Trebetherick , Cornwall ) was a British poet , publicist and journalist . He is considered by far the most popular British poet of the 20th century. He also became known through television and radio broadcasts in which he campaigned for the preservation of architectural monuments of the 19th century.
life and work
The son of the furniture manufacturer Ernest Edward Betjemann (John Betjeman left the second "n" of the surname of Dutch origin from around 1927) went to school in Highgate (where TS Eliot was one of his teachers) and studied quite unsuccessfully at the University of Oxford , which he left without a higher degree. He then worked as a primary school teacher, private secretary, in 1930 as editor of the architecture magazine Architectural Review and in 1933 as film critic for the London Evening Standard . In 1933 he married Penelope Chetwode - a daughter of the British Commander in Chief in India, Philip Walhouse Chetwode - and moved with her to a farm in Berkshire . The couple had two children, Paul and Paula (usually called Candida).
In the 1930s, Betjeman's first volumes of poetry, Mount Zion (1931) and Continual Dew (1937), were published, which were later praised for their already complete mastery of the most diverse lyrical pitches. Far more, however, at the time of publication in 1933, his treatise Ghastly Good Taste , which he subtitled "A depressing story of the rise and fall of English architecture". In the book, he attacked both excesses of modernity and unreflective conservatism , and completely against the trend of the time, he became a pioneer in an impartial study of Victorian architecture . In the mid-1930s he worked in the advertising department of Shell and published, among other things, a Shell travel guide to Cornwall , which he had loved since childhood.
Around 1937 he turned increasingly to the Anglican Church , which he saw as the "only salvation" from progress, fascists and Marxists. Many of his poems are also shaped by his deep faith. During the Second World War he worked for the film department of the Ministry of Information and as a press attaché in Dublin , where he was supposed to have a favorable effect on public opinion about Great Britain in Ireland. He reported on politicians and the IRA to London. The IRA even planned his assassination, which just failed because an IRA intelligence chief liked his poetry. Another volume of poetry, Old Lights for New Chancels, was published in 1940 . Towards the end of the war, Betjeman worked in a secret section of the Admiralty in Bath .
After the end of the war, the Betjemans moved to Farnborough in Berkshire and in 1951 to Wantage in Oxfordshire. In the same year Betjeman separated from his wife and later met Lady Elizabeth Cavendish , Princess Margaret's lady-in-waiting . With her he had a relationship until the end of his life. Betjeman's daughter Candida described Lady Elizabeth Cavendish as her father's “beloved second wife”. Betjeman lived in Wantage until 1972.
His poetic fame increased with two more volumes of poetry. In 1958 his collected poems appeared, in 1960 the two thousand line autograph poem Summoned by Bells , in which he reports on his childhood, youth and studies. Formally conservative and often comical, Betjeman's poems showed no echoes of the literary avant-garde and were therefore easily readable for a wide audience. With their often eccentric characters and the plot set in everyday life in contemporary England, the poems also hit the nerve of the times and were very successful commercially - the anthology from 1958 saw numerous editions with over 100,000 copies.
He also became a well-known and popular figure in public life from the mid-1950s through his radio and television programs on architecture and on excursions to the metro area around London. He has also published countless books on British architecture and travel guides. His interventions saved many 19th-century structures in danger of being demolished, including St Pancras Station in London.
In addition, he published further volumes of poetry, which were then included in the fourth edition of his collected poems. In 1982 a volume of poems that had not yet been included in the collection ( Uncollected Poems ) was published.
Betjeman has received numerous awards and honorary doctorates. In 1960 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) , and in 1969 he was made a Knight Bachelor . In 1972 he was named " Poet Laureate ", the official court poet. In 1973 he was elected an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .
In old age, Betjeman developed Parkinson's disease . He died after several strokes at his home in Trebetherick, Cornwall, and was buried in that location.
Betjeman is one of the poets who is commemorated in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in London. None of Betjeman's books have yet been translated into German.
literature
- Kingsley Amis : Betjeman, Sir John (1906-1984) . Revised by M. Clare Loughlin-Chow. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press 2004. Online October 2005 full text , main source for this article
- Reinhard Schröder: The poetry of John Betjemans . (= Hamburg Philological Studies; Vol. 26). Buske, Hamburg 1972, ISBN 3-87118-125-0 (also dissertation, University of Hamburg, 1972)
Web links
- Site about John Betjeman (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Honorary Members: John Betjeman. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 6, 2019 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Betjeman, John |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British poet and journalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 28, 1906 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 19, 1984 |
| Place of death | Daymer Lane, Trebetherick , Cornwall |