John Betjeman - Couverture souple

Brown, Dennis

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0746308957 ISBN 13 : 9780746308950

Editeur : Liverpool University Press, 1999

Synopsis

[ JOHN BETJEMAN BY BROWN, DENNIS](AUTHOR)PAPERBACK

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Sir John Betjeman remains the most popular English poet of today. He has been termed a `national teddy bear', and some commentary has addressed his work in rather such terms. However, it is evident that most of his key themes - the spirit of place (or `place-myth'), mundane lives (`petit recits') or historical continuity (the `presence of the past') - have specific relevance to postmodern and, especially, environmental concerns. Dennis Brown's book assesses Betjeman's contribution in the light of this, emphasising its ironic self-reflexivity, its rendering of Englishness and a `soft' masculinity, and its ecumenical Christian tolerance. The popularity of Betjeman's lyrics, and his verse-autobiography Summoned by Bells, is considered as indicative of Britain's post-imperial self-revaluation. It is shown how the poet's technique offers an accessible alternative to more complex neo-modernist poetics. Overall, the book stresses Betjeman's contemporaneity, and his relevance to an era of `contingency, irony, and solidarity'.

Biographie de l'auteur

Dennis Brown is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Hertfordshire. He has taught extensively across the range of literature but specialising in the twentieth century period. His books include: The Modernist Self in Twentieth-Century English Literature (1989); The Poetry of Postmodernity (1994). General Editor: Professor Isobel Armstrong, Birkbeck, University of London

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Liverpool University Press
• Date d'édition: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0746308957
• ISBN 13: 9780746308950
• Reliure: Broché
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 128