Faith and Doubt of John Betjeman An Anthology of his Religious Verse

by Gardner, Kevin

• ISBN13: 9780826482723
• ISBN10: 0826482724
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-30
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

This year marks the centenary of the birth of John Betjeman, one of the twentieth century's great makers of the Christian imagination. Though widely known as a poet of nostalgia for a bygone England, Betjeman's remarkable talent and influence rank him with the greatest literary proponents of Christianity in our era: C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot and R. S. Thomas. This collection illustrates the vital role of faith in the formation of this great poet and provides a new perspective on his life and beliefs, demonstrating that Betjeman is the pre-eminent poet of the Church in the twentieth century.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction	xiii
Spiritual Doubts and Fears	1	(26)
N.W.5 & N.6	8	(2)
Calvinistic Evensong	10	(1)
Matlock Bath	11	(2)
Original Sin on the Sussex Coast	13	(2)
Norfolk	15	(1)
Narcissus	16	(2)
Archibald	18	(2)
Before the Anaesthetic	20	(2)
Goodbye	22	(1)
Fruit	23	(1)
On Leaving Wantage 1972	24	(1)
Loneliness	25	(1)
Aldershot Crematorium	26	(1)
Death	27	(28)
For Nineteenth-Century Burials	34	(1)
Devonshire Street W.1	35	(1)
Death in Leamington	36	(2)
The Cottage Hospital	38	(2)
House of Rest	40	(2)
Variations on a Theme	42	(1)
T. W. Rolleston
Variation on a Theme by Newbolt	43	(1)
I. M. Walter Ramsden	44	(2)
Inevitable	46	(1)
Five o'Clock Shadow	47	(1)
Old Friends	48	(2)
On a Portrait of a Deaf Man	50	(2)
Remorse	52	(1)
The Last Laugh	53	(2)
Belief	55	(34)
The Commander	64	(2)
Felixstowe	66	(2)
Saint Cadoc	68	(2)
The Conversion of St Paul	70	(3)
Uffington	73	(1)
Wantage Bells	74	(1)
Autumn 1964	75	(1)
Churchyards	76	(3)
Lenten Thoughts of a High Anglican	79	(1)
Advent 1955	80	(2)
Christmas	82	(2)
In Willesden Churchyard	84	(2)
A Lincolnshire Church	86	(3)
The Church in Society	89	(30)
St Saviour's, Aberdeen Park, Highbury, London, N.	97	(2)
Bristol	99	(1)
Holy Trinity, Sloane Street	100	(1)
Sunday Morning, King's Cambridge	101	(1)
Verses Turned	102	(2)
On Hearing the Full Peal of Ten Bells	104	(1)
Village Wedding	105	(2)
Church of England Thoughts	107	(2)
City	109	(1)
Monody on the Death of Aldersgate Street Station	110	(2)
Distant View of a Provincial Town	112	(1)
Septuagesima	113	(2)
Sunday Afternoon Service in St Enodoc Church	115	(4)
Vanity and Hypocrisy in the Church	119	(36)
Hymn	129	(2)
Electric Light and Heating	131	(2)
The Friends of the Cathedral	133	(2)
Not Necessarily Leeds	135	(1)
St Barnabas, Oxford	136	(1)
Exchange of Livings	137	(1)
Blame the Vicar	138	(3)
The Parochial Church Council	141	(4)
Diary of a Church Mouse	145	(2)
Guilt	147	(1)
Bristol and Clifton	148	(3)
St. Mary Magdalen, Old Fish Street Hill	151	(1)
In Westminster Abbey	152	(3)
The Decline of England	155	(30)
Lines Written to Martyn Skinner	163	(2)
Hertfordshire	165	(2)
Delectable Duchy	167	(2)
Cheshire	169	(1)
Harvest Hymn	170	(1)
The Dear Old Village	171	(4)
Inexpensive Progress	175	(2)
The Planster's Vision	177	(1)
The Town Clerk's Views	178	(3)
Huxley Hall	181	(1)
Chelsea 1977	182	(1)
Slough	183	(2)
The Ecumenical Church	185
An Eighteenth-Century Calvinistic Hymn	192	(1)
Undenominational	193	(1)
The Sandemanian Meeting-House	194	(1)
Greek Orthodox	195	(2)
Anglo-Catholic Congresses	197	(1)
An Ecumenical Invitation	198	(2)
The Empty Pew	200