Faith and Doubt of John Betjeman: An Anthology of Betjeman's Religious Verse

by Betjeman, John, Sir; Gardner, Kevin J.

• ISBN13: 9780826485786
• ISBN10: 0826485782
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-11-30
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Academic

Summary

Sir John Betjeman was one of the twentieth century's great makers of the Christian imagination. He was maybe the most significant literary figure of our time to declare his Christian faith and his terror of dying. Betjeman used his formidable gifts for poetry to show us how to think about the Anglican faith and about Englishness and Christianity in general. Here is an anthology of about 75 poems on religious themes, with clarifying footnotes and a critical introduction that offers an overview of his life and poetry as well as a commentary on some of his more difficult poems. The book is directed at three main audiences: poetry readers unfamiliar with Betjeman and his faith, readers interested in literature from a Christian perspective (C.S. Lewis or George Herbert), and more narrowly, Christians who may be interested in discovering poetry that explores their faith. Betjeman's poetry has and continues to sell extremely well (between two and three million copies of his Collected Poems). This new edition of his religious poetry will demonstrate that Betjeman is the great poet of the Church in the twentieth century; it will also introduce delightful, accessible, and important poetry to new readers who have not read much of his work.

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	(7)
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