The Chair of Poetry
By OXONIAN IFEW recent events in Oxford—not excluding even the' great road question—have made more of a splash in the outside world than the closely contested election on February 9 of Mr. Auden to the professorship of poetry. In Oxford itself, of course, the hum of intrigue in every common room has long been like that of a dynamo.
The principal boss, the Kingmaker in the postwar period. has been Dr. Enid Starkie, Fellow of Somerville and Reader in French Literature, a person of electric energy who smokes cigars and who has 'managed' Mr. Auden. This is her second great triumph. The first is worth recalling. Five years ago in 1951 Dr. Starkie managed with equal success the electoral fortunes of Mr. Cecil Day Lewis, the now retiring professor. Like the present election this too was an ideological battle— not merely a contest between personalities. For the other candidate, who was first in the field and backed by a long and imposing list of sponsors, including many heads of colleges and leading members of the English faculty, was none other than Mr. C. S. Lewis. In these elections there are always two important blocs to consider—the English faculty because its members, being interested, bother to vote, and the clergy because they usually take their MAs. As a famous expositor of popular Christianity Mr. C. S. Lewis naturally had the latter as well as the former on his side.
Moreover he was a fellow of Magdalen and could rely on a good deal of support from the members of that great, if at times somewhat turbulent, college. The Magdalen voters have often been an important factor in elections to the chair of poetry. It was held by two successive Presidents, Sir Herbert Warren and Mr. George Gordon. When the latter's tenure ended in 1938, the college, by what can only be described as a triumph of machine and clerical politics, secured the election —on a split vote—of its Chaplain, the Rev. Adam Fox (now a Canon of Westminster) against the English faculty's two candidates, Sir E. K. Chambers and Lord David Cecil.
Undeterred by these obstacles Dr. Starkie threw herself into the fray with indefatigable energy. She wrote hundreds of letters, canvassed unceasingly and produced a large number of supporters drawn on the whole—though by no means exclusively—from the more radical elements in the University. Perhaps Mr. C. S. Lewis's list of sponsors was slightly too awe-inspiring, and there will long be dispute as to who gained by the understandable confusion of names. At all events Mr. Cecil Day Lewis won by a short head, and has been a most successful professor.
Flushed with victory Dr. Starkie once again resolved to manage a victorious 'progressive' candidate. Once again she resolved to fight the battle of the somewhat faded avant-garde world of the Thirties, and, in order to be first in the field, at an early stage selected Mr. Auden as the next professor. There was, it is true, a legal difficulty. To be eligible the candidate must be an Oxford MA—a technicality which had dished the hypothetical chances of Mr. T. S. Eliot some years ago—and Mr. Auden, though qualified (he took a 3rd in English), had not gone through this formality. Moreover, when approached he showed no inclination to comply. Dr. Starkie wisely did not press the matter. A few weeks later, to the perhaps naive surprise of some of its members, Mr. Auden applied to his old college, Christ Church, to take his MA in absentia.
Dr. Starkie meanwhile had been canvassing with vigour and success in the modern language faculties (where she wields Much influence), among progressives, radicals, and the 'left' of every denomination political or literary—and not only in that field. She also secured the unexpected support of such pillars of conservatism as Lord David Cecil. Naturally these activities did not go unremarked. Not everyone shared Dr. Enid Starkie's penchant for the pink bohemianism of a quarter of a century ago, and it was agreed that in this respect Mr. Auden was a good deal more so than Mr. Cecil Day Lewis. Then there was the fact that Mr. Auden had taken American Citizenship in 1938, and some—no doubt reactionary—persons mumbled inarticulately about the war and also about Mr. Guy Burgess. There was too a certain feeling that Dr. Starkie had got away with quite enough already. 'Are we to be governed by a one-woman electoral board?' an elderly, and distinguished personage was heard to mutter. The English faculty was lukewarm, and the clerical vote too was against Mr. Auden, for reasons into which we need not enter and which are not confined to scepticism about his ability to judge a poem on a sacred subject. Nor could Mr. Auden rely on any substantial support from his own college. A right-wing resistance move- ment soon began to form.
But who was to be the anti-Auden candidate? The Right is always worse at political organisations than the Left, and here a disastrous error occurred, responsibility for which cannot be determined. First in the field was Mr. Wilson Knight of Leeds University, a distinguished Shakespearian scholar. His candidature was largely sponsored by a young Fellow of Merton who, having recently liberated himself from the shackles of the Law, for which austere subject he had originally been elected as college tutor, and floated up into the airy world of English Literature; may pardonably have felt that sense of exuberance which occasionally goes to the head.
At this stage a far more powerful person intervened. The Warden of All Souls, Mr. John Sparrow, had long regarded the works of Mr. Auden with distaste. Reviewing, some twenty Years ago, The Orators, Mr. Sparrow described it as 'a work in which no single intelligible purpose is to be discerned—a Jumble of images and jottings'. He is by no means alone in this view, and had soon rallied a formidable bloc of supporters in favour of a far more convincing 'right-wing' candidate—Sir Harold Nicolson. Sir Harold is not a poet, but why should a professor of poetry be one? They usually are not, and it is certain that Sir Harold would have lectured on poetry with the same witty and feline urbanity which he brings to every other subject. Moreover had he not recently written a book entitled Good Behaviour, thereby assuring for himself the major share of the Wykehamist vote—always a useful support in these elections? There was a further asset on Sir Harold's side. He was sponsored by Sir Maurice Bowra, the Warden of Wadham, ex-Vice-Chancellor and a University politician of consummate skill. Sir Maurice had in the past himself secured the chair and—what was more—secured it unopposed.
By now Dr. Starkie had collected no less than 100 signatures for Mr. Auden. It should be explained that names of candi- dates and their nominators appear in the University Gazette a week before polling day, and much turns upon producing a long and reputable list in order to sway the floating vote. It should not, however, be too long and reputable or it may produce the opposite effect to that intended. Mr. Sparrow and his friends had no hope of rivalling Dr. Starkie's list in quantity, but they were determined to do so in quality. But, as Dr. Starkie told a newspaper, even if Sir Harold's side had more heads it had not nearly so many professors. She declared that she was reasonably sure of victory, but, as she admitted, the mere fact of having 100 names did not necessarily mean that they would all vote. As an opponent of Mr. Auden observed, some dons would Sign their own death warrants for the sake of peace and quiet, and a rumour began to circulate that many of Mr. Auden's nominators, who had signed long before they knew that Sir Harold was in the field, might change their allegiance. Dr. Starkie in her newspaper interview put the matter pithily. 'The great trouble with this kind of brouhaha,' she said, 'is that Oxford is packed with the kind of people I call "hedgers and ditchers". They hum and they haw, they hedge and sometimes they ditch you—you never know where you are.'
However Dr. Starkie's apprehensions were not justified. The poll was, despite icy weather, one of record size—nearly 500. Mr. Auden obtained 216 votes, Sir Harold Nicolson 192 and Mr. Knight only 91. Dr. Starkie has thus gained a notable triumph in what was in many ways an ideological battle— although it was fought with a good humour unusual in such struggles. All Oxford is now speculating as to whether in five years' time the Kingmaker will herself be a candidate at the next election. One thing seems reasonably certain : she is unlikely to emulate Sir Maurice Bowra, and be elected unopposed, but in view of her own past record in these elections she would be the last to complain at this.
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