Poetry and Buggins
James Fenton
Ia recent Spectator (21 April) A.N. .1-Wilson was discussing the forthcoming election for the Oxford Professorship of Poetry and urged readers to vote for Peter Levi this time and for myself five years hence. Actually, there was something faint- ly insulting to Mr Levi in the way that he argued his case: Wilson would vote for him 'on the grounds that he is older; also he stood last time and I think there should be a "pecking order" about these things.' But is Oxford really a barnyard, and is Mr Levi a hen? I think there are much better reasons for voting for Mr Levi than that.
If there is such a thing as a pecking order in these matters, it would take a very
brilliant ethologist to work out how it func- tions. Last time around, the chief rival to Jones-of-Merton was John Sparrow, while the poets who stood for election received a rather small percentage of the vote. Did people really think that Donald Davie was not yet old enough to succeed John Wain in the job? I doubt it. I think the whole thing was conducted according to whim — and there is a strong whimsical tradition associated with the post. The most notorious example of the triumph of whim
was in 1938, when the English faculty had put up E.K. Chambers (on the grounds perhaps that they might get a repeat of Bradley's lectures on Shakespearian tragedy). A certain Canon Adam Fox was breakfasting in Magdalen when he noticed this proposal and exclaim- ed ('without any thought of being taken Literally'): 'This is simply shocking; they might as well make me Professor of Poetry.' Whereupon C.S. Lewis said: 'Well, we will.' Lewis, Fox tells us, 'was always ready for an adventure and often feeling fine at breakfast.' The whim had its effect. Fox was elected without any claim to the appointment beyond his having once had published a poem called 'Old King Coel', which its own proud author describes as 'long and childish'. His lectures were, he tells us, 'not very successful'. Predictably enough, war broke out soon after.
The counter-example to Fox is of course Auden, for whom special arrangements were made. The post does not carry a full- time salary, and so Auden was allowed to give his three lectures in the course of one term. During that term, he would make himself available to any undergraduate writers who cared to come along to a cer- tain café at a certain time of day. He became, in fact, the University's writer-in- residence. In doing so, he was generous both with time and with money, since his acceptance of the post involved him in a loss of earnings. There are many who remember that professorship with gratitude.
What Auden had done was to make sense of an anomalous appointment. And there is a strong feeling around the University that such a conception of the post is ideal. It is a conception not shared by the present in- cumbent, Professor Jones — and of course it is not embodied in statute. Still, when the election comes round, people ask themselves: is there a poet who would like to give three substantial lectures a year, who could maintain some useful presence in the University and who doesn't mind the very strong possibility of being ambushed somewhere along the road by the latter- day equivalent of Canon Adam Fox? Some obvious candidates have been put off by the last consideration, and I imagine that others have thought twice about the matter of the lolly.
For my own part, when I was asked whether 1 would stand, I felt (a) that it was an honour to be asked and (b) that it was important that the University should at least have the opportunity, if the whim should so take it, of reviving that concep- tion of the Poetry Professor as unof- ficial writer-in-residence. On the principle of Buggins's turn I could hardly claim to be
Buggins. But it seems to me that in this life one never is Buggins. One should not aim to be Buggins. Down with Buggins and all his works.
So there's one slogan to kick off with. If the electorate seriously wants a serious ap- proach to the Professorship of Poetry, they are at liberty to go for it. If not, they have till four p.m. on Monday, 21 May, to find a truly scandalous candidate. Mr Levi and I are friendly rivals and we shall fight clean. But I really don't see that the Queensberry rules apply to the wicked old men in the wainscoting. If they dare to come out once more, we shall send them scampering home.
Previous page
