Poems of the Week: Poets Laureate

As you can probably imagine, I received a number of books of poetry and books about poetry over Christmas. One of them came from England, Andrew Motion: Selected Poems 1976-1997. He was appointed Poet Laureate in May 1999, succeeding Ted Hughes; and it made me think of the whole business of Poets Laureate.

The title of 'Poet Laureate' is conferred in Britain by the sovereign; until 1790, only the sovereign or the Lord Chamberlain were involved. Nowadays, generally, the Prime Minister provides a list of possible candidates from which the sovereign makes a selection. As with most procedures like this, the details are kept confidential; the Prime Minister's list is not a public document, and both his methods of selecting the list and the monarch's selection of the Laureate are not disclosed. The practice follows the custom in the courts of Europe of having minstrels and troubadors as members of the retinue; the first poet who was identified in any public way was Ben Jonson (1572-1637), who seems to have had some appointment resembling a Laureateship from King Charles I in 1617; he was succeeded by Sir William Davenant (1606-1668) in 1638. Sir William appears to have been Shakespeare's godson, and gossip had it that he might even have been his son, which would certainly appear to give him fairly good qualifications! He was a supporter of King Charles I, and following the defeat of the Royalists in the Civil Wars joined the exiled Stuart court in Paris; he returned with the court to London following the Restoration in 1660 at which time he was given one of two patents to open a theater (the other went to Sir Thomas Killigrew). Theater had been banned under the Commonwealth and although the two patents meant that it would return, it also meant that for the first time in English history only two theatrical companies were permitted to perform.

However, the present title was first given to John Dryden (1631-1700) in 1668 by King Charles II. Dryden was very much a Royalist, celebrating the return of the monarchy following the end of the Commonwealth. After the death of Charles II, his successor King James II appeared to be moving towards Roman Catholicism, or at least Catholic toleration, and Dryden was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1685. This move proved to be a mistake: James's attitude aroused the ire of the British people, and he was forced to abdicate in 1688, being replaced by William III, who ruled until 1702, jointly with James's sister Queen Mary II until her death in 1694. Dryden lost his Laureateship to his enemy Thomas Shadwell (1642-1692).

The appointment carried an honorarium of one hundred pounds sterling, but two years after his appointment as Poet Laureate Dryden was also appointed to the post of Royal Historiographer, which carried an additional honorarium of two hundred pounds; after this, the Poet Laureate always had this additional post. To be honest, I don't know how long this lasted, because most of the articles describing the later Laureates do not mention it. However, the remuneration for the Laureateship has remained at one hundred pounds a year up to the present.

Shadwell was followed by Nahum Tate (1652-1715) in 1692; he is now remembered mostly for writing the words for the carol While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night; he died in poverty. He was succeeded by Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718) in 1715, when King George I had just assumed the throne. As with a number of the early Laureates, Rowe was known best as a dramatist, but of course as we have seen in earlier articles the boundary between dramatist and poet was very diffuse then; and to some extent it still is: T. S. Eliot is a good example. Rowe was also very well-known for being the first to attempt a critical edition of the works of William Shakespeare. Up to his appointment, the major regular duty was to compose a New Year Ode, but with the arrival of King George a Birthday Ode was added.

Rowe was followed by Laurence Eusden (1688-1730). It is alleged that he received the Laureateship by flattering the Duke of Newcastle: he eventually became the rector of Coningsby, where he died. He was satirized frequently and derisively by Alexander Pope.

His successor was Colley Cibber (1671-1757) who was best known as an actor and theatre manager; he was also a playwright, and his play Love's Last Shift; or, The Fool in Fashion (1696) is an early example of a 'sentimental comedy', a dramatic form which dominated the English stage for the better part of a century. After the death of Queen Anne, in 1714, he became more political, writing and adapting plays in support of the Whig cause, which eventually led to his appointment as Poet Laureate. The following is an anonymous epigram on his appointment:

             On The New Laureate
In merry old England, it once was a rule,
The king had his poet, as well as his fool;
And now we're so frugal, I'd have you to know it,
That Cibber may serve both for fool and for poet.

                                                              Anon

Cibber was succeeded by William Whitehead (1715-1785), who was appointed by King George III. He was educated in Cambridge, becoming a Fellow in 1740. He became a tutor to Viscount Villiers, son of the Earl of Jersey, taking up residence in London. After his appointment to the Laureateship, he wrote annual poems in the Royal honour. He was not altogether happy in this rôle: he privately circulated amongst his friends a poem entitled A Pathetic Apology for All Laureates, Past, Present, and to Come in which he remarks to poets who ridiculed the formal poems Laureates were required to write for specific occasions:

The Laureat's odes are sung but once,
And then not heard - while your renown
For half a season stuns the town…..

His successor was Henry Pye (1745-1813), and this is the first time a Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, became directly involved in the appointment. Pye served in Parliament from 1784 to 1790, and became a police magistrate. In the words of Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature: "Fancying himself a poet, he published many volumes of verse; he was made Poet Laureate in 1790, perhaps as a reward for his faithful support…The appointment was looked on as ridiculous, and his birthday odes were a continual source of derision." Following Pye's death, there was some confusion. The Prince Regent offered the post to Robert Southey (1774-1843) who was a close friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. At the same time, the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, approached Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), who in 1810 had published The Lady of the Lake, of which this is an extract from the First Canto:

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er, 
        Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking:
Dream of battled fields no more,
        Days of danger, nights of waking.
In our isle's enchanted hall,
        Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,
Fairy strains of music fall,
        Every sense in slumber dewing.
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Dream of fighting fields no more:
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.

As a young man, Southey became enthused with the ideals of the French Revolution, and in 1796 published his long poem Joan of Arc. He met Coleridge while at Cambridge in 1794. In 1795 he married Edith Fricker, and encouraged Coleridge to marry her sister, Sara. Later, Coleridge left the family, and Southey assumed the financial responsibility for both, which was a considerable challenge: he produced a very large amount of writings of all sorts to earn a living. His poetry is not read all that much these days; although his prose style is still generally admired.

With the accession of King George IV in 1820, the requirement for odes to the monarch was abandoned, which increased the flexibility of the post greatly. By the time Southey died, Victoria was on the throne. William Wordsworth (1771-1855) was appointed Poet Laureate; at the age of 73 the oldest Laureate ever appointed, and on expressing concern about the ceremonial obligations of the post, was assured by the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, that "you shall have nothing required of you." Since this time, the post has been entirely honorary, and appointees have been free to interpret their rôle in their own ways. Wordsworth's successor was Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), who in 1883 became 1st Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Freshwater, and is now generally called 'Alfred, Lord Tennyson'. Tennyson was enormously popular and admired as a poet. His The Charge of the Light Brigade, inspired by a report in the London Times of December 2nd, 1854 of the suicidal charge by the Light Brigade down a valley at Balaclava during the Crimean War is an example of a 'laureate poem'. When he died, the Laureateship was left vacant for four years as a mark of respect.

Alfred Austin (1835-1913) was appointed in 1896. He was, poetically, a light-weight: but following Wordsworth and Tennyson cannot have been easy!

The poets appointed in the 20th Century have all been heavyweights. Austin was succeeded by Robert Bridges (1844-1930):

                      Nightingales

     Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,
     And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom
          Ye learn your song:
Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,
     Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air
          Bloom the year long!

     Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:
     Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,
          A throe of the heart,
Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,
     No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound,
          For all our art.

     Alone, aloud in the raptured ears of men
     We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,
          As night is withdrawn
From those sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May,
     Dream, while the innumerable choir of day
          Welcome the dawn.

Day-Lewis was succeeded by John Betjeman (1906-1984). Betjeman, to quote Merriam-Webster again, was "known for his nostalgia for the near past, his exact sense of place, and his precise rendering of social nuance, which made him widely read at a time when much of what he wrote about was vanishing." He really hated the gradual erosion of the English landscape by what he regarded as modernistic industrial ugliness: his early poem about the town of Slough (pronounced to rhyme with 'now') begins:

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs, and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

After his death, it is said that Phillip Larkin (1922-1985) was first approached, but declined, and Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was appointed. Ted Hughes was regarded as Britain's leading poet, and some have called him the greatest poet of this century. At the same time, his relationship with Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) and what some see as his contribution to her breakdown and suicide has resulted in his being very strongly disliked by a number of people: his reputation in the United States is still ambiguous, although his Birthday Letters, which was published in early 1998, has done something to repair this.

Following Hughes's death, there was something of a hiatus. Various names were being bandied about, and in true British fashion the bookmaker William Hill declared the odds on a number of the possibles. Derek Walcott (1930-), who was born a subject of the British crown in the Caribbean island of Santa Lucia, was suggested: he won the Nobel prize for literature in 1992, although his themes have generally explored the Caribbean cultural experience. Another name was that of Seamus Heaney (1939-), one of Britain's most admired poets at the moment. According to one source, the principal competitor to the eventual winner was Carol Ann Duffy (there has never been a woman Poet Laureate in England). The other names on the betting list were Wendy Cope, Benjamin Zephania, James Fenton, Tom Paulin, and Geoffrey Hill. The eventual selection was Andrew Motion, who wrote biographies of John Keats and Phillip Larkin, and is in many ways the most conventional of the candidates. A major change this time is that the appointment is for ten years instead of for life.

Other countries have also created a post of Poet Laureate. In the United States, a number of States created a Laureate post, but the first Poet Laureate of the United States was Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989), who was appointed in 1986. The position is generally annual, and the Laureate is chosen by the Librarian of Congress. I shall return to the subject of the American Laureates in a future article.

I have decided to select The Scholar by Robert Southey; To England by Alfred Austin, and On the Table by the new Laureate, Andrew Motion.