on 25/4/01 12:35 pm, Peter Riley at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> What happened in the late 40s and 50s was in some measure the result of the
> return to normality, but not so much what we usually think of as 1950s
> English (Movement etc) -- David Jones and Burns Singer were also 1950s and
> a there was lot of other stuff going on which was far to the left,
> poetically, of The Movement, such as early Hughes. The Movement was the
> avant-garde of its day.
I agree with Peter here. It's not so much a question of looking back as
remembering. I knew John Wain (and met Philip Larkin) in the mid '50s.
Although they may have grown into crusty conservatives (and didn't Coleridge
and Wordsworth?) but in the 50s' the whole mood was different. It was the
postwar working classes finding their voices (not public schoolboys). And
one of the intense things at the time was regionalism, John Wain was from
the Potteries, Larkin from Coventry, the whole point was: very uncool places
which were celebrated as much more "in" than Oxford and Cambridge. Such
roots were emphasised as were regional voices. The poetry was meant to be
lyrical but also conversational ordinary language (man on the street stuff).
Orwell was an enormous force then - and what might be termed the Wigan
influence.
John Osborne's Look Back In Anger was a sensation. All those drawing room
comedies were dished. It was a strange mixture and there were strange
alliances, but then the voice of this "ordinary" poetry seemed
revolutionary, taking all this provincialism (and I remember John Wain
always wore a rusty tweed jacket and a flat cap) into the high halls. Poetry
was being raided by the mob or at least by poets who believed they were
bringing in a common touch.
It may seem very different now, and those particular left-wingers did become
grouchy conservatives in the late '60s and '70s. The impact of the Sixties
was extraordinary too and maybe a step too far for the Provincials who had
established themselves. The common touch was out and the weird and wonderful
was in. Can you imagine Philip Larkin in a kaftan?
Jackie
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