Being Rude to a Laureate

BEING RUDE TO A LAUREATE

In early 1969 I was in Paris, aged 18, on the start of an Oxbridge gap year ( the December term was the Oxbridge entrance exam term following Summer A levels). The culmination of a successful 6^th form career at a remote boarding school can breed an intellectual priggishness seldom matched later, except by the few fish who sustain their intellectual pre-eminence, self-believed or actual, into increasingly bigger ponds.

There I was in Paris, with a few friends from 6^th form, living in a comfortable garret sur la rive gauche, “learning French” at the Alliance Francaise ( then as now a slightly haphazard organisation)- all on a parental allowance. Heady times... in fact spent in going to arthouse films , going to museums and flirting with a friend’s cousin sur la rive droite.

That same friend with the attractive cousin also had a relative with a connection to the British Council. During my stay the Council put on French junket for the then new poet laureate, Cecil Day-Lewis.

I cannot now remember how, but we teenagers were give an invitation to a reception for CDL, held in a ludicrously Roccoco apartment on the Isle Saint Louis. Huge staircases; murals and ceilings depicting gods chasing nymphs, or battles, or nobility being noble. But despite this artistic intimidation, this was an opportunity for priggery not to be missed. I was well aware of CDL as left-wing poet of the Auden generation- indeed the one who actually joined the Communist Party. I was also aware of his journey away from the heady ideological certainties of the ‘30s: as the essay on CDL for the Poetry Foundation puts it:

In the post war years [CDL] received the kind of academic and official laurels reserved for poets who live long enough to be regarded as tamed.

(The essay goes on to suggest that the “only faith left” to CDL was a “romantic faith in poetry itself”.)

So I had no trouble in hitting on a strategy for the reception. I had “done” Wordsworth for English A level. He had moved from youthful radicalism to Grand Old Man status. I knew  Browning’s poem, “The Lost Leader”, written to non-celebrate Wordsworth’s acceptance of the laureateship. In particular I remembered ( and still do) the opening lines:

Just for a handful of silver he left us,

Just for a riband to stick on his  coat..

Wouldn’t it be fun ( or perhaps I, being earnest, vaguely thought it a cultural duty) to quote Browning’s lines to CDL and ask if he agreed that they applied equally to him? ( At age 18 this idea struck me as wonderfully original- it didn’t occur to me that others may have got there first.)

And that is what I did. Somehow (doubtless lacking at that age any social antenna telling me how to behave in the presence of a British Council celebrity guest) I managed to insinuate myself into CDL’s presence. He was at first agreeable in the pleasant but perfunctory way which eminent persons adopt with youngsters. But I immediately blurted out my question: “Do you think the lines [Browning quote] apply to you ?” He looked at me ( I won’t now invent the character of that look) and snapped: “Never heard of them” and turned away. To this day (forgive pun) I have not believed him. However, by then he didn’t care about Browinng –style criticism, especially when recycled by a recent schoolboy. Metaphorically, I was just a callow placard-waver who had got through security.

JLC July 2014