Betjeman
Writing the Public Life
By Kevin J. Gardner
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Subjects: All Literature, Religion & Literature |
A household name in Great Britain, John Betjeman was a public literary figure who openly declared his Christian faith and championed the social and aesthetic joys of Anglicanism as unique to English identity. Through poetry in newspapers and on radio and television broadcasts, Betjeman celebrated the cultural significance of the Church of England well beyond its religious role. Although a steadfast proponent for Christianity and the Church, Gardner explains, Betjeman nevertheless struggled mightily to believe the faith, and he was forthcoming with his own spiritual failures. In this master study of his writings, Gardner deems Betjeman to be the poet of the Church of England—and demonstrates his works to be a vital part of Anglicanism’s living traditions.
"Of all the commentators on John Betjeman and his works, Kevin Gardner seems to me the most acute."
—Bevis Hillier, author of the three-volume authorized biography of Betjeman and President of the Betjeman Society
“Gardner convincingly asserts that Betjeman’s thinking and writing is constructed with the stuff of Anglicanism in all its diverse nature. It is a moving endorsement.”
— Anthony Thwaite, Order of the British Empire, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
“Deserving of attention and respect, Betjeman is a discerning, detailed, and sustained unpeeling of the mentality of lay Anglicanism and a religious meditation on the legitimacy of doubt in a system of faith. A brilliant work by the supreme Betjeman scholar of our times.”
— Stephen Games
Kevin J. Gardner is Associate Professor of English at Baylor University. He is the editor of Faith and Doubt of John Betjeman: An Anthology of his Religious Verse. Gardner lives in Waco, Texas.
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Other books by:
Kevin J. Gardner
Books in Series:
The Making of the Christian Imagination
Betjeman - Writing the Public Life
Chesterton - The Nightmare Goodness of God
The Devil as Muse - Blake, Byron, and the Adversary
Dostoevsky - Language, Faith, and Fiction
