In 1984-85, during the protracted coalminer\u2019s strike in Great Britain, Tony Harrison, the well-known poet, dramatist, translator, and screenwriter, wrote the poem \u2018v.\u2019, modeled to an extent on Thomas Gray\u2019s \u2018Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard\u2019. In 1987, after Channel 4 made a film version of the poem, \u2018v.\u2019 acquired a certain notoriety, less for its subject matter-the socioeconomics of the coalfields and in particular the city of Leeds-than for its reproduction of yobbo-slang and graffitied obscenities within the text of this \u2018highbrow\u2019 and highly allusive poem. Aesthetic and social decorum, the politics of work stoppages and unemployment, and the new demographics of contemporary British urban life-these were the subjects raised and debated by Harrison\u2019s complex and compelling poem, when translated into its new cinematic medium. Profs. Heinzelman and Charlesworth will host a discussion of the poem in light of these issues. (A copy of the poem can be found online by searching for \u2018Tony Harrison v.\u2019) Kurt Heinzelman, Professor of English, is a poet and translator. His scholarly research has been in the areas of British Romanticism, Modernism, and Poetry and Poetics. Michael Charlesworth, Assistant Chairman in the Art History Department, is originally from the north of England. He received his Ph.D in the history and theory of art at the University of Kent in Canterbury. His scholarly fields are landscape art and the history of gardens as well as photography before 1918.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1984-85, during the protracted coalminer\u2019s strike in Great Britain, Tony Harrison, the well-known poet, dramatist, translator, and screenwriter, wrote the poem \u2018v.\u2019, modeled to an extent on Thomas Gray\u2019s \u2018Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard\u2019. In 1987, after Channel 4 made a film version of the poem, \u2018v.\u2019 acquired a certain notoriety, less for […]","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":20,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/09\/British-Studies-06-09-01.mp3","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"15.5M","filesize_raw":"16251816","date_recorded":"01-09-2006","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":""},"tags":[],"categories":[],"series":[2],"class_list":{"0":"post-17","1":"podcast","2":"type-podcast","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"series-bsls","7":"entry"},"acf":{"related_episodes":"","hosts":[{"ID":949,"post_author":"10","post_date":"2021-01-20 19:50:06","post_date_gmt":"2021-01-20 19:50:06","post_content":"\n
Wm. Roger Louis is head of the British Studies Lecture Series. He is an American historian and a professor at the University of Texas at Austin<\/a>. Louis is the editor-in-chief of The Oxford History of the British Empire<\/a><\/em>, a former president of the American Historical Association<\/a> (AHA), a former chairman of the U.S. Department of State's Historical Advisory Committee, and a founding director of the AHA's National History Center in Washington, D. C.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Wm. Roger Louis","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"wm-roger-louis","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2021-01-20 19:50:06","post_modified_gmt":"2021-01-20 19:50:06","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/?post_type=speaker&p=949","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"guests":[{"ID":758,"post_author":"40","post_date":"2020-06-23 18:32:50","post_date_gmt":"2020-06-23 18:32:50","post_content":"\n Kurt Heinzelman co-founded\u00a0The Poetry Miscellany<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Bat City Review<\/em>. A scholar of Poetry and Poetics, with a speciality in British Romanticism, he has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and was twice a finalist for the Poetry Book of the Year from the Texas Institute of Letters (The Halfway Tree and Black Butterflies<\/em>). His third book,\u00a0The Names They Found There<\/em>, was Notable Book of the Year by Poetry International; his latest collections are\u00a0Intimacies & Other Devices<\/em>\u00a0(2013) and\u00a0Whatever You May Say<\/em>\u00a0(2017). He has served as Executive Curator of the Ransom Center and as Director of Education at the Blanton Museum. An Honorary Professor at Swansea University (Wales), he has been since 2005 a judge of the International Dylan Thomas Prize.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Kurt Heinzelman","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"kurt-heinzelman","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2020-06-23 18:32:50","post_modified_gmt":"2020-06-23 18:32:50","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/?post_type=speaker&p=758","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":761,"post_author":"40","post_date":"2020-06-23 18:33:49","post_date_gmt":"2020-06-23 18:33:49","post_content":"\n Michael Charlesworth gained his PhD in History and Theory of Art from the University of Kent at Canterbury in England. He has taught the area of nineteenth century Europe at the University of Texas at Austin since 1993. An authority on landscape and the history of gardens, on photography until 1918, and on landscape drawing and painting, Dr. Charlesworth is the author of\u00a0Derek Jarman\u00a0(Reaktion Books, 2011),\u00a0Landscape and Vision in Nineteenth Century Britain and France\u00a0(Ashgate, 2008),\u00a0The Gothic Revival 1720-1870, (3 Vols, 2002); and\u00a0The English Garden\u00a0(3 Vols., 1993). He has also written articles about early cartography; book illustration; the late twentieth century artists Derek Jarman and Ian Hamilton Finlay; panoramic representation of landscape; and photographic history.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Michael Charlesworth","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"michael-charlesworth","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2020-06-23 18:33:49","post_modified_gmt":"2020-06-23 18:33:49","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/?post_type=speaker&p=761","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"transcript":" Welcome to the first British studies seminar of the fall semester 2006.
\n\ue5d4
\nThis is a landmark in the history of the seminar because as you can see,
\nthe three of us here at the head table are wearing microphones. British studies
\nhas entered the 20th century, if not the 21st. We
\nare now establishing a full sound archive. Each
\nof the sessions from now on will be recorded. Believe
\nit or not, we also have a British studies website. That it’s going up next Wednesday.
\nThis is indeed a revolutionary
\ndevelopment, as is for quite a different reason. The session this afternoon,
\nthe two speakers are Curt Hinds, Cilman Professor of English, and Michael
\nMichael Charlesworth Charlesworth, the historian of art. Michael
\nis actually a junior fellow in British studies. British the junior
\nfellows program in British studies is somewhat of a metaphysical concept.
\nOnce you are a junior fellow, even you become old and famous. As in the case
\nof Michael, you are still always a junior fellow. Now,
\nthe reason that the session this afternoon is also
\na landmark is because some people have actually read the poem and it is
\nexpressed amazement that people have actually come to the session this afternoon.
\nNow, there was a certain amount of comedy in all of this because when
\nKirt first mentioned to me the topic for this afternoon session, it was at the same time
\nthat the movie V for Vendetta was playing. And I thought somehow
\nthat the session was going to be about the happy anarchism associated with Sidney
\nmonads. It turned out to be something. It was a wonderful movie,
\nby the way, something to be quite different. Somehow, though, I thought
\nthat the Churchills V sign would be a quite appropriate way
\nto greet KERTH. Whenever I saw him here in the halls of the the
\nHRC, and I was reminded that when Churchill start
\nfirst started giving his V sign, one of his ministers said, No,
\nPrime Minister, you can’t do that. V in Turkish is an obscenity.
\nThat rather stirred Churchill on because it reminded him of
\nGallipoli, of course. And so he took great pleasure in the V sign.
\nAnd whenever I would see Kurt here, I would always greet him with a V
\nand a little. Did I know it a little? Did he know that he was getting a Turkish obscenity?
\nA lot of this does, in a way, seem to be very appropriate for the poem this
\nafternoon. I find this very funny, ironic because British
\nstudies has always been considered to be among among the most staid of
\nthe liberal arts programs. And here we are beginning
\nour first broadcast with the poem
\nV. Kurt, I will let you begin with this. And whereas
\nour podium here this year, I have several excellent
\ncopies now, OK? Oh, yes. OK.
\nActually, Michael is going to begin. Yeah. Should I begin your show?
\nRight. Please. Well, I won’t need it. Really. Michael, because the acoustics.
\nRight. Should I stand up? Yeah. Just.
\nWell, I should say we’re to do some terrible swearing
\nup at this end of the room. You know, the effing and blinding you’re going to hear is sloughing on Earth.
\nSo I will understand if sensitive souls have to depart in the middle because
\nit’s all too much. And I’m not quite sure really why
\nwe’re discussing Vae at this particular time is the reason for this cut.
\nYou got me into this. I asked you to do it. Is there any reason why 2006
\nin particular? Yes, but they’re not they’re recording. Not broadcasting to you. Semper fi.
\nRight. That’s the next steps in the next century.
\nPatients question. So that’s a no, is
\nit? There’s no particular reason why 2006. But
\nmy job really since I lived in the West Yorkshire coalfield from
\nAbout events or at least alluding to events of the previous year. My job is really to give
\nsome context for the poem to start with. And then we’ll
\nhear an extract of Tony Harrison reading
\nsome of the well. And then Kurt will make some statements and then we’ll hear Tony Harrison reading
\npart of the poem. So the context really was obviously that Mrs.
\nThatcher had won the election in nineteen seventy nine after three years
\nof possibly the most inert and do nothing government that anybody could remember.
\nThe Labor government of Jim James Callahan,
\npossibly the most feeble prime minister that we had. I understand. I’m trying to give you the context
\nof how things felt back in 1984. And whatever we may say now about
\nMr. Callahan, few kind things were said about him on either side. Back in 1984,
\nI remember the election. I remember it was the conservative slogan was Labor
\nisn’t working. Wasn’t it? The posters had Labor isn’t working with queues of people standing
\nnext to miles of rubbish in the streets. And I can remember the labor poster
\nwhich had a picture of Mr. Callahan with the slogan The Labor Way is the
\nbetter way, which sounded a bit like some sort of grammar problem in primary school. But anyway,
\nit had no ability to reach the electorate who presumably felt
\nthat some energy was going to be preferable to five more years
\nof total inertia and voted the Conservatives in. Mrs. Thatcher
\nbecoming the least popular prime minister, had ever had, ever.
\nAnd then the Argentines obligingly
\ninvaded the Falkland Islands, enabling her to score her greatest victory
\nin 1982 and to become the most popular prime minister we’d ever seen
\never. So she then
\nwent into the process of really dismantling
\nor attempting to dismantle the coal mining industry of Britain on the grounds that
\nwe no longer needed the coal. It’s not so much the coal was old fashioned or that
\nit was warming the globe up. It was just that we didn’t need it
\nfor economic reasons. Now, she had prepared for this by
\nas soon as being elected in 1979, she had greatly enlarged
\nrecruitment into the police force on the wave
\nof money that she unleashed to the police. Something in the order of a 35
\nper cent pay rise was awarded to the police within her first year. So
\nat the same time, she was quite happy in that first year to concede to the miners a
\nsort of habitual really after the struggles with the previous conservative government of
\nthe early 1970s. But the miners in accepting this
\npay rise made a Foulston bargain with the National Coal Board because
\nthey agreed to productivity increases, which meant that
\nthey produced more coal than we consumed. And by the end of 1983,
\nthere were great big stockpiles of coal all over the place, just
\nall ready for the Central Electricity Generating Board to use in the power stations
\nto create the electricity that the country needed. So when the miners went into their strike
\nin the winter of 1993 to nineteen eighty four, they were up against this huge difficulty.
\nUnlike the previous successful miners strikes of ten years earlier of having all these
\ngiant heaps of coal oil all over the country so that
\nby the year the strike could last all winter long. And then beginning of spring, when demands
\nfor electricity were lessened, the stockpiles of coal were finally becoming
\nexhausted. So it made a huge great. The miners dug themselves into a huge, great hole, really,
\nby agreeing to the productivity deal, part of the bargain back in 1979.
\nAnd it reflects the fact they didn’t have a particularly brilliant leader. He was
\na sort of a bit of a showman, really. And in this, he was always
\ngetting himself on television and office. A girl who came from Barnsley.
\nBut he wasn’t necessarily the greatest strategic thinker that the miners had ever had.
\nSo he didn’t really seem to have much of a response to the difficulties of the strike other than
\nto appeal for a more general strike among the working population.
\nAnd it all ended sort of badly for the miners, of course. But I should say that the
\ncountry was absolutely split down the middle between people who wanted to try to help the miners,
\nsending food, enjoining picket lines and
\ntrying to put pressure on the government from that side of things. And those who just wanted to see them, their
\npower broken and them swept away. And so the country was completely split down the middle.
\nAnd that’s in after a rather contentious decade of the 1970s in
\nwhich various splits within the population became apparent
\nbased on politics, based on class and based on race particularly. So it’s
\nquite a contentious decade, the 1970s. And this was really the
\nkind of logical conclusion really to the to that what you might call the long decade.
\nSo that some of the background to the poem being
\nwritten in nineteen eighty five, the poet’s response really to a visiting his
\nparents grave in Leeds where he came from is a Yorkshireman, Tony Harrison, and
\nI’m finding it marked up by somebody with a
\nspray tan of paint. Tony Harrison himself got
\naway from Leeds and is famous, of course, for his theatrical
\ntranslations of the ancient Greek plays, for the librettos
\nthat he wrote for Harrison Bird whistles, operas and four other really
\nhigh culture stuff that he did down in London,
\nbastion of high culture. Having got away from Leeds and having two houses, one in
\nNewcastle upon Tyne, even further north in Yorkshire is and one in Florida. So he
\nmade a brilliant success of learning many.
\nIs that OK? Yeah. What I’m going to do now is just
\ngive a very brief interpretive
\nparaphrase of the poem for those of you who didn’t have a chance to read it. This will be very
\nshort and my synopsis will take us up to the point at which
\nwe’re going to listen to Harrison perform the poem,
\nand that will take us two thirds of the way through the poem. And then we’ll start talking about
\nthe last third, which to me is the is where the rubber meets the road. I mean, it’s the difficult,
\ntonally difficult part of the poem.
\nTony Harrison is a rare example in the modern world of a poet who makes
\nhis living as a writer and not as a university creative writing teacher,
\nwhich is a fact that may be of some significance to this poem,
\nwhich is a poem in some sense about victory, about what constitutes
\nvictory and victory of one kind of writing over another, one
\nclass over another. He was born in 1937 in Leeds, and he grew up there,
\neventually reading classics at Leeds University. He subsequently lectured in Nigeria
\nand Prague and was for several years the resonant dramatist at the National Theater,
\nas Michael has mentioned. He’s an opera librettist. He’s also a translator.
\nOne of his most notable works was the or a satire that he translated for
\nPeter Hall at the National Theater. That’s the one that’s done with the white masks. It’s on
\nfilm. If you ever want to see it. And as Michael also mentioned, he lives in
\nnow in England and Florida and is married. This is important for the poem. He’s married
\nto the opera singer Theresa Stratus, who’s one
\nof whose famous roles was Lulu in the Auburn Bag Opera.
\nThe Speaker of V. Harrison’s poem, a four hundred and forty eight lines written in Brian Quatrains,
\nidentifies himself as a Liesman and a poet. Indeed, he identifies himself
\nas Tony Harrison. The poem begins with his visit to the Beeston Hill
\nCemetery in Leeds, where his parents are buried. The family plot, which is placed among
\nthe plots for butcher, publican and Baker for WORDSWORTH, the
\nchurch organ builder Byron, the leather worker and Appleyard, the haberdasher
\nhas one space left, presumably waiting for, as the poet puts
\nit. Me baade. This is the same cemetery
\nhe used to visit regularly as a boy with his father, but the many differences between then and
\nnow quickly start to add up. Harrison is not now a regular visitor,
\nbut a transient one, catching a memorial moment here before he catches the train
\nback to London, where he lives. The gravestones have tipped even more because
\nof the subsidence of the earth under them. The cemetery is built on a hill underneath which are old
\nmine coal mines. The stones are even more marked than ever before, with
\ngraffiti obscenities written by Leeds United fans, quote, taking
\na shortcut home through these graves here who reassert the glory of their team
\nby spraying words on tombstones, pissed on beer.
\nAnd the demographics of Leeds has become increasingly less Anglo, more colored
\nand more Muslim. Roughly the first third of the poem is a monologue.
\nIt is the Orwellian year 1984, the start of what would be a
\nmajor coal miners strike. And the narrator is thinking deep liberal thoughts
\nabout his own mortality. He is nearing 50 and the polarities that divide
\nus and these are some that he mentions. Man, the wife,
\ncommunist, the fascist left. The right class, the class.
\nHindu, Sikh. Soul, body, heart. Mind, EastWest.
\nWas them. And of course, leads the derby.
\nThe poet intimates that his poem. This Penns, all I have of magic
\nwand, he says, is his high-brow attempt to make sense of why these,
\nquote, kids use aerosols to tag everything in sight
\nand what they’re outlawed writing has to do with the decompositional. He sees
\nall around him. At this point, one of those
\nskinhead yobbos with the spray can suddenly enters the poem and engages
\nthe poet in a dialog, a dialog in which many readers have found the skinhead
\ngets the upper hand. And it’s at this point that I would like
\nto turn to Tony Harrison’s reading
\nof the poem. This is a reading
\nMichael mentioned. The poem was published in nineteen eighty five. It’s published in the London
\nReview of Books. Of course, almost no one read it. It was then several years later,
\nmade into a film that was shown on Channel 4
\nand it was at this point that the that the that the poem really
\nacquired some notoriety, and particularly for this section
\nthat we’re about to hear where the skinhead speaks in his
\ndemotic language and Harrison responds
\nin the same in the same diction.
\nThis recording is taken off the film, so it’s not pristine quality,
\nbut I think you’ll be able to to hear what’s happening.
\nAnd as I say, this is the moment at which Harrison’s own monologue is
\ndisrupted, disrupting the whole shape of the poem from here on out.
\nWhite House Reagan, Suzanne, then.
\nRight. Really? And she
\nmight choose to listen to this. We’re at
\nline 150. If you have a lined text. And as I say, it’s
\nthis about a third of the way into the poem.
\nIf you have the text I passed out, it’s the upper left side of page five ninety six.
\nAnd he’s just asked these big questions. Why inscribe these graves with content
\nshed? First,
\nhe’s just said, why inscribe these graves with content [INAUDIBLE]? Why choose neglected
\ntombstones to disfigure?
\nThis pigment of black century packing backing. This
\nblows that blow up and that’s how.
\nThat to shock the living not allowed the dead from to piece
\nto live in support of a pool of his way down the list of the dead.
\nIt was one desecration. Jobless,
\nthough, they are helping these cities, even though they’re king off one note in
\nthe needs of the pack, Michigan. Even get sprayed on the tombstones here.
\nThen what is it that these crude words revealing?
\nWhat is it? With real life hitting the dead, is
\nxenophobic feeling or just a treat occur because men die?
\nSo I think you guys feel that we did get food.
\nThank you. I get it now. [INAUDIBLE] do go [INAUDIBLE] yourself.
\nPre-destined. She didn’t tell you to stop
\nturning left or. She didn’t understand we have something
\nelse. She’s always looking for help in English
\non this issue with aspirations. First, the press
\nmight have made a call to Britain and to all of the
\nnations made in the name of love for peace.
\nTaxation front of them talking too much to
\nthe [INAUDIBLE] that don’t come. That’s cool as fine.
\nJust looking for
\na new united moving gets too insane. And how far the half
\ninside you makes you go with all the again,
\nagain, again. I’ll tell you then what made
\nit out of the blue? It’s been on my great job. They
\nbutcher public. They taught me how to do anything.
\nNo, you his. If I lost in the sense and I
\nwas killed, then that’s alive. Do what seniors are going to
\nwork with and build it. This book about adoption
\nis the number one committee listening to the listening DVD.
\nAnd I hope you don’t think I’m doing like [INAUDIBLE] shockingly.
\nThen I can do is take an angel down and
\ndo what is up to the boy Mason for that job.
\nI hope that fine. This rough work wooden
\njob online through Byron Thomas last year in
\ntwo inches or in politics and the age of you. I’m not even
\nclose to the word
\ncomes before you start your jeering. The reason
\nwhy I want this in a book to give people like you a hearing.
\nYes. You did not listen. The only reason
\nI liked this boy. I still don’t like you to do the dirt on the
\ndesk to give to them. I feel like looking for
\nthat, too. Did you it?
\nNo. And it doesn’t matter. You do in point
\nunited [INAUDIBLE] Rambo’s for a
\n[INAUDIBLE] you uptown. Yes. No, not
\nreally. We’re talking. Go
\nto Kingdom. Come and find party going up against him on the line. It’ll be great till
\nI’m done. I’ve done my best to
\nnot compromise. Yes.
\nLet me tell you a couple while. I’ll
\ntell you how to clean it up. A letter that
\nI won’t be surprised a while. Just why I made my mind up. I’ve got to
\nget in. I’m.
\nIt wasn’t just the speeding. And at the same time, half the crowd
\njeering. You may be in a problem.
\nBut I think, you know, high soprano range beyond
\nall reason and control in the world. Are you? Nothing changes.
\nIt seems pretty silly. I tell you
\nwhat I heard. I know that rule of thumb. You refuse to
\nelectioneering straight from the walking home. I complain, though I hardly
\nknow. I make it
\na fire extinguisher on don’t donkeys
\nand Dorian Gray. I could run back to then
\na good job. They yell down, but not the to.
\nAnd then you see all their lives and get a better man. The
\nchicken. They want to create a system that is a mess
\nand jump in and
\nout now. Given it is all your
\nfault. Not much less. Give me that.
\nNot. That’s why they’ve resisted. They couldn’t come say
\nthat they ever so get behind me that every kid
\ngets a double dip. I don’t know it. It’s normal
\nworking. Then masc.
\nit is not a working marriage. I mean, look and may like that Symphony.
\nAnd I take him on to be obscene. He has it a little slit
\nto one. There are have been
\nraces in the morning. You’re going to get
\nit’s not you to remain in this class war killing
\nyourself healthy. Come on, me something. I
\ndon’t know. I probably work. I’m sure all, you know,
\nbe thinking,
\noh, you’re so proud. It. My
\nnext goal for a half an arm spray. Next time you take the shortcut.
\nHe took the time to read
\nthe novel and prepared to sign nice break from
\nthat. And so the.
\nIt was mind.
\nSo this apparently antagonistic
\nconfrontation reveals that the skinhead
\nis actually an other or brother, poet or doppelganger or secret sharer
\nor whatever you want to call him. And then the poem again reverts to
\nmonologue, but with a newly urgent need to explain publicly
\nwhat as a man, a husband and a poet that is as a mainly Middle-Class but culturally
\nelitist Leeds expatriate, Harrison believes in the poem ends
\nwith intimations of his own mortality. And like the poem that is one of Harrison’s overt
\nmodels, namely Thomas Gray’s elegy written in a country churchyard, the poet closes
\nby penning his own epitaph. Now,
\nwhat I hope we can we can spend some time talking about is
\nthe the aftermath of this of this confrontation
\nin which. Harrison, the speaker realizes
\nthat he is more united with this skinhead
\nthan he can imagine. And in fact, the first sign of his
\nof his union with him is that he he picks up the the language,
\nthe language that the that the guy is using and tries to outdo
\nhim. Although I think I think myself that skinhead has the better lines
\nall the way through. You know, I told you, no more Greek has just a great line.
\nYou think I’m [INAUDIBLE] dumb? At least
\none of the issues at stake here is who owns
\nthe act of writing? Who owns the act of writing? And why does it
\nmatter to even raise the question? I just want to remind you that historically
\nwriting is a skill that has been taught
\nand learned through long apprenticeship at scribal
\nskills is not something that is taken lightly. Historically speaking, it’s
\nonly really in the the post computer era.
\nWhere? Penmanship, for instance, is no longer taught in
\nschools. Where MySpace is your space and
\nanyone can blog. That the question of who owns the act of
\nwriting becomes a newly urgent. What the computer has done with the keyboard
\nhas done is to utterly democratize this this act.
\nAnd in fact, Harrison goes on to say, look, he signed his name and it was
\nmine. His last name is Harrison, too. Harrison says, you know, I’ve seen my name in neon
\nlights in on Broadway and on the spines of books. He says, why
\nshouldn’t he sign, you know, sign the tombstone? What’s the big what’s the big deal
\nhere? Why am I so aggro about all this aggro? Does it affect what Harrison asks?
\nI think actually, Michael and I look at the ending of the poem
\nsomewhat differently. I see. I see the last half of the pond, the last third
\nof the poem as a as a.
\nA profound retreat. On Harrison’s part from the questions
\nthat he raised prior to the intervention of the skinhead, and
\nthose questions are stated most clearly
\nat lines one sixty and one sixty two and the passage we just heard.
\nWhat is it that these crude words are revealing? What is it that this agro
\nact implies? Giving the dead their xenophobic feeling or just a
\ncreed occur. Because man dies and he’s
\npreceded those questions by saying that he believes the dead would want their desecrations caught.
\nWhat happens at the end of the poem is that.
\nIs that Harrison tries to out yobbo the yobbo by writing
\nan epitaph that contains its own desecration.
\nFor those of you who haven’t read to the end, let me just let me just take you there.
\nLet me pick up about six, seven stanzas from the from the end.
\nRemember, this is 1930, in 1984. So he is thinking millennial
\nthoughts, he’s thinking those deep or wellin thoughts about what the
\nbig future holds. And he says, next millennium, you’ll have to search quite hard to find out where
\nI’m buried, but I’m near the grave of haberdasher. Appleyard. The pile of harps or some new
\nneon beer? Find Byron WORDSWORTH or turn left between one grave. Mark Broadbent.
\nOne Mark Richardson. Bring some solution with you that can clean whatever new crude
\nwords have been sprayed on. If love of art or love gives
\nyou a front that the grave I’m in. Graffiti, then maybe a race. The
\nmore offensive [INAUDIBLE] [INAUDIBLE]. But leave with the worn united one small v
\nvictory. For vast, slow coal creating forces
\nthat hue the bodies seems to get the soul.
\nWill Earth run out of her diurnal courses before repeating her creation of black
\ncoal? But choose a day like I chose in mid-May
\nor earlier when Apple and Hawthorn tree. No matter if boys boot their ball all
\nday clinging to their blossoms and won’t shake them free if having come this far.
\nSomebody reads these verses and he she wants to understand. Face this grave on
\nBeeston Hill. You’re back to Leeds and read the chiseled epitaph. I’ve planned.
\nBeneath your feet is a poet than a poet. poetries supporter
\nif you’re here to find how poems can grow from feature to it. [INAUDIBLE].
\nFind the beef, the beer, the bread. Then look behind.
\nNow.
\nWhich is, of course, a classic working class put down. I mean,
\nwhat he’s saying is I got away. You know, I’ve got my education.
\nI got to I don’t have to stay in Moldea leads with you lot where everything’s changing
\nand the world that you knew, all that my father knew is disappearing.
\nAnd immigrants are moving in and everything’s changing. I got out.
\nIt’s a classic working class triumphal gesture. Sort of
\na rude gesture in the face of everybody who failed to get out. It’s basically what the poem does.
\nIt’s what the poet does. It’s the poet’s epitaph, right? And
\nthe art was quite it was quite surprising to me, really, to.
\nTo come back to this poem after so long and realize that.
\nSo on one level, there’s that, but he also put the last third of the poem,
\nacknowledges that he can’t do without the skinhead inside him. He goes
\nhome, he hangs up his clothes. It’s all really nice. He talks about love and he
\nsays a voice that scorns chorales is yelling [INAUDIBLE].
\nIt’s the aera selling skin. I met today’s. So the person is
\ninside him. The Skins United underwrites the poet, and as
\nwell as being about ownership of writing this poem is surely also about ownership of
\nspeech in the sense that it was immensely controversial
\nto broadcast it on BBC 2. I think it was on Channel Four in Miami
\nback in 1980, something or other. I mean, I don’t know whether in the context of 2006,
\nthe language seems just, you know, more ordinary or tame because we’ve heard so much
\nmore of it all the time. And throughout the culture or not.
\nBut in a sense and in a sense, you could also relate it to Wordsworth’s
\narguments a long time ago about how the language of poetry has to be the language
\nof the common man. This is a classic endorsement of that, I
\nsuppose, in another way. So it’s quite a complicated relationship
\nthat he has with any and that skinhead. Had he got away
\nfrom Leeds, would himself have turned round and made a triumphal gesture to everybody
\nwho didn’t get out? You know, if he’d gone away and been successful as Harrison Wells and made
\nlots of money, that would have been his response to so. But it’s
\nit’s it’s prefaced by a very long section where he meditates on the state of the world.
\nReally? I dont. I see the first section of poem
\nas being sort of wishy washy liberal response to the fact that somebody vandalized
\nhis parents grave. He goes through all these, you know, tedious pink
\nposturing about it’s not really there for you. He does realize
\nthat the dead would want their desecrating code, does realize that much. But it’s maybe
\nthis is a creed occur because of the human condition or something. And then this the
\nencounter with the skinhead who sort of surges interview. Froze all that out.
\nReally? And then he’s thrust back on what he does believe in. Which is love
\nwhen the horse of the blood ties hacked and frayed, what’s left for us? He says his love.
\nBut even that is that meditation is disturbed by the skinheads voice
\nwhose aerosol can be said with bauk love.
\nSo. The last third of the poem, when I listened to this again last week, I was astonished
\nat how it dwelt upon the kinds of.
\nPolarized political conflict
\nthat he. We are very much living with. I mean, he
\nuses the television news as a way of. You know, figuring
\non bringing onto center stage all the conflicts of the world, which he’s sort of
\npreviewed in in the part that you read us. But
\nit seemed to be a stunning sort of statement about the entire
\nquarter century or something that we’ve had, and that’s not quite as long that 21 years we’ve had
\nsince it was it was written with us in the middle of problems which are just
\nemerging and prefigured by this or in some cases have just shifted their
\ngeographical location. So so
\nI found it quite a satisfying poem on the level that that
\nhe doesn’t indicate any kind of easy solution to this. He may may endorse,
\nyou know, John Lennon’s thing. All you need is love. But
\nat the end of the day, it’s also a very lonely kind of position because could consider that
\na lot of this is set in a graveyard. There’s no intimation of any spiritual or religious.
\nCompensation or. Response Oh, Perth, for sure.
\nThere’s no yeah, there’s no Harrison himself doesn’t believe in a post mortal
\nsolution to any of the polarities that are talked about in the poem.
\nBut I would I would just suggest that there’s a difference between
\nsaying that he believes that love. Compensates for everything. And
\nactually persuading us that that is the case. I mean, there is
\na there’s a facetious quality about the concluded conclusion
\nof the poem in which he he says, well, I’m going home, home to my woman, home
\nto my hearth, home to where I live. And we’re going to put on Lulu and listen to
\nTereza Stratas sing high D that will
\ncrack the stratosphere. He mix that pun and.
\nAnd. You could also you could also say that what the poem
\nis doing is not acknowledging his inner yobbo. His inner skinhead,
\nbut trading on the language, the demotic language
\nof the streets in order to make a make a poem that
\nis that is controversial and can get made into a film.
\nI mean, there’s a sense in which there’s a co-option that’s going on here, even as.
\nEven as Harrison is saying goodbye to Leeds, turning
\nhis back on it in every significant way, he’s exploiting it.
\nUsing it to. To fuel.
\nTo throw Cole on his own high brow fire. And
\nhe keeps on going in this elusive vein
\nright down to the to the last. The quotation from WORDSWORTH at the
\nend. Will Earth run out of her diurnal courses? Well, who’s supposed to get that exactly?
\nAnd well, many, many others.
\nThere are many other allusions and quotes that are going on here that require
\nnot a yobbo reader, but the likes of us. So I’m
\nI’m suspicious of that ending, even though I think Michael’s right,
\nthat he’s that it’s that it’s a put down. I don’t know whether it’s a put down
\nin a loving spirit. Yeah, well, I mean,
\nyou know, here to talking about this here, we should endorse what he says in a way. He says,
\nyou know, when you look back, when you face the graves of the other family members who are bakers and butchers and.
\nPublic publicans. And then you turn round in the graveyard
\nand look the other way. You see the institutions of learning that got him, the education
\nthat took him out of this, which is what we should endorse. Really, we should have no problem
\nwith that. But here’s what I mean by the facetious quality
\nand the kind of one upsmanship that for me, I give the poem finally a kind
\nof facetious or or.
\nAnnoyingly elitist feel. Remember when the yobbo takes one of those
\nbees and draws the slit in it. And of course, he’s making an obscenity,
\nbut. But Harrison knows and everyone who came to the technologies
\nof writing exhibition down in the ransom gallery knows that that V with a slit in it is the
\nSumerian word for woman. Yeah. I mean, this is
\nthe kind of jokey stuff that is going on all the time in the poem, like the reference
\nto the year 1984, we are supposed to hear or well we are supposed
\nto hear horrible. Well we’re supposed to understand diurnal courses. WORDSWORTH, not the WORDSWORTH, who is the
\nchurch organ builder. But you know, that other guy that me bard is competing
\nwith. And I don’t think that the poem ever relinquishes
\nthat kind of almost. Kind of fraternity boy.
\nSo here’s where, Michael, you’re overstating this. OK.
\nWell, what what is what is your take on this poll? I think it’s quite an interesting
\nand justly controversial.<\/p>\n"},"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/09\/louis-wm-roger-350_2-e1504902352406.jpg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/09\/british-studies.png","download_link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/podcast-download\/17\/september-01-2006-kurt-heinzelman-michael-charlesworth.mp3","player_link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/british-studies-lecture-series\/podcast-player\/17\/september-01-2006-kurt-heinzelman-michael-charlesworth.mp3","audio_player":"