Oxford Writers

John Betjeman

John Betjeman was born on August 28th, 1906, near Highgate, London. He attended his first schools in Highgate. Then, he studied at the Dragon School, Oxford when he was eleven years old. Three years later, he went to Marlborough College.

In 1925, he studied at Magdalen College, Oxford. However, because of the distractions of college life, he didn´t complete his degree and failed a Divinity exam. After that, in 1931, his first book of poems “Mount Zion” was published by an old Oxford friend, Edward James.

He was a poet, writer and broadcaster. Some of his poems are “Ghastly Good Taste”, “Continual Dew”, “How to get on in society”, “Christmas”, “Loneliness”, “In a Bath Teashop”, “Winter Landscape”, “Sun and Fun”, etc.

He became popular because of his gift for comic writing, his dazzling, technical abilities and his combination of eccentricity and Englishness. This was his writing style.

This is a fragment of one of his works called “The Last Laugh”:

“I made hay while the sun shone.
My work sold.
Now, if the harvest is over
And the world cold,
Give me the bonus of laughter
As I lose hold”

This poem can be applied to the weather in the UK because in the sunny time, there´s a lot of nature; but, when the winter comes, all die. In a personal way, it means that all the good things you made in the past, have a good future and you can also overcome the problems in your life.

By Blanca, Rodolfo and Viridiana