British Poet Laureates and Their Concerns Over Social Issues

Capital Normal University,Beijing,China Email:chenhaoran@vip.126.com

[Abstract]Poet Laureate is a special post selected by Great Britain to serve the nobles.Starting from John Dryden,the Poet Laureates of all generations took up the task to praise the monarchy during their tenures.However,as the hot topics of contemporary society frequently arouse public attention,Poet Laureates,such as William Wordsworth,Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage,have been gradually turning their intense attention to social realities,composing works with ecological and humanistic significance.An analysis of three poems Wordsworth’s“Nutting”,Duffy’s“Parliament”and Armitage’s“Lockdown”respectively,one can unearth Wordsworth’s effort in attaching importance to common labor,discover Duffy’s attention to the ecological crisis in the context of the plastic pollution,and also,one can grasp Armitage’s views about human nature in the current epidemic.

[Keywords]Poet Laureate;Wordsworth;Duffy;Armitage;poetry and reality

Introduction

When ancient Romans honored a person who showed excellence of achievement in the artistic field,they would usually crown him/her with a wreath of laurel leaves.This tradition was passed on all the way to British culture.Starting from John Dryden,who was appointed in 1668 by Charles II,the laureateship was a lifetime appointment by all successors,until Motion was appointed in 1999 for a fixed term of ten years;his successor,Carol Ann Duffy,was also appointed on the same fixed term,and the current incumbent laureate is Simon Armitage,who took the post in the year of 2019.

What do British people expect from those Poet Laureates?If The Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom is an honorary position appointed by the monarch of the United Kingdom,then as the leader of the country,they expect that the holder could write verses for significant national occasions,such as important dates of the royals,victories,peace treaties,and various acts of national endeavor.Take Alfred Tennyson as an example,he brought new status to the poet laureateship by writing“Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington”and“The Charge of the Light Brigade”,both of which evoke significance to the national integrity.

Besides the concerns of the royals,many Poet Laureates are writers with great social responsibilities.That is,they write to convey the philosophical,moral and ethical significances of poem and further present the obligatory ties between poetry and reality.As William Wordsworth,Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage have shown in their poetic creations,poetry is not far from reality.When looking at factories littering the ocean,and us lost in the epidemic,we can certainly discover the great bonds we share.

William Wordsworth:Getting to Nature Through Labor

Labor is a basic human skill.In a modern society,“complex labors”,such as computing and biotechnology,have gradually claiming to be fashionable and necessary skills.However,as the basic skills of human beings,some“basic labors”,like farming,fencing and fishing,have gradually become common even less-favored pursuits and even worse,these practices are rendering obsolete by people,especially those graduates.This trend is of great concern.That is,people are so familiar with these behaviors that so few people think about the philosophy behind the“basic labor”.In fact,labor has its own value,no matter what kind of labor it is.

For every kind of valuable work,there are deep and philosophical significances.The labor poet represented by William Wordsworth focuses on digging out the philosophy of life in“basic labor”.William Wordsworth took the honorary post from Robert Southey in 1843,and he held it until his death in 1850.He was not of a farmer origin,but he has achieved his poetic excellence through valuable times to get in touch with reapers,shepherds in the wildness,for example,in“The Solitary Reaper”,he witnessed a Scottish girl who sung melodious songs while reaping afar in the field,and“Michael”who dwelt in Grasmere Vale.Interestingly enough,he has not only been a traveler recording and reflecting all these simple labor,but also been a labor from time to time.His famous poem“Nutting”(Wordsworth,1991)bears witness to his experience working as a laborer in the woods.

When nuts are ripe,workers need to pick them with tools in hand.This makes farming more challenging because some nuts hang from higher trees.In this case,the farmer needs to have special tools and equipment to harvest the rich nuts as desired.No need to say,this kind of labor is very hard,but very memorable.Wordsworth recorded that unforgettable and learning experience starting from stages of preparation and discovery,all the way to collection and reflection.The deep philosophy behind this seemingly simple labor act is revealed at the end of the poem.

Success comes from fully prepared gears and supports from others.In preparation stage,the narrator describes the standard equipment for people when picking nuts.In order to harvest the nuts,he picked the right date and proper gear:“With a huge wallet o’er my shoulders slung,/A nutting-crook in hand;and turned my steps”,in addition,he“Tricked out in proud disguise of cast-off weeds/Which for that service had been husbanded”.The wallet,crook and disguise here are painting an image of the narrator as a labor,who don't have to worry about the thorns when putting the fruit in the wallet.

Searching for nuts is an enduring journey,as it is so for obtaining the truth of life.In the discovery phase,after long quests,the narrator finally found a nut-filled eucalyptus tree near a pristine clearing in the deep forest after efforts of exploration.For this amazing discovery,he soon reveled in the description of the natural beauty imprinted with Wordsworthian style,that is,to describe the power feeling recollected in tranquility:“the hazels rose/ Tall and erect,with tempting clusters hung,/ A virgin scene!”He compared the purity of this clearing to the virginity of a female body,so as to extol the bless of nature and cherish this chance.

One cannot depend on nature while doing no harm to it.In the collection phase:For wild nuts found after a long journey,the narrator was“Breathing with such suppression of the heart”.For this discovery,Wordsworth called it a“the banquet”.The picker then began to collect the nuts in front of him ravenously:“Then up I rose,/And dragged to earth both branch and bough,with crash.”Interestingly,many critics cannot understand why the narrator,who previously hailed the scenery,would suddenly destroy it for no apparently explicable reasons.The critics’doubts could be logically solved by those who are really familiar with the way labors harvest nuts:the nuts belong to the low leafy shrub,and when autumn comes,a string of firmly cuddled nuts would come together.The fruit is so firmly attached to the branches,and only by hooking sticks can they be dragged and obtained from the tree.So,it's in no way the boy's volatile nature which has done harm to nature,but the reasonable and appropriate manner to get food from nature.

Nature is there to be respected and feared.The poet pushes the relationship between man and nature to the extreme in the reflection stage.Instead of indulging in the beautiful images of the surrounding“fairy water-breaks”,“the sparkling foam”,and“those green stones/That,fleeced with moss,under the shady trees”,the narrator chose to hook the fruit from the trees decisively.In this so-called“sabotage”act,he felt the tremendous but necessarily guilty feeling by his“merciless ravage”.Because of the violent drag,he was left there looking up to“the intruding sky”.As if judged by the celestial light fallen above,he experienced the rise of“a sense of pain”,and even more solemn feeling,he thought that“there is a spirit in the woods”.This feeling is the trauma one experiences after sabotaging natural resource,however,since nobody could get organic food without cutting and grinding,Wordsworth evokes from the readers a sense of awe when he showed us the ghostly presence of spirits.

Wordsworth reflected on the rational relationship between man and nature in his Nutting.Despite the fact that the natural world here is a valuable reserve for mankind,human beings can neither cherish it in the vault for its beauty,nor take it for granted because of its abundance.The more appropriate gesture for us is to take the way,and use it with degree.

Carol Ann Duffy:Exposing a World Fettered with Plastic Pollution

With advances in new technologies,“plastics”have become more common since 1950s.In the process,chemical companies turned their attention to the consumer market,developing a variety of plastic products to meet consumer demand.Roland Barthes confirmed the commonality of plastics inMythology.In addition to items such as suitcases,brushes,steam,toys,fabrics,pipes,pots or paper for long-term human use,Barthes also cited disposable packaging,a more profitable item in the petrochemical industry,noting that“transforming the original crystals into a multitude of more and more startling objects,plastic is,all told,a spectacle to be deciphered”.(Barthes,1991)The free bending of this magic substance has claimed plastic industry one of the most popular industries.

In fact,plastic has become so welcoming that it seemed to be a masterpiece of human pride.However,just half a century later,as has been shown clearly today,the impact of plastic on the world is so depressingly devastating that we have to re-examine the special product in the Anthropocene era.The current British laurel poet Carol Ann Duffy is one of the most important figures in contemporary British poetry,and has achieved great success in both criticism and business.Duffy is passionate about exploring everyday life in poetry,and the language looks simple and easy to understand.In the face of the current crisis of plastics,Duffy focused on the misuse of plastic and its devastating effects to the chirping birds along the coast in her great piece“Parliament”.(Duffy,pp.50-52)

The“Parliament”is selected from the poem collection The Bees,which is the first poem collection published by Duffy since she was appointed Laureate Poet in 2009.Reading of Parliament reminds the reader of another poem,which is“The Parlement of Foules”written by British poet Geoffrey Chaucer.Chaucer documented a gathering of birds on St.Valentine's Day,in which the sleepy narrator sees the garden and a flock of birds in his dream.In order to draw the attention of beautiful females,eagles from three classes debated,and other birds representing different aspects of British society also had the opportunity to express their views.Chaucer handled the debate in an artistically humorous way and seized chances to satirize the phenomenon of court love.

Although Duffy’s“Parliament”is an imitation of Chaucer's poetry above,the focus of each bird shifts from choosing a spouse to a much grand topic,environment.“‘Parliament’takes the songs of birds to grieve,mock,and heckle against extinctions resulting from human exploitation.”(Dowson,2016)In terms of the number of birds,the poem mentions seventeen species of animals with wings,like magpie,rook,cormorant,gull,woodpecker,vulture,cockerel,macaw,hawk,nightingale,blackbird,crane,bat,raven,heron,eagle,and albatross,and they are crying,shouting and swearing in the writer’s wood.The larger number of participants and the sober topic of their discussion set Duffy apart from Chancer’s influence and claim her to be a more socially responsible poetess.

What the birds concerned the most is the marine pollution caused by the excessive and improper use of plastic products.Humans have made catastrophic changes to the environment,as a result,“petroleum crap”and“broken terrain”are left along the coast.The most serious disaster,according to Duffy,was“the vast plastic soup”caused by the proliferation of plastic products in the sea:“Stinking seas/ below ill winds.Nothing swims./A vast plastic soup,thousand miles/ wide as long,of petroleum crap.”The“plastic soup”has seriously disrupted the marine ecosystem,creating signs of threats to the ecological balance in which ocean currents change the direction of the flow due to plastic barriers,thus“Where coral was red,now white,dead/ under stunned waters”.In this chain reaction,the fish in the ocean also face disaster:“The language of fish/cut out at the root./Mute oceans.”Duffy imagines the sea as putting on a dead-end scene,a pool like a plastic soup that is crying about its own experience.

The environment in which plastics spread is a world that is now almost wrapped in plastic.In the real life,the plastic used in the communities come largely from the local morning fairs,supermarkets and fast food industry.If dealt improperly,potential risks of plastic soup is eminent.In view of the phenomenon of plastic abuse,Duffy’s reflection has contributed to the harmonious development of ecology.The hazards of plastics have gradually become the focus of national problems when the Queen has declared war on plastic by banning the use of plastic straws and bottles on the Royal Estate.From this perspective,we may safely say that Duffy has contributed her effort to awakening publics’consciousness.

Simon Armitage:Extolling Love Stories during a Pandemic

Our focus switches to the recent global epidemic,the notorious novel coronavirus.It poses great threat to the world and countries in European continent,the North American and Asia countries.In order to cope with the impact of the coronavirus,many counties have adopted China's strategy to lockdown the borders of the cities and countries,among which the United Kingdom is one of the followers.As the current Poet Laureate,Simon Armitage,as his predecessors did,has been working hard to connect poetry with reality.Armitage told Guardian on March 21st,saying that“the art form can be consoling in times of crisis because it asks us just to focus,and think,and be contemplative”.(Armitage,2020)In response to the outbreak,he published the poem“Lockdown”online,which does not talk about the current epidemic,but takes history and legends as examples to illustrate the necessity of locking down borders,as well as to show the human feelings when lockdown comes to the affected.

“Lockdown”(Armitage,2020)spans a wide range of time and territory.Using two dreams of his,Armitage begins with the plague of the English village of“Eyam”in 1665 and then traces back to Meghadūta,which claims to be a very famous Indian poem in the 5th century.

The first story of Armitage is about a great village.In 1665,a sudden bubonic plague broke out in“Eyam”.In order not to curb the spread of this epidemic,the selfless villagers chose to isolate themselves from the outside world,and this noble deed has won applauds from all over the country,demonstrating the great courage and self-sacrifice of humanity.The poem opens by presenting the source of the plague:“And I couldn’t escape the waking dream/of infected fleas/ in the warp and weft of soggy cloth/ by the tailor’s hearth.”As a result,the fleas quickly scattered around the village and death stealthily came to many households.Under that circumstance,sustenance became the major concern for many villagers.Some of them managed to get to the quarantine line,where the villagers could buy food by sterilizing their coins in the holes of a huge stone:“that cock-eyed dice with its six dark holes,/ thimbles brimming with vinegar wine/purging the plagued coins.”As is shown from these lines,the dice-shaped stone served as a tool of sterilization,and the holes,which contained vinegar and wine,were the means of maintaining safety.Therefore,it can be seen that this locked village has contributed to the fight against the epidemic by ensuring the minimal possibility of infection.

The love story of“Eyam”is as long as its glory.After the description of this locked city,Armitage turned to a pair of star-crossed lovers who were separated by the borderline:“Which brought to mind the sorry story/of Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre,/ star-crossed lovers on either side/ of the quarantine line/ whose wordless courtship spanned the river/till she came no longer.”Because of the plague,Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre could only see each other’s face from afar.Roland uses the "big river" as a messenger to convey his love to Emmott.Finally their tragic love shattered when Emmott was infected in the plague,even with the help of river as their messenger.

The second story of Armitage is a tribute to Kālidāsa,a Sanskrit poet,whose“Meghadūta,or Cloud Messenger”also tells a story of isolation.When left exiled on the mountain,yaksha,a kind-hearted natural god in Sanskrit,commissioned a message to send his love to his wife for him:“dreamt this time/of the exiled yaksha sending word/to his lost wife on a passing cloud.”Yaksha convinced the passing cloud to accept the mission at last.Armitage imitates Kālidāsa’s narrative style and presents the painted scenery of the cloud’s trip with vivid hues:“a cloud that followed an earthly map/ of camel trails and cattle tracks,/ streams like necklaces,/ fan-tailed peacocks,painted elephants,/ embroidered bedspreads/ of meadows and hedges,/ bamboo forests and snow-hatted peaks,/ waterfalls,creeks,/ the hieroglyphs of wide-winged cranes/ and the glistening lotus flower after rain.”At first glance,the place where passing cloud flows through is a wonderful picture:rainwater nourishes the earth,flourishing flora and fauna,and ever flowing rivers,readers seem to be able to see the trajectory of clouds moving in the world,whether it is the vast grasslands where cows and camels are moving,or the African and Asian continents where elephants loiter and lotuses are blooming.However,we may wonder behind this picture:If yaksha spreads his love across the vast land,what news is Armitage telling the readers worldwide?If the battle against the epidemic is regarded as a journey,then the measures he advocates contemporary authorities to take are similar to the flow of passing cloud:“the journey a ponderous one at times,long and slow/ but necessarily so.”Just like the path of the passing cloud,Armitage hopes the best of human nature could also reach every corner of the world.As to the duration of this epidemic,he believes that it is going to be long and slow,but at the same time,he expects the public to respond to this epidemic with patience and a calm mind.

Conclusion

By analyzing the poems of British Poet Laurates,readers can explore the relationship between poetry and reality through highly refined poetic language,and discover a deep humanistic spirit from the poets’attitude towards reality as well.That is,when using plastic products,one need to understand the urgency of the ecological crisis;when an epidemic comes,one cannot forget love and care of those who made sacrifices in the world.It can be said that when people in reality pollute the environment without any care,and when people feel panic before the unfeeling nature,poetry could help raise the ecological awareness and ties us more strongly in a community with shared future for mankind,fauna and flora.

Acknowledgments

This paper is part of the research of the General Social Science Project from Beijing Municipal Education Commission“Research on Animal Poetry in the British Romantic Period”(SM202010028002).