Sir John Betjeman remains the most popular English poet of today. He has been termed a ‘national teddy bear’, and some commentary has addressed his work in rather such terms. However, it is evident that most of his key themes – the spirit of place (or ‘place-myth’), mundane lives (‘petit recits’), or historical continuity (‘presence of the past’) – have specific relevance to postmodern and, especially, environmental concerns. Dennis Brown’s book assesses Betjeman’s contribution in the light of this, emphasizing its ironic self-reflexivity, its rendering of Englishness and a ‘soft’ masculinity, and its ecumenical Christian tolerance. Overall, the book stresses Betjeman’s contemporaneity, and his relevance to an era of ‘contingency, irony, and solidarity’.

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