inexpensive progress poem summary
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In contrast to the erudite and often enigmatic verse of many of his contemporaries, Betjeman’s poetry seems simple and natural. It lacks the features of fragmentation and austere intellectualism that typify much modern poetry, although Betjeman does recurrently embrace the common twentieth century themes of alienation and guilt. Eschewing obscurity, Betjeman embraces a conversational style, replete with narrative elements, and utilizes traditional meter and rhyme, though occasionally he employs metrical variations or substitutions. He borrows his forms especially from his nineteenth century predecessors. Because his verse is so natural, in fact, most critics fail to notice his penchant for ambiguity, evident in some of his better poems, such as “The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel,” in Mount Zion, or “On a Portrait of a Deaf Man,” in Old Lights for New Chancels. Betjeman’s major themes underscore the defects of modernity, with its disregard for the aesthetic and its disrespect for the environment. They also highlight the author’s spiritual doubt, his obsession with class, with guilt, and with death, as well as divulge his affinity for topography.
The verses of Mount Zion demonstrate the young author’s interest in topography, especially English suburbia, with such memorable sketches as “Croydon” and Oakleigh Park of “The Outer Suburbs,” with its “blackened blocks” and stained-glass windows. Betjeman’s verse fuses reds and greens, oranges and blacks on his canvas of neighborhood sidewalks, churches, railways, and trams. Mount Zion also reveals Betjeman’s genius for mild satire and for humor, perhaps most noticeable in “The ’Varsity Students’ Rag.”
Though Betjeman figures as a significant modern poetic force, his exceptional prose writings are also a hallmark of his enormous productivity: works on England’s cities and towns, churches and architecture, even a book on his friend, abstract painter John Piper. These prose works, like Betjeman’s poetry, are marked by their readability and friendly, intimate tone. Most of what is known of Betjeman’s childhood, through his stay at Oxford until the beginning of his first teaching position, is captured in his blank-verse autobiography, Summoned by Bells. This work, written toward the middle of Betjeman’s career, not only demonstrates the poet’s proclivity for detail but also reiterates many of his earlier themes and preoccupations. Sharing some similarities with the confessional poets of the mid-twentieth century, Betjeman’s verse in this volume is surprisingly candid, revealing the poet’s fears and embarrassments, his defeats, as well as his victories.
Many of Betjeman’s later volumes of verse, notably A Few Late Chrysanthemums, High and Low (1966), and A Nip in the Air (1974), deal, in part, with the present impinging upon the past and the results of that friction. Edwardian drawing rooms are replaced by abstruse monstrosities. Thus, Betjeman often establishes a series of antitheses, not only of artificial cities, belted in concrete, but also of artificial people, who, in the name of progress, awkwardly tread on the beautiful and the sacred, in flagrant abandon. The poet frequently illustrates this abrasive combination humorously, as in “Inexpensive Progress,” from High and Low:
Encase your legs in nylons,Bestride your hills with pylonsO age without a soul;Away with gentle willowsAnd all the elmy billowsThat through your valleys roll.
Betjeman likens the industrialized present’s encroachment upon the landscape of the past to the human body, stripped of the gentle curves that signal its beauty, inevitably resulting in barrenness and ugliness. In the above passage, Betjeman shows his keen faculty even for spacing of the lines: The indentations of the third and sixth lines imitate the once-rolling hills and gentle...
Answer: 'Inexpensive Progress,' by John Betjeman, is an eloquent poem on the world's loss as a result of industrialization.
The speaker continues by stating that the rate of progress is increasing as time passes. Everywhere one sees, nature is vanishing. This includes both the more remote locations as well as the more mundane aspects of nature that one encounters on a daily basis. The speaker especially mentions grassy areas and hedges. As one progresses through life, they will be met with endlessly lit streets, directives, roundabouts, and regulations that must be followed. The speaker wishes to safeguard not only environment, but also historical villages and city streets that signify more than progress, efficiency, and convenience.
Explanation:
The speaker begins the first stanza of 'Inexpensive Progress' by directing several noteworthy sentences to "you." Given that the first line is about putting on tights, the person to whom the speaker is speaking is most likely a woman. However, it should be emphasised that "nylons" might also be interpreted as a symbol for the industrialisation depicted throughout the poem. The speaker also mentions "O age," a new epoch in history that is "soulless." Some things have vanished, such as "elmy billows" and "valleys." As a result of this industrialisation, they are "sent away."
The voice also advises the audience to "say goodbye to hedges," implying that even the most city-like form of nature is vanishing. The use of "grassy hedges" emphasises this point. The speaker isn't thinking about really remote locations. They are things that one sees all the time.
"Things travel faster," and the "motor car is master," take the place of these natural vistas. The speaker closes this verse by saying, "The only thing that will remain is speed." The term "speed" is used to describe not only the movement of vehicles, but also how progress is made and how people go about their daily lives.
The next stanza is similar in that it implies that certain things will be lost and others will change. Signs such as "Keep Left" and "Keep Out!" will be placed along the highways. Commands and cautions will be visible to people as they go about their daily lives. It's evident at this point that the speaker has an opinion on the change. They are opposed to advancement of any form.
The speaker continues in the fourth verse by stating that "obscenities" will have limited facilities due to the state of the planet. No one, at least those with the wherewithal, will be left without what they require at the precise moment they require it.
The fifth stanza expands on the previous one, emphasising that natural places would be eliminated. For example, old villages that could be historically significant and contribute culture and fascination to the world are ploughed under to create way for aeroplanes to land. These scenes are meant to evoke nostalgia and concern for the reader's personal histories. In the words of the speaker, which of these possibilities seems more appealing?
The speaker also mentions that cityscapes, particularly "High Street[s]," which are often the heart of cities, will be altered in the sixth verse. There's no need to preserve these streets the same way they were in this new world. It's past time for things to change in this progress-filled world, or at least that's the mindset the speaker is pushing against.
In today's world, any sight that may bring some enjoyment does not require protection. There will be a "Power Station" there very soon. There is one more sestet in the poem. According to the speaker, there will come a time when all roads will be lit and "concrete monsters" will be everywhere. We are creating a world that will eventually consume us. "We'll know that we're dead" when we're "Bathed in the yellow vomit." The speaker is referring to a moment in the future when humanity will lose touch with its past and the things that should matter in life.
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