ARTS IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25549, 17 July 1948, Page 3

ARTS IN BRITAIN

A NEWS-LETTER [By R. G. WEETLOCK] LONDON, June 23.—Listeners to the Third Programme were able recently to hear some of Britain’s future orators in a light-hearted debate at the OxJ? rd Union, the motion being “That the separation of the American colonies from Britain had better not have occur■ed.” Taking part in the debate with Ox--7? rd under graduates were members of -he United States Military Academy, West Point. The broadcast lasted an hour and a half, and the debate was conducted with much wit and humour as speakers argued w’hether Britain had done well for the peace and culture of the world in “giving America to the Americans.” The Oxford Union, a combination of debating society, library, and club, has been described as “that cradle rocked by the Mother of Parliaments since 1823.” Here in 1830, Gladstone,, then an undergraduate of Christ Church, moved that “The Administration of the Duke of Wellington is undeserving of the confidence of the country” and carried his motion by a majority of one. There are no women members, though women may speak in debates by invitation. This was the first broadcast of a debate in the Oxford Union; but some months ago there had been one from the Cambridge Union. Jonson at Oxford Another notable event at Oxford last week was the production by the Oxford University Dramatic Society Of “Epicoene, or The Silent Woman,” one of the best-known comedies by Ben Jonson. Jonson, a learned (not to say pedantic) satirist, was in his day the pre-eminent writer of comedies of the people (as against the romantic type of comedy immortalised by Shakespeare); and as his plays concentrate, though with undoubted humour, mainly on the fashions and follies of his own time they are seldom revived in Britain to-day. Hazlitt, while admitting the improbability of “Epicoene,” discovered in parts of it “great knowledge and shrewdness of observation mixed with the acuteness of malice.” It is the story of a taciturn old man who chooses a silent woman for his wife in order to disinherit his nephew. The silent woman immediately changes into a virago, and when it is found that she is really a boy in disguise the old man is glad to be rid of his bad bargain. The Oxford production took place in the open air. and the actors treated Jonsons’ humours in the only possible way—with briskness and an enthusiastic vitality. Cambridge University als® was in the news last week when undergraduates of Jesus College staged open-air performances of Milton’s “Comus” and Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas.” Peacock Reprints Despite the shortage of paper, British publishers are steadily piling up reprints of the- classics. Among the latest is a new edition of “Nightmare Abbey” and “Crotchet Castle.” by Thomas Love Peacof's. “Blessed with a sunny, epicurean temperament, a tranquil mind, and an admirable digestion,” Peacock contrived in his novels a unique blend of ironical wit, romance, and humour. “Nightmare Abbey” contains delicious caricatures of Shelley, Byron, and Coleridge. Peacock is not everyone’s meat—he could be less hesitatingly described as a literary man’s author if the description were not forbidding; and Peacock is not forbidding at all—r it the new edition, with an introduction by J. B. Priestley, who wrote the English Men of Letters volume on Peacock, 21 years ago, is certain to win this lovable writer new lovers.

Fifty years ago was founded the Folk Song Society (now incorporated in the English Folk Dance and Song Society) “for the purpose of discovering, collecting and publishing folk songs, ballads and tunes”; and last week a concert of folk music was given at Cecil Sharp House, London, to celebrate this jubilee. This house is named after Cecil James Sharp (1859-1924), who did more than any other Englishman to rescue England’s forgotten folk music. He began the movement which sent musical scholars exploring country districts to take down, as rustics still sang it, the traditional music which has since influenced, directly or indirectly, the majority of to-day’s English composers. The University of Oxford conferred the honorary degree of D.Litt. on T. S. Eliot, the poet, at the Encaenia in May. * The spring issue of the Oxford University Press “Periodical” comments on the award of the Order of Merit to Mr T. S. Eliot: Mr T. S. Eliot has become assimilated to English ways more thoroughly than Henry James did, and it is difficult now to avoid the presumption .of annexing him wholly to English poetry. But as our friends across the way continue to regard him as an American poet we can count him as a genuine link in those Anglo-American relations of which we continue to speak, somewhat absent-mind-edly if not automatically. Except that a few writers in the national dailies appeared slightly dazed and bewildered there was general pleasure that the Order of Merit had been conferred on Mr Eliot in the New Year Honours. He receives the distinction at a much earlier age than Henry James, and we cherish the lively hope that he will give us further work on the level of "Four Quartets.” The Oxford Press had the satisfaction years ago of publishing what is still the most illuminating book on the new 0.M., “The Achievement of T. S. Elliot” by F. O. Matthiessen.