Poet Laureate
laureate originates from Latin laureatus meaning "crowned with laurel" (Kahan, Jeffrey). The title was adopted from the Greek and Roman custom of crowning successful men with a wreath of laurel. Nowadays, the British poet laureate is a member of the Royal household, expected to write poems for official occasions, for example for Royal weddings, birthdays or funerals. The British Poet Laureate was originally awarded the position for life, however, from 1999 the post is limited to 10 years.
The British poet laureate developed from two strands of tradition. In the Renaissance it became customary to award the laurel to writers who not only wrote poems, but who were also well-versed in ancient (i.e. classical) traditions and authors. The Poet Laureate in this sense, had to pass an examination and then was awarded the laurel and the title as an honorary university degree. This custom was not restricted to England (far from it). It originated in Italy (with Petrarch and Tasso as famous poets laureate) and spread all over (Renaissance) Europe. A completely different strand of tradition was the post of "court poet". Medieval and Renaissance monarchs sometimes paid someone to write poetry. This could be a post held for life or only an occasional stipend plus "a degree of political protection" (Kahan, Jeffrey). In the Renaissance, there was a gradual institutionalisation of the office, and a host of writers are associated with it: e.g., John Skelton, Edmund Spenser, Ben Jonson or William Davenant.
The office of poet laureate proper (i.e. regular employment, orderly succession of laureates, legal basis and Royal patents), however, started in 1668 with John Dryden. Dryden lost the office after the Glorious Revolution. He had converted to Catholicism when James II came to the throne and this did not go down well with the new monarchs William and Mary and the Whigs.
Duties
The patent for the first laureate John Dryden remained vague about his duties. It merely stipulated him to “diligently attend [his] employment” (quoted in Broadus 61). Dating from Nicholas Rowe’s appointment in 1715, the laureates were obliged to write at least one birthday ode and one New Year’s ode for the monarch. During the 18th century this became a very mechanical exercise for the poets (which did not really matter much, because the odes were performed to music). Hence satirists like Alexander Pope attacked the poets laureate as nonentities and sycophants. Nahum Tate wrote "prose run mad" (quoted in Hopkins 52), according to Pope. And The Dunciad of 1743 attacks “King Colley” (I, 321) as the most nonsensical dunce of them all. After some renowned authors refused to accept the post (most famous is Thomas Gray's refusal to become the "rat catcher" of the king), regular duties were abolished when William Wordsworth became Poet Laureate in 1843. Since then, the Laureate does not have any official obligations connected with his office.
Payment
It was customary to pay the Laureate a small fee, plus some material rewards. The patents specifically name “a butt of sack”, a barrel of sherry (=150 bottles or 572,796 litres). In the 18th century, this was seen as an anachronism and since 1790, at the behest of Henry James Pye, the sherry was turned into money. John Betjeman asked for the reintroduction of the “butt of sack” in 1972.
List of Official Laureates
Here is a list of poets laureate:
- John Dryden (1668-89)
- Thomas Shadwell (1689-92)
- Nahum Tate (1692-1715)
- Nicholas Rowe (1715-18)
- Laurence Eusden (1718-30)
- Colley Cibber (1730-57)
- William Whitehead (1757-85)
- Thomas Warton (1785-90)
- Henry James Pye (1790-1813)
- Robert Southey (1813-43)
- William Wordsworth (1843-50)
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1850-92)
- Alfred Austin (1896-1913)
- Robert Bridges (1913-1930)
- John Masefield (1930-67)
- Cecil Day-Lewis (1968-72)
- Sir John Betjeman (1972-84)
- Ted Hughes (1984-98)
- Andrew Motion (1999-2009)
Today's English poet laureate is Andrew Motion. This position is now given by the prime minister and a poet stays in office for ten years until the next one is nominated. The new laureate elect is the first woman ever: Carol Ann Duffy.
Sources
Broadus, Edmund Kemper. The Laureateship. A Study of the Office of Poet Laureate in England. With some Account of the Poets, 1921, repr. New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1969.
Hopkins, Kenneth, The Poets Laureate, New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
Kahan, Jeffrey. "Poet Laureate." The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature. Ed. David Scott Kastan. Vol. IV. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2007.