Second Biennial
Anthony Powell Conference

Second Biennial
Anthony Powell Conference
Anthony Powell and Oxford of the 1920s and 1930s

Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 April 2003
Balliol College, Oxford

Conference Report
by Nicholas Birns

Yes, I actually went to this conference. Instead of an air flight from New York followed by a rail trip from Paddington to Slough (which, in reverse, was the first train ride Queen Victoria ever took) the 2003 conference involved the same air flight followed by a somewhat longer, but still very brief, journey from Paddington to Oxford. Upon arriving at Balliol, I found that the "in relative terms" luxury of my room explained why Stringham had consented to spend a year at Oxford before heading down to London, Donners-Brebner, and dissipation. In wandering around the vicinity of Balliol I encountered Keith and Noreen Marshall, already on their way to Keble to help facilitate Sunday night’s dinner at the High Table. Shortly thereafter, we met up with Tony Robinson, a Keble alumnus who did yeoman work in setting up the dinner. Keble, whose architecture was more Gothic and flamboyant, than the understated assemblage of buildings at Balliol, also contains, in its chapel, Holman Hunt’s Light of the World, at which we took a brief glance. The dinner drew thirty-five or so people. It was lavish, festive, and, in every sense, fully satisfying.

The conference proper began the following morning. Keith welcomed all of us, and also made a statement of regret on the loss of Lady Violet Powell, whose early support meant so much to the Society, as well as one on the untimely death of Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, who had been scheduled to deliver a keynote speech. (Many of the American delegation agreed that meeting Lord Jenkins would have been a highlight for them.)

We then heard a funny and candid opening keynote from James Tucker, author of one of the pioneering critical studies of Powell in the 1970s. Jeremy Warren followed with a talk on the Poussin painting which gives its name to Dance, revealing among other things that the sources of the dance of time motif go back to the late antique author Nonnus. The first session concerned Powell at Oxford as well as the Oxford passages of Dance. We then heard from noted critic and biographer DJ Taylor as he revealed new aspects on the Powell-Orwell relationship. The next keynote was by Alan Judd, on the war trilogy. This talk was a particular hit, and the American delegates, who, by and large, were not familiar with Judd’s work, were motivated to seek it out.

After lunch (where I gazed on the portrait of Lord Curzon, mentioned, of course, in Infants of the Spring in connection with Oxford), we broke into concurrent sessions where delegates could choose between papers directly on Dance itself (including a dissection, though not a simulation, of Widmerpool’s speech in The Acceptance World) or those illuminating other aspects of Powell’s life and work; both sessions were pretty much equally attended. A final session on teaching Dance and on "manners" in the sequence wrapped things up nicely. After the reception and auction, a group of us found a restaurant which one of our number dubbed "Foppa’s". And we had, at two separate tables, a splendid meal.

The Monday also saw the launch of The Master and the Congressman, a monograph, by former Congressman John S Monagan, concerning his long friendship with Powell. This entertaining recollection of the unlikely bond between an Irish-American politician of Democratic affiliation and a British writer of Tory leanings provided thoughtful post-conference reading for many delegates.

The next day saw two concurrent workshops, containing both formal presentations and freewheeling contribution from the floor. Obviously, I could only attend one of these, though I heard the workshop on teaching Powell went well. The one I attended, on Powell and Waugh, was very illuminating. As the speakers compared Waugh’s romantic and lyrical view of Oxford with the acerbic and understated tone of Powell’s Oxford scenes, I realized that the opening paragraph of Brideshead Revisted is, paradoxically, Arnoldian. It is resonant with appeals to "the best that has been known and thought" in a way that explained why Brideshead Revisted was precisely the success in American middlebrow circles that Dance, ultimately for its own literary good, never was. This insight would not have occurred but for the stimulating conversation at this symposium.

The conference was an incredible success. It simply could not have gone better. Keith, Noreen, Tony, Stephen Holden, Christine Berberich (who did much of the refereeing of papers for the conference), and Sue Frye (whose diligence was an absolute prerequisite for the conference’s success) did a first-rate job of organizing the conference and smoothing over the inevitable difficulties. The camaraderie and good feeling among the eighty or so delegates was evident from the start. The atmosphere of Balliol and the cooperativeness and friendly demeanour of the Balliol staff ade a perfect backdrop for the delegates to share their enjoyment of this so frequently-enjoyed author. (Balliol’s hospitality started from the top with the Vice-Master and Archivist of Balliol, Dr John Jones, who arranged a special exhibition of Powell-related manuscripts and memorabilia which showed, for one thing, that Powell’s letters arranging his matriculation at Balliol at the age of 18 had nearly the exact tone of the last Journal entries from the early 1990s.)

Academics and non-academics, American, British, and continental European delegates got along swimmingly. People came from as far away as Budapest on the one hand and Vancouver on the other to attend the conference. Beyond our shared interest in Powell, many of us found we had other literary interests in common, and this made for stimulating and congenial conversation throughout. The workshops on the second day were excellent in that they allowed non-speakers to participate in the dialogue on equal terms. Another pleasant feature was the auction after Monday’s activity, which not only raised money for the society but allowed us to let off steam after an exhausting day.

At noon on Tuesday, we all dispersed. Some of us went to London for Tom Courtenay’s one-man show about Philip Larkin, Pretending to Be Me, followed by a late supper at the Garrick Club, and, for some of us, a quick return to the daily routine of life and work. The next conference, a centenary celebration of Powell to take place in London in December 2005, is eagerly awaited by all.

First published in Issue 11 (Summer 2003) of the Society's Newsletter.