BLOSSOMS FROM THE BEYOND:
A REVIEW OF C. CAUNTER'S
SELECTED POEMS OF E. E. BRADFORD’
BY BARRY VAN-ASTEN
The new Arcadian
Dreams publication of ‘My Love is like all Lovely Things: Selected Poems of E.
E. Bradford’ (2023) by C. Caunter is a refreshingly welcome volume on the
subject of Uranian poetry by the Reverend Bradford which for those who do not
know of his work or his life is a delightful introduction. The author
temptingly casts the first stone by flagrant flattery, crediting my piece on Bradford – ‘Desire and Divinity: A Brief Biographical
Sketch of Reverend Edwin Emmanuel Bradford (1860-1944) [p. 301], an honour
which of course shall have no influence upon my review of the volume. My first encounter
with Reverend Bradford was reading his volume of poetry ‘The Romance of Youth
and Other Poems’ (1920) which I have to admit initially disliking, in fact, I
condemned it as ‘dull and insipid’ for my concerns at the time were chiefly the decadent nineties, those aesthetic,
tender Uranian hyacinths of Oxford, cooling their hands ‘in the grey twilight
of Gothic things’, but then I came to his first volume of poems – ‘Sonnets
Songs and Ballads’ of 1908 and was pleasantly surprised and transformed. There
has been a tendency to overlook Bradford and
his poetry for those who dwell more upon the classical elements shrouded in
Greek mythology, (Bradford opposes the
excessive pagan impulses of classical mythology) but Bradford ’s
poetry, often in its simple ballad style, has some marvellous roses blooming
among the garden weeds. The author, C. Caunter, wisely chooses to open the
volume with Bradford’s poems, selecting from the twelve published volumes from
1908-1930 before setting his own place at the table in the form of his biographical
essay – ‘Eyes Lit with the Light of Other Skies’ which offers some surprising
glimpses into the life of Reverend Bradford, such as the fact that he ‘had the
village boys dig a swimming pool next to the vicarage [at Nordelph in Norfolk where
he was vicar at Holy Trinity from 1909] and pile the excavated soil to resemble
small mountains to remind him of Switzerland’ [p. 256] and insights into his
friendship with fellow Uranian poet and curate, Samuel Elsworth Cottam
(1863-1943) whose volume of verse, ‘Cameos of Boyhood and Other Poems’ (1930)
shared similar sentiments to Bradford. The author presents a fascinating and
detailed biographical piece on Edwin Emanuel Bradford, born in Torquay on 21st
August 1860 and educated there at Castle School and his friendship with a boy
named ‘Jack’ who ignited his tender feelings towards the homoerotic nature
within him and an Irish boy whose kiss created a ‘flame / of passion pure that
knows no shame’ and ‘showed love full-grown’, in other words, his true sexual identity
had been revealed to him which would drive his passions into adulthood; in
fact, he called upon these images which shaped his young life and seemed to
haunt him, longingly, throughout several poems. Tragically, at the age of
thirteen in 1873, two explosive events occur: his mother, Maria, died of liver
disease and his father, Edwin Greenslade Bradford, grief-stricken and in mental
decline, fearing the fate of the asylum which sent his own father James to the
grave, took his own life the following May of 1874 by cutting his throat with a
bread knife and so at the age of just thirteen young Edwin had lost both his
parents. In 1881 at the age of 21 he enters Exeter College, Oxford to study
Theology and meets there the 17 year old Lancashire born Samuel Elsworth
Cottam, with whom he may or may not have had a physical romantic attachment for
by now, the Anglo-Catholic Bradford had accepted his innate sexuality and his
attraction towards boyhood, framed within his Christian theological ideals of
love as the author rightly suggests, he ‘saw beauty on earth as an expression
of the divine; the celebration of beauty therefore equalled the celebration of
God’ [p. 235]. The poet graduates from Oxford in 1884 with his B.A. degree in
Theology [M.A. 1901, B.D. 1904 and D.D. 1912] and takes holy orders the same
year he becomes deacon; he is ordained priest the following year and curate two
years later in 1887 [St. Saviours, Walthamstow]; throughout this period he has
been writing poems and short stories which have found publication in various
literary outlets. The next phase of his life is spent in Russia and
France, the former from 1887-1889 and the latter from 1890-1899.
We know that the poet
John Betjeman had a fondness for Bradford ’s
poetry and that he visited Reverend Bradford at Nordelph on Sunday 8th December 1935 ,
writing in his diary the following day that the elder poet was: ‘A modernist
but likes ritual. Last boy friend called Edmund [? Edward] Monson. Not had a
boy friend for 30 years.’ [‘John Betjeman: New Fame, New Love’. Bevis Hillier. John
Murray. London .
2002. p. 63] The author mentions John Betjeman’s visit to Nordelph on page 287
correctly saying the Monson relationship, whatever its true nature was, must
have occurred around 1905 or thereabouts, but I was surprised that this was not
followed up further for I have found and believe the object of Bradford’s
affection to have been an Eton boy named Edmund St John Debonnaire John Monson,
born in Monte Video, Uruguay on 9th September 1883 who attended Eton
School from September 1896- July 1899 during a time when the Reverend John
James Hornby and Francis Warre-Cornish presided over the institution, [‘The
Eton Register, being a continuation of Stapplton’s Eton School Lists,
1893-1899. Private printing. Spottiswoode & Co, Ltd. Eton .
1901] Edmund, who later became a British diplomat and ambassador to several
countries and inherited the title of Baronet, was the second born son of Sir
Edmund John Monson (1834-1909), diplomat and 1st Baronet who married
Eleanor Catherine Mary Munro (1858-1919, whom he met in Uruguay) on 6th
July 1881; Edmund’s older brother, Maxwell William Edmund John Monson (21st
September 1882-11th January 1936) was also at Eton during this time
(he later served in France in 1914 at the outbreak of war with the Intelligence
Corps as a 2nd Lieutenant, reaching the rank of Captain and
transferring to the Royal Army Service Corps). Monson’s father was a diplomat at
the British Embassy in Paris from October 1896 till the end of 1904 (Bradford
was an assistant curate at St George’s church, Rue Auguste Vacquerie, Paris
from 1890-1899) and his son, young Edmund was at Eton around the time Bradford
was curate at St John’s parish church, Eton – 1899-1905. Just before Edmund’s
17th birthday (Bradford was approaching 39 years old), he leaves
Eton School and as for the ‘relationship’ ending, Edmund followed his father
into the British Diplomatic Service in 1906 and travelled to far off places – ‘Constantinople,
Tokyo, Paris and Teheran’ [‘An Arabian Diary’. Sir Gilbert Falkingham Clayton
(1875-1929). University
of California Press,
Berkeley. 1969. p. 339 – Clayton also mentions Monson staying at the Residency
Hotel, Cairo and leaving for ‘Jerusalem today; (Thursday 3rd
December 1925)] he has been the consul at Teheran and has been appointed
Minister at Bogota’ p. 164] Later he becomes Minister to Colombia in 1926,
Mexico 1929-34, Baltic States 1934-37, Sweden 1938-39 (see also ‘Sources in
British Political History, 1900-1951’, volume 2. Chris Cook. Macmillan Press, London . 1975) – he became
3rd Baronet in 1936 and was Knighted KCMG in the 1938 New Year
Honours List; the baronetcy was granted residence at the 17th
century Thatched House Lodge, Richmond Park, Surrey by King Edward VII in 1905
after Sir Edward Monson senior retired. Edmund St John Monson died aged 85 on
16th April 1969 [the Monson Baronetcy passed to his younger brother,
Sir George Louis Esme John Monson (28th October 1888-21st
November 1969), 4th Baronet after whose death the title became
extinct as none of the three brothers – Maxwell, Edmund or George had children].
There is no real substantial evidence for any acquaintance between Bradford and
Edmund Monson except of course the word of Betjeman whom we have no reason to
doubt but whether or not there was anything but a passing fancy we cannot say
and we can never really know the nature of the intimacy for the spiritual and
the sensual are not so easily detached and I believe it would be wrong to
impose modern ideals of society and attitudes to sex upon Bradford’s time, a
time of public school peculiarities and as we all know, sodomy is and has
always been as English as roast beef! Between 1905 and 1909 Bradford
was curate of Christ
Church , Upwell in Norfolk before he became
Vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Nordelph, Norfolk .
The author serves a
fine dish indeed and asks how his ‘open, unapologetic boy-love poetry’ was
received so favourably in its time and why his platonic sense of affections
between man and boy was popular, saying that ‘even if one wanted to argue that
the times were more naïve… it cannot be maintained that gullible, chaste
interpretations were what allowed his poetry to receive an overwhelmingly
positive press across mainstream publications’ [p. 281]. The author gives us
much to think about! Was Bradford’s passion for boyhood a desire to remain
always thirteen years old, an age when he lost both his parents – ‘had I not
better be / always a boy?’ [‘The True Aristocracy’. Chapter XXX: Peter Pan.
1923, quoted on page 196] and was there an element of self-denial, of an ardent
heart forever aching in a wilderness where his finer feelings flourish? – ‘I
thought of him all day, / and I dreamed of him all night’ [‘When I Went
a-Walking’ p. 98] His convictions remained strong and his belief in God and
boyhood were unwavering. He died at Nordelph vicarage on 7th
February 1944 aged 83.
The author, C. Caunter
has caused me to re-evaluate Bradford and re-consider the ‘provocative’ nature
of his poetry and affections a little closer but one thing is clear and that is
the author has written a scholarly and beautiful tribute to the good reverend which
is a wonderful addition to any collection and which no doubt will sit alongside
the timeless immortals of d’Arch Smith’s ‘Love in Earnest’ (1970) and Symons’s
‘The Quest for Corvo’ (1934) et al. and I am sure Bradford would not complain
of such fine company for ‘how dull this world would be / without youth’s sweet
romance and poetry!’ [‘On Sunday Night’ from ‘The New Chivalry and Other Poems’
(1918), XVIII, quoted on page 147].
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