Elizabeth Jennings' "Rembrandt's Late Self-Portraits"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001) was born in Boston, Lincolnshire but moved to Oxford at the age of six where she lived for the rest of her life. She studied at St. Anne’s College, Oxford and worked in advertising, at the City Library and briefly in publishing before becoming a full-time writer. Her consistent devotion to poetry yielded over twenty books during her life, a New Collected Poems appearing in 2002. Although initially linked to the group of poets including Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin and Thom Gunn known as ‘The Movement’, Jennings’ work doesn’t share their irony or academic wit. However, the unassuming technical craft of her poetry and its emotional restraint are qualities that were praised by the poets and critics of the period and continued to be abiding characteristics of her work. An important theme is her Catholicism and many of her poems have a devotional aspect. Her intense musing on spirituality encouraged a sensitivity towards others, evident in the pained tenderness of some of her poems. Jennings’ sincere and scrupulous work gradually built both critical acclaim that weathered changes in poetic fashion, and a genuine popularity. Amongst the many honours awarded her work are the W.H. Smith Literary Award, the Somerset Maugham Award and a CBE. Although consistent in its tone and concerns, her poetry continued to develop and mature – later work demonstrating a more flexible approach to form whilst retaining her clarity.

-bio via Poetry Archive (where you can also hear Jennings reading her own poem)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Wednesday, April 10th, 2004. Today's poem, another ectrastic poem for the week is by Elizabeth Jennings, and it's called Rembrandt's late self-portraits.
0:19.0	The great Dutch painter and portraitist,brandt von Raine adopted a curious practice midway
0:28.8	through his life and career of painting his own self-portrait almost annually,
0:35.1	so that by the end of his life, there were some 30-odd self-portraits of Rembrandt,
0:41.0	extant, most of them still on display publicly in museums around the world.
0:47.0	You can imagine that maybe this practice began as a kind of expedient business move.
0:52.4	If you're working as a portraitist, you need an opportunity to
0:56.7	show off your talent, your versatility to potential clients. So you paint yourself. But wherever
1:05.7	this practice began, it's clear that over the course of Rembrandt's life and career, it evolved and took on
1:12.7	a deeper significance, one which Jennings explores here in this sort of super-exfrastic poem
1:20.2	about multiple works of art, this sequence of Rembrandt's self-portraits, how they change as he ages, and what that reveals to us about the man himself.
1:33.3	Here is Rembrandt's late self-portraits.
1:41.3	You are confronted with yourself.
1:46.0	Each year the pouches fill.
1:47.9	The skin is uglier.
1:50.2	You give it all unflinchingly.
1:53.0	You stare into yourself beyond.
1:56.2	Your precious care runs with self-knowledge.
1:59.1	Here is a humility at one with craft.
2:01.6	There is no arrogance. Pride is apart from this self-scrutiny.
2:05.6	You make light drift the way you want.
2:07.6	Your face is bruised and hurt, but there is still love left.
	...

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