Culture

Although many, if not all, art forms have a track record of controversy, poetry appears to divide opinion more than most. I remember us being asked to write a poem in F block English, and listening as one of my peers read his out. I don’t remember the exact words, but it went something like this:

Sitting in my room,

Listening to radio one.

What’s this song?

Reminds me of that girl.

Gotta go eat,

Damned baked beans,

Then take a dump.

Now, if you’re struggling to believe someone actually wrote a poem this bad, I can assure you my memory does not do him a disservice. I remember a few of us in the div looking at each other during his reading and thinking ‘what the hell is this?’ We couldn’t wait for it to end so the beak would tear it apart. But to our astonishment and irritation, the beak praised it for being ‘gritty’.

Ok, gritty it may have been, but only in so far as it was crap and painful to listen to. How then could this expert in English and supposed arbiter of good taste not have seen this?

Looking back, I wonder whether he was influenced by the appearance of this boy. His long hair and permanently sulky expression may have had something to do with it, thus tricking the beak into confusing his looks with his poetry.

This raises the question of whether art today is more about the artist, or the art itself. Of course, the two are somewhat indistinguishable, but it certainly does seem to me that we place too much importance on the creator's personal life.

Take rappers for example. Imagine that a famous rapper was revealed as a middle class suburbanite. His fans would desert him in a flash, incensed by his phoney ghetto life. But would this make his music necessarily worse?

Suppose again that a celebrity artist, Tracey Emin for example, was actually a married mother living in Surrey, rather than an eccentric singleton with a colourful past? Would her work suffer in popularity, in credibility? Almost certainly it would.

Art therefore appears contingent on the artist's profile. A symptom perhaps of our celebrity culture, where X factor sob stories promote as valuable only that art with an underlying, personal narrative; invariably a rags to riches tale.

In this respect, having membership of a minority group confers a distinct advantage. Any art which can be seen as breaking through the barriers of oppression is to be held up for acclaim, and since only art created by the oppressed can do that it leaves other artists needing to justify themselves.

A bit cynical you might think, but devoid of truth. I admit that when it comes to modern art I am often left scratching my head. I have yet reached the stage of enlightenment where I can see the hidden meaning in, say, a pile of rubble, an orange peel inside a square, or any of the other masterpieces that inhabit the Tate Modern.

However, compared to most people I probably count as a culture vulture. I like to read every day, spending hours each week in School Library with a good book in hand. I go to most, if not all the plays in the Farrer Theatre and Caccia Studio. And I have a broad, and dare I say refined, taste in music!

It's true that we are very lucky here at Eton to go somewhere that places a lot of emphasis on the arts. You only have to look at the art and music schools, the Farrer Theatre, the numerous libraries and the architecture to realise this.

Indeed, if you enjoy drama then any production you see is bound to be very professionally executed. The Farrer Theatre is on a par with many West End spots, and along with the Caccia Studio it hosts dozens of plays each year. These include house plays, which thanks to the generosity of wealthy parents are often very impressive.

Then there are the libraries, with their thousands of books. The biggest may be School Library, but the most special is College Library, tucked away in the original school buildings and home to several priceless first editions, dating centuries back.

Music, whilst at times being rather too prominent, is also well looked after. Music scholars and exhibitioners take the initials MS or ME after their names, and spend most of their time in the labyrinth that is the music schools. When not there they are with the choir, rehearsing their ballads in college chapel.

And if this all sounds rather too native, foreign cultures can be pursued through language trips to Spain, France, Japan Cuba, Russia and other countries. The Arts Review, a boy-led cultural magazine, is also keen on overseas idiosyncrasies.

Despite this wealth of opportunities some of my peers still behave like they were born in a cave. Runty, for example, is the epitome of a cultural philistine, an ignorant Neanderthal in a place of beauty. Any expression of human. thought he encounters is met with a gormless expression. It's true that results-wise he is quite clever, but I've never seen him make any effort to broaden his cultural outlook. Among the many stupid things he's said over the years, I recall him asserting that Picasso was French, Mozart was born in the 16^th century and that Great Expectations was written by Jane Eyre!

Still, to his credit he does plan to go travelling at some point in the future. To Amsterdam and Las Vegas amongst other places. There may yet be hope.