ARTICLE
Kaleidoscope:
The Interdisciplinary
Postgraduate Journal
of Durham University’s
Institute of Advanced
Study
4 1
ISSN 1756–8137
August 2010
Afterlives
An Interview with Stephen Regan
Naomi Banks
My personal paradise is one in which Guinness is permanently on tap, with cool,
West-Coast American jazz drifting in the air.
It is the end of a tiring Epiphany term, and Professor Stephen Regan, Head of English Studies at Durham University, is looking forward to the quietness of the long Easter vacation. No
more teaching, no more photocopying of lecture handouts, no more dissertations to collect
in. . . (. . .no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed
away. . .). Sitting in his duck-egg-blue and cream painted office, where rows of books sit
neatly on the shelves, he seems grateful for the brief pause in his day, and the chance to
imagine his ideal afterlife.
As a reply to John Lennon’s ‘imagine there’s no heaven,” I would be singing
that old “Amen Corner” song to the woman in my dreams: “If paradise is half
as nice as the heaven that you take me to, who needs paradise? . . . I’d rather
have you.”
The interview takes a more business-like tone as we move on to discuss “Afterlives,” the
conference organised by Stephen in September 2009 in conjunction with the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) at Durham. I ask him where the idea for the conference came from.
The title “Afterlives” came from the Derek Mahon poem of the same name, in which the
poet announces that “I am going home by sea / For the first time in years.”1 This poem is
enigmatic, and characteristic of Mahon’s interest in afterlives. Closely linked to it is another
Mahon poem, “Going Home,” which is for Mahon’s fellow Irish poet, John Hewitt. “Going
Home” begins with a farewell: “I am saying goodbye to the trees,” and ends with the striking
image of a lone figure standing “on the edge of everything:”
An almost tragic figure
Of anguish and despair,
It merges into the funeral
Cloud-continent of night
As if it belongs there.2
1 Derek Mahon, “Afterlives,” Collected Poems (Oldcastle: Gallery, 2008): 59.
2 Derek Mahon, “Going Home” Collected Poems (Oldcastle: Gallery, 2008), 96.
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Kaleidoscope 4(1) – 2010
The topic of afterlives is of such importance to Mahon, and other poets like him, that it
seemed a good choice of subject to offer to a broader range of disciplines: “I thought it would
prompt responses from a range of subjects,” adds Stephen.
Having taken inspiration from such a literary source, I ask, were you surprised by the
kinds of papers that were submitted for the conference?
Yes, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been: we quickly realised that with
“Afterlives” we’re dealing with fundamental concepts which are of interest to
most disciplines. I was pleased at the range of papers – from Divinity to Italian
horror theatre, and from Musicology to mortuary practices. The expectation was
that we would get a strong response from Arts and Humanities as well as Social
Sciences – a mixture of physical and metaphysical takes on the theme.
The range of papers given at the conference was broad, both in terms of the academic disciplines represented, but also in the approaches taken to the subject. At least three of the
presenters, coming from the disparate backgrounds of Counselling Studies, Religious Studies and Musicology, gave papers which focused on their personal beliefs and experiences.
It seems that the topic of “Afterlives” is one which demands a fuller approach than merely
an academic one.
I ask Stephen about his views on what seems to be a growing field of study, pointing out
that in the last decade a number of British universities have begun to focus on Death Studies, including Durham.
There is a growing sense of “interdisciplinarity” in academia – a focus on how
we share knowledge. I do think that Death Studies has gained prominence in
recent years, partly to do with greater candour in public debates about death,
especially about sensitive and controversial issues such as euthanasia and
burial spaces. Much of this has been driven, of course, by social policy and
changing legislation, but I do think there is a new openness in discussions
about death and the afterlife. I would like to believe, as well, that there is a
strong need for reflection and contemplation as an antidote to the years of
materialistic self-satisfaction encouraged by Thatcherism. Whatever heaven
there might be, I hope it is one without Thatcher. I feel sure that she must be
in the other place.
Thoughts of heaven and “the other place” bring the conversation back to where we started:
what might we imagine when we think of our own afterlife? Where do we get these images
from? For Stephen, the answers might be found in poetry.
Having turned fifty, I can’t help but reflect from time to time on the nature of the
afterlife. It’s surprising isn’t it, how very few striking images of heaven we find in
elegiac poetry (or in any literature, for that matter). The conventional treatment
in “Lycidas” seems to be repeated over and over...a place of sweet singing, joy
and love: “solemn troops, and sweet societies, / That sing, and singing in their
glory move, / And wipe the tears forever from his eyes.” The striking exception,
of course, is Yeats’s brilliant imagining of the afterlife in “The Cold Heaven:”
“Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven / That seemed as though
ice burned and was but the more ice.”3 Fabulous stuff. That’s Seamus Heaney’s
favourite Yeats poem, by the way.
Bibliography
Mahon, Derek. Collected Poems. Oldcastle: Gallery, 2008.
3 Yeats, W.B. “The Cold Heaven,” The Poems, ed. Daniel Albright, (London: J.M.
Dent, 1990, updated 1994), 176.
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Banks – Interview with Stephen Regan
Milton, John. “Lycidas,” The Complete Shorter Poems. Ed. John Carey. 237–56. London:
Longman, 2007.
Yeats, W.B. “The Cold Heaven,” The Poems. Ed. Daniel Albright. London: J.M. Dent, 1990,
updated 1994.
Naomi Banks
English Studies, Durham University
[email protected]
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