A Poet Among the Young

What was Stephen Spender to the students and what were they to him in 1968, “the year of the young rebels”? They, the engage and the enrages, were seeking to restructure the university and radicalize the society (Columbia, the Sorbonne), to enlarge the breathing space of human freedom inside the Communistcontrolled academy (Prague), to express their alienation from an uncaring establishment preoccupied with prosperity in the Flat Society (West Berlin). He, on the other hand, represented no cause other than “freedom of selfexpression” and carried no ideological luggage other than the wish for a “socially just society” consistent with “the liberty of the individual.” He wandered about on the edge of the student storms, spoke to old faculty friends, mostly listened to the students, and tried to make sense of the demonstrations, the capture of buildings, the exhilarating slogans (Vive la communication! A has la telecommunication!), the ex...