Bad to verse

From Shakespeare and Marlowe to Hemingway and Fitzgerald,literary skirmishes have always made for high-wattage drama. But the controversy over Oxfords poetry professorship is more about mundane campus bitchery and careerism than a clash of titanic talents. Even the scandal is over a warmed-over sexual harassment case from 1982 and a couple of misspelt emails. This has been a vivid example of how the slow creep of political correctness can overshadow the things that matter.

This scramble for the Oxford Poetry chair has been notable for many reasons. In India,Arvind Krishna Mehrotras entry was pitched as a chance to prise open the notion of cosmopolitanism. But the real race was between Ruth Padel,who would have been the first woman to hold the 300-year-old position,weeks after Caron Ann Duffy smashed the glass ceiling to become poet laureate. (Duffy also supports Padels candidature.) Her chief competitor was the Caribbean eminence grise and Nobel-winner Derek Walcott. There was a swirl of nasty controversy around Walcotts history of sexual harassment cases with students,and as it turns out,Ruth Padel had done her two-bit to make sure the accusations stuck. While she disassociated herself from the vicious smear campaign,she also dashed off a couple of emails to gossip journalists,reminding them that there is aupposed to be a book called The Lecherous Professor,which has 6 pages on Derek Walcotts two cases of sexual harassment,which might provide interesting copy on what Oxford want from its professors. But the question is does Oxford want smarminess of this variety?

Is this a chair for the most incorruptible individual or the most powerful poet?

Derek Walcott huffily dropped out of the race altogether,refusing to defend himself. Mehrotra enjoyed only a narrow band of support anyway. And now Padel has also quit,after the emails became public. And the professorship waits,emptily,for the right person to come along.