Philip Larkin

Philip Arthur Larkin (August 9, 1922 – December 2, 1985) was an English poet, novelist and jazz critic. His poetry, marked by understatement, the use of plain and at times vulgar language, and bitter unsentimentality, brought about a significant change in the British aesthetic. Larkin, who once famously remarked that depridation was for him what daffodils were for Wordsworth, was one of the most important voices in moving British poetry towards a plainspoken, naturalness of language. Staunchly anti-modern and a committed conservative all his life, Larkin articulated his stance towards art and poetry as the desire, "to write in language that people actually like to hear."

Life

Larkin was born to Sydney and Eva Larkin in Coventry, a provincial city in the Midlands. He was educated at King Henry VIII School in Coventry and St. John's College, Oxford. In late 1943, soon after graduating from Oxford he applied for, and was appointed to, the position of Librarian at Wellington, Shropshire. In 1946, he became Assistant Librarian at the University College, Leicester; in March 1955, he became Librarian at the University of Hull. He remained in this position until his death.

He never married, preferring to share his life with a number of women – Monica Jones, Maeve Brennan and Betty Mackereth. Monica Jones was a fellow lecturer, Maeve Brennan was a library assistant who was also a strict Roman Catholic, and Betty Mackereth was his secretary.

Poetry

Larkin's early work shows the influence of Yeats, but his later poetic identity was influenced mainly by Thomas Hardy. He is well-known for his use of the colloquial in his poetry, partly balanced by a similarly antique word choice. With fine use of enjambement and rhyme, his poetry is highly structured, but never rigid. Death was a recurring theme and subject of his poetry, Aubade being an example of this. The Less Deceived, published in 1955, marked Larkin as an up-and-coming poet. He was for a time associated with The Movement.

The publication of The Whitsun Weddings in 1964 confirmed his reputation. The title poem is a masterful depiction of England seen from a train one Whitsun. In 1972 he wrote the oft-quoted "Going, Going", a poem which reveals his increasing streak of romantic fatalism in his view of England in his later years – prophesising a complete destruction of the countryside and of a certain idealised idea of national togetherness and identity, it ends with the doom-laden statement "I just think it will happen, soon". High Windows, his last book, was released in 1974; for some critics it represents a falling-off from his previous two books^[1], yet it contains a number of his most-loved pieces, including "This Be The Verse" and "The Explosion", as well as the title poem.

Besides poetry, Larkin published two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947), and several essays. Larkin was also a major contributor to the re-evaluation of the poetry of Thomas Hardy, which had been ignored in comparison to his work as a novelist. Hardy received the longest selection in Larkin's idiosyncratic and controversial anthology, The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse (1973). Larkin was by contrast a notable critic of modernism in contemporary art and literature; his scepticism is at its most nuanced and illuminating in Required Writing, a collection of his book-reviews and essays; it is at its most enflamed and polemical in his introduction to his collected jazz reviews, All What Jazz.

On the death of John Betjeman, Larkin was offered the post of Poet Laureate, but declined, feeling that his poetic muse had permanently deserted him. However, he remains one of Britain's most popular poets; two of his poems, This Be The Verse and An Arundel Tomb, featured in the "Nation's Top 100 Poems" as voted for by television viewers. Larkin's posthumous reputation has taken a hit with the publication of Andrew Motion's Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life (1993) and an edition of his letters (1992), which revealed his obsessions with pornography, his racism, his increasingly extreme shift to the political right wing, and his habitual venom and spleen. These revelations have been dismissed by Martin Amis, author and critic, who argues that the letters in particular show nothing more than a tendency for Larkin to tailor his words according to the recipient, rather than representing Larkin's true opinions. Nevertheless, media interest in Larkin has increased in the 21st century. The Larkin Society was formed in 1995, ten years after the poet's death. Its president is one of Larkin's literary executors, Anthony Thwaite.

Bibliography

Poetry

• The North Ship (1945)
• XX Poems (1953)
• The Fantasy Poets No. 21 ([[1954])
• The Less Deceived (1955)
  • "Church Going" (read)
• The Whitsun Weddings (1964)
  • "The Whitsun Weddings" (read)
  • "An Arundel Tomb" (read)
  • "A Study of Reading Habits" (read)
  • "Ambulances" (read)
  • "Mr Bleaney"
• High Windows (1974)
  • "Homage to a Government (read)
  • "This Be The Verse"
  • "Annus Mirabilis" (read)
  • "The Explosion" (read)
• Collected Poems 1938–83 (1988)
  • "Aubade" (read) (first published 1977)
  • "Party Politics" (read) (last published poem)

Fiction

• Jill (1946). ISBN 0879519614
• A Girl in Winter (1947). ISBN 0879512172
• "Trouble at Willow Gables" and Other Fiction 1943–1953 (writing as "Brunette Coleman"). ISBN 0571203477

Nonfiction

• All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–71
• Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955–82

Miscellaneous

• The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse (ed.) (1973)

Books about Larkin

• Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life, Andrew Motion (1993). ISBN 057117065
• Selected Letters of Philip Larkin, Anthony Thwaite, editor (1992). ISBN 057117048
• The Philip Larkin I Knew, Maeve Brennan, Manchester University Press (2002). ISBN 0719062756

Notes

1. ^  see for example, Swarbrick, Andrew, Out of Reach : The Poetry of Philip Larkin, Palgrave Macmillan, 1995. ISBN: 0312125453.

External links

• The Philip Larkin Society

Credits

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