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拉金Larkin was born in city of Coventry, West Midlands, England, the only son and younger child of Sydney Larkin (1884–1948), city treasurer of Coventry, who came from Lichfield, and his wife, Eva Emily Day (1886–1977), of Epping. From 1930 to 1940 he was educated at King Henry VIII School in Coventry, and in October 1940, in the midst of the Second World War, went up to St John's College, Oxford, to read English language and literature. Having been rejected for military service because of his bad eyesight, he was able, unlike many of his contemporaries, to follow the traditional full-length degree course, taking a first-class degree in 1943. Whilst at Oxford he met Kingsley Amis, a lifelong friend and frequent correspondent. Shortly after graduating he was appointed municipal librarian at Wellington, Shropshire. In 1946, he became assistant librarian at University College, Leicester and in 1955 sub-librarian at Queen's University, Belfast. In March 1955, Larkin was appointed librarian at the University of Hull, a position he retained until his death.
1922 – 1950: Upbringing, Education & Early Career
Philip Larkin was born on 9 August 1922 in Coventry, West Midlands, England. He lived with his family in Poultney Road, Radford, Coventry until he was five years old.[3] He had a sister named Catherine, known as Kitty, about 10 years older than himself.[4] His father, Sydney Larkin, a self-made man who had risen to be Coventry City Treasurer,[4] was a singular individual who combined a love of literature with an enthusiasm for Nazism – he attended two Nuremberg rallies during the mid-30s. He introduced his son to the works of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Joyce and above all D. H. Lawrence.[5] His mother was Eva, a nervous passive woman, dominated by her husband. His childhood was at first unusual: he was educated by his mother and elder sister until the age of eight and no friends or relatives visited the family home.[6] Despite this, and the stammer he had already developed, when he joined Coventry’s King Henry VIII Junior School he fitted in immediately and made firm life-long friendships with James Sutton, Colin Gunner and Noel “Josh” Hughes. Although home life was relatively cold Larkin enjoyed support from his parents. For example, his deep passion for jazz was supported by purchases of a drum kit and a saxophone and a subscription for Down Beat, the first of Larkin’s many jazz magazines. At the age of 16 he took his School Certificate and did relatively poorly. However, he was allowed to stay on. He appears to have changed gear after this, for two years later he got distinctions in English and History and passed the extrance exams for St John’s College, Oxford.[7]
Larkin’s time at Oxford coincided with World War Two. The Brideshead Revisited image had been put on hold, and most of the male students were studying for highly truncated degrees.[8] Larkin himself failed his military medical, thanks to his deeply poor eyesight, and was able to study for the full three years. Through his tutorial partner, Norman Iles, he met Kingsley Amis. Amis remained a close friend of Larkin throughout his life, one who encouraged his taste for ridicule and irreverence. Amis, Larkin and other university friends formed a group they titled “The Seven”. They met to discuss each others poetry, listen to jazz and to drink enthusiastically. During this time he had his first real social interaction with the opposite sex, but made no romantic headway.[9] In 1943 he sat his finals. Despite having dedicated much of his time to his own writing he was awarded, to his great surprise, a first-class degree.
In autumn 1943 Larkin was appointed librarian of the public library in Wellington, Shropshire. While working here he met, in spring 1944, his first girlfriend Ruth Bowman, an academically ambitious 16 year old schoolgirl.[10] In autumn 1945 Ruth started studying at King’s College, London and during his visits to her there the couple started sexual relations. By June 1946 Larkin was halfway through qualifying for membership of the Library Association and was appointed sub-librarian of University College, Leicester. It was while visiting Larkin in Leicester and witnessing the Senior Common Room that gave Kingsley Amis his inspiration to write Lucky Jim. Larkin's father died of cancer in March 1948; six weeks later he proposed to Ruth. That summer the couple spent their annual holiday touring Hardy country.[11]
1950 – 1969: Personal, Poetic & Professional Prime
In June 1950 Larkin was appointed sub-librarian of Queen’s University, Belfast, a post he took up in that September. Prior to his departure he and Ruth split up. At some stage between his appointment to Queen’s and the calling off of the engagement his relationship with Monica Jones, a lecturer in English at Leicester, became sexual. He spent five years in Belfast, which appear to have been the most contented of his life. While his relationship with Monica Jones developed, he also had a sexually adventurous affair with Patsy Strang, who at the time was in an open marriage with one of his colleagues.[12] At one stage she offered to leave her husband to marry Larkin. From summer 1951 onwards Larkin would holiday with Monica in various locations around the British Isles. While in Belfast he also had a significant, though sexually undeveloped friendship with Winifred Arnott, the subject of "Lines on a Young Lady's Photograph Album". This came to a close when she married in 1954. Also during this period he gave Kingsley Amis extensive advice while the latter was writing Lucky Jim.[13]
In 1955 Larkin was appointed head librarian of Hull University, a post he would hold until his death. For his first year he lodged in bedsits and then in 1956, at the age of 34, he for the first time rented a self-contained dwelling, a top-floor flat overlooking Hull's Pearson Park. This vantage point was later commemorated in the poem "High Windows".[14] In the post-war years Hull University underwent an enormous expansion typical of the period. During the first fifteen years of Larkin's time there a new and thoroughly modern library was built, in two stages; he was deeply involved throughout in its development. From 1957 until his death his secretary was Betty Mackereth. All access to him by his colleagues was through her and she came to know as much about Larkin's compartmentalised life as anyone.[15]
In February 1961 Larkin's friendship with his colleague Maeve Brennan became romantic, despite her strong Roman Catholic beliefs.[16] In spring 1963 Maeve persuaded him to attend a SCR dance with her, despite his preference for smaller gatherings. This seems to have been a pivotal occasion in their relationship, one which he memorialised in his longest and unfinished poem "The Dance".[17] Also at her prompting and around this time Larkin learnt to drive and bought a car.
Around this time Monica Jones, whose parents had died in quick succession in autumn 1959 bought a holiday cottage in Haydon Bridge, near Hexham.[18] She and Larkin visited it regularly.[19] His notable poem 'Show Saturday' is a description of the 1973 Bellingham show in the North Tyne valley.[20]
In 1964, in the aftermath of the release of The Whitsun Weddings Larkin was the subject of an episode of the arts programme Monitor. In its form of a series of interviews with John Betjeman in and around Hull it was largely responsible for the creation of Larkin's public persona.
1969 – 1985: "Beyond the light stand failure and remorse"
The second, and much larger stage, of Hull University's new Brynmor Jones Library was completed in 1969. Larkin had had an important role in its coming into existence.[21] In October 1970 he was able to start work on compiling a new anthology, The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse. He had been awarded a Visiting Fellowship at All Souls' College, Oxford for two academic terms, which allowed him to consult Oxford's Bodleian Library, a copyright library. Larkin was a major contributor to the re-evaluation of the poetry of Thomas Hardy, which in comparison to his work as a novelist had been ignored; in Larkin's 'idiosyncratic and controversial' anthology [22] Hardy received the longest _select_ion.
In 1971 he began corresponding with his schoolfriend Colin Gunner, who had led a picaresque life. In the period 1973 to 1974 he was made an Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Oxford and awarded honorary degrees by Warwick, St Andrews and Sussex universities. In January of 1974 Hull University informed Larkin that they were going to dispose of the building on Pearson Park in which he lived. Shortly afterwards he bought a detached house in a thoroughly suburban street called "Newland Park" and moved in.
In August 1973 Larkin and Maeve Brennan split up; shortly afterwards Larkin attended W. H. Auden's memorial service in Oxford cathedral with Monica as his official partner. However in March 1975 the relationship with Maeve restarted, and three weeks after this he started a secret affair with his secretary Betty Mackereth, writing the long–undiscovered poem "We met at the end of the party" for her.[23] Despite the logistical difficulties in having three relationships simultaneously, the situation continued until March 1978. From this moment on he and Monica were a monogamous couple.[24] Five years later Monica developed shingles and consequently moved into the Newland Park home; she remained there for the rest of both their lives.
In July 1984 John Betjeman died; at his memorial service Larkin was asked if he would accept the post of Poet Laureate but he declined, not least because he had long ceased to write poetry in a manner he regarded as meaningful.[25] The following year Larkin began to suffer from oesophageal cancer and, on 11 June 1985, underwent exploratory surgery. His cancer was found to have spread and was inoperable. On 28 November he collapsed and was readmitted to hospital. He died four days later, on 2 December 1985, at the age of 63, and was buried at the Cottingham Municipal Cemetery near Hull. His gravestone reads simply "Philip Larkin, Writer".[26]
On his deathbed Larkin had requested that his diaries be destroyed. This request was granted by Monica Jones and Betty Mackereth: the diaries were shredded page by page and then burnt.[27] Other private papers were saved, against his wishes.
When she died on 15 February 2001, Monica, who had been the major beneficiary of Larkin's will, in turn left a quarter of a million pounds each to Hexham Abbey and Durham Cathedral.[28]
Creative Output
From his mid-teens Larkin “wrote ceaselessly”, producing both poetry, modelled on Eliot and W. H. Auden, and fiction. He wrote five full-length novels, all of which he destroyed shortly after completion. While he was at Oxford University he published a poem for the first time: "Ultimatum" in The Listener. Around this time he developed an alter ego for his prose called Brunette Coleman. Under this name he wrote two novellas Trouble at Willow Gables and Michaelmas Term at St Brides, as well as a supposed autobiography and an equally fictional creative manifesto called “What we are writing for”. Richard Bradford has written that these curious works show “three registers: cautious indifference, archly overwritten symbolism with a hint of Lawrence and prose that appears to disclose its writer’s involuntary feelings of sexual excitement.” [29] After his these works Larkin started his first published novel Jill. This was published by R. A. Caton, a publisher of barely-legal pornography, who also issued serious fiction as a cover for his core activities.
Around the time that Jill was being prepared for publication, Caton asked Larkin if he wrote poetry as well, which resulted in The North Ship a collection of poems written between 1942 and 1944 which showed the increasing influence of Yeats and published three months before Jill. Immediately after completing Jill, Larkin started work on the novel A Girl in Winter, completing it in 1945. It was published in 1947 by Faber & Faber and well received, The Sunday Times calling it “an exquisite performance and nearly faultless”.[30] Subsequently he made at least three extended attempts at writing a third novel, but none got further than a solid start.[31]
It was during Larkin’s five years in Belfast that he reached maturity as a poet.[32] The bulk of his next published collection of poems The Less Deceived was written here, though eight of the twenty-nine poems included were from the late 1940s. It was during this time that he made his final attempts at novel writing, and also gave extensive help to Kingsley Amis with the latter’s first published novel Lucky Jim. In October 1954 an article in The Spectator made the first use of the title The Movement to describe the dominant trend in British post-war literature.[33] Various poems of his were included in a 1953 PEN Anthology that also included poems by Amis and Robert Conquest and Larkin was seen to be a part of this grouping.
In November 1955 The Less Deceived was published by The Marvell Press, a thoroughly independent company operating out of Hessle just beyond the west border of Hull. At first the volume attracted little attention, but in December it was included in The Times' list of books of the year.[34] From this point the book's reputation spread and sales blossomed throughout 1956 and 1957. During his first five years in Hull the pressures of work slowed Larkin's output slowed to an average of just two-and-a-half poems a year, but it was during this period that he wrote An Arundel Tomb, The Whitsun Weddings and Here.
In 1963 Faber & Faber reissued Jill, including a long introduction by Larkin that included much information about his time at Oxford University and his friendship with Kingsley Amis. This acted as prelude to the release the following year of The Whitsun Weddings which confirmed his reputation: almost immediately after its publication he was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Literature. In the years that followed Larkin wrote several of his most famous and iconic poems, such as "Annus Mirabilis", "High Windows" and "This Be The Verse". In the 1970s Larkin wrote a series of longer and more sober poems: "The Building", "The Old Fools" and "Aubade".
Larkin's final collection High Windows was published in June 1974. Its more direct use of language meant that it did not meet with uniform praise; nonetheless it sold over twenty thousand copies in its first year alone. For some critics it represents a falling-off from his previous two books,[35] yet it contains a number of his much-loved pieces, including "This Be The Verse" and "The Explosion", as well as the title poem. "Annus Mirabilis" (Year of Wonder), also from that volume, contains the frequently quoted observation that sexual intercourse began in 1963 which he claimed was "rather late for me" despite his having first had sexual relations in 1945. Bradford, prompted by comments in Maeve Brennan's memoir, suggests that the poem commemorates Larkin's relationship with Brennan moving from the romantic to the sexual. [36]
Later in 1974 he started work on his final major poem "Aubade". It was completed in 1977 and published in the 23 December issue of the TLS.[37]
Although Larkin's earliest work shows in turn the influences of Eliot, Auden and Yeats the development of his mature poetic identity in the early 1950s coincided with the growing influence of Thomas Hardy.[38] He is well known for his use of colloquial language 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 and fatalism were recurring themes and subjects of his poetry, his final major poem "Aubade" being an example of this. Larkin specialised in making poetic the trivial, in finding significance in items of everyday commoness.
In 1972 he wrote the oft-quoted "Going, Going", a poem which expresses the romantic fatalism in his view of England which was typical of his later years. In it, he prophesies a complete destruction of the countryside, and expresses an idealised sense of national togetherness and identity. The poem ends with the doom-laden statement, "I just think it will happen, soon".
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 inflamed and polemical in his introduction to his collected jazz reviews, All What Jazz, 126 record-review columns he wrote for the Daily Telegraph between 1961 and 1971, which contains an attack on modern jazz that widens into a wholesale critique of modernism in the arts.
Legacy
Critical reputation
Larkin's posthumous reputation was affected by the publication of his official biography, Andrew Motion's Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life (1993), and Anthony Thwaite's edition of his letters (1992). These revealed his obsession with pornography, his racism, his increasing shift to the political right wing, and his habitual expressions of venom and spleen. These revelations have been dismissed by the author and critic Martin Amis (son of Kingsley Amis), 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. This idea is developed in Richard Bradford's biography: he compares the style Larkin took in his correspondence with the author Barbara Pym with that he adopted with his old schoolfriend Colin Gunner.[39][40]
Despite controversy about his personal life and opinions, he remains one of Britain's most popular poets; three of his poems, "This Be The Verse", "The Whitsun Weddings" and "An Arundel Tomb", featured in the "Nation's Top 100 Poems" as voted for by viewers of the BBC's Bookworm in 1995 [1]. Media interest in Larkin has increased in the twenty-first century. His poem At Grass is featured in one Anthology booklet of the GCSE English exam, and Afternoons appears in another, Best Words. Larkin's The Whitsun Weddings collection is one of the available poetry texts in the AQA English Literature A Level syllabus, whilst High Windows is offered by the OCR board and "An Arundel Tomb" in the Edexcel board Poetry Anthology. The Larkin Society was formed in 1995, ten years after the poet's death; its president is Anthony Thwaite, one of Larkin's literary executors.
A pamphlet of Larkin's most famous work was given away with the Guardian newspaper on 14 March 2008. Larkin's biographer Andrew Motion contributed the foreword to the booklet [2].
Recordings
In 1964 Larkin was interviewed by Sir John Betjeman for the BBC programme Monitor: Philip Larkin meets John Betjeman [3]. The film, together with the original rushes, is stored at the Larkin archive at the University of Hull [4].
Larkin was the subject of the South Bank Show in 1982 [5]. Larkin did not appear on camera although Melvyn Bragg, in his introduction to the programme, stressed the poet had given his full cooperation. The programme featured contributions from Kingsley Amis, Andrew Motion and Alan Bennett. Bennett read several of Larkin's works on an edition of "Poetry in Motion", broadcast by Channel 4 in 1990 [6].
After lying undiscovered in a Hornsea garage for over two decades, an unprecedented collection of Larkin audio tapes was found in 2006. The recordings were made by the poet in the early 1980s. Extracts can be heard during a Sky News report [7]. His poetry-speaking voice was very different from his normal voice, which he described as 'halfway between the of drawl of Leicester and the laziness of Birmingham'. A programme examing the discovery in more depth, The Larkin Tapes [8] was broadcast on Radio 4 in March 2008.
Fiction based on Larkin's life
In 1999, Oliver Ford Davies starred in Ben Brown's play Larkin With Women at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, reprising his role at the Orange Tree Theatre, London, in 2006. The play was published by Larkin's own publishers, Faber. Three years later Sir Tom Courtenay debuted [9] his one-man play Pretending to Be Me at the West Yorkshire Playhouse [10] before transferring the production to the Comedy Theatre in London's West End. An audio recording of the play, which is based on Larkin's letters, interviews, diaries and verse, was released in 2005 [11].
In 2003, BBC Two broadcast a play, titled Love Again, that dealt with the last thirty years of Larkin's life (though not shot anywhere near Hull). The lead role was played by Hugh Bonneville[41] and in the same year Channel 4 broadcast the documentary Philip Larkin, Love and Death in Hull [12].
The writer and critic David Quantick parodied Larkin's poem An Arundel Tomb during his comedy programme One [13] again on Radio 4 in the same month, with the poet peppering his work with references to guns and other weaponry. In the sketch, Larkin answers the telephone to Kingsley Amis and agrees to meet his friend in the pub later.
In his acclaimed play The History Boys (2004) Alan Bennett quotes from Larkin's "MCMXIV" and the character of the Headmaster, a geography graduate from Hull, refers to Larkin as 'the Himmler of the accessions desk' [14].
In 1957 his friend Robert Conquest, of the group known as The Movement, played a practical joke on him. The story was the subject of the comedy radio play by Chris Harrald, Mr Larkin's Awkward Day, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 29 April 2008.[42] It tells the true story of the joke that had Larkin fearing he might be sent to prison. In September 1957, a pre-fame Larkin prepares for another ordinary day and picks up his post. But one letter stands out: an official-looking envelope embossed with the words Scotland Yard. The letter reveals that there is an ongoing investigation into him conducted under the Obscene Publications Act 1921. The letter informs Larkin that he might have to appear in court since it is alleged he has been buying pornography – and he knows all too well that he has. Larkin begins to fret about what to do – destroy the evidence under the gaze of a watchful landlady before the police arrive? Eventually, he goes to his librarian job. As he leaves the library he freezes when Inspector Cough introduces himself and says that he is very interested in Larkin's literary tastes. Larkin begins to defend himself until it transpires that the men have crossed wires – one fears he is being quizzed about purchasing dubious magazines, the other thinks he is having a friendly chat about literature. Finally, Larkin prises himself free from the Inspector to dash off to a meeting with his solicitors, who ask him what journals he has been buying. After he returns to his lodgings his landlady knocks on Larkin's door – someone wants him on the phone. It's Larkin's historian friend, Bob Conquest, and he is laughing. He asks Larkin about the silly joke he played on him, the embossed envelope and so on. When it becomes clear that Larkin was completely taken in, Bob offers to pay his solicitors' costs.[43]
Works
Poetry
See also Category: Poetry by Philip Larkin
The North Ship (1945)
XX Poems (1951)
The Less Deceived (1955)
"Church Going" (read)
"Toads"
"Maiden Name"
"Born Yesterday"
"Lines on a Young Lady's Autograph Album"
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" (read)
"Annus Mirabilis" (read)
"The Explosion" (read)
"The Building"
"High Windows"
Collected Poems 1938–83 (1988) (arranged in chronological order)
"Aubade" (read) (first published 1977)
"Party Politics" (last published poem)
"The Dance" (unfinished & unpublished)
"Love Again" (unpublished)
Collected Poems (2003) (the four published collections plus an appendix of other published poems)
Fiction
Jill (1946) ISBN 0-87951-961-4
A Girl in Winter (1947) ISBN 0-87951-217-2
"Trouble at Willow Gables" and Other Fiction 1943–1953 (2002) (writing as "Brunette Coleman") ISBN 0-571-20347-7
Non-fiction
All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–1971
Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955–1982 (1983)
Further Requirements: Interviews, Broadcasts, Statements and Book Reviews 1952 – 1985
Brynmor Jones Library, 1929–79 (1979) ISBN 0-8595-8538-7
Miscellaneous
The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse (as editor) (1973)
References
Footnotes
^ "Larkin is nation's top poet" BBC News 15 October 2003
^ "The 50 greatest postwar writers" The Times, 5 January 2008.
^ Simpson, Cara (2007-04-18). Drunk vandals target poet's garden. Coventry Telegraph. Retrieved on 7 May 2008.
^ a b Orwin, James L. Philip Larkin 1922-1985. The Philip Larkin Society. Retrieved on 7 May 2008.
^ Bradford 2005, p.26.
^ Bradford 2005, p.28.
^ Bradford 2005, p.38.
^ Bradford 2005, p.39.
^ Bradford 2005, p.59.
^ Bradford 2005, p.68–9.
^ Bradford 2005, p.70.
^ Bradford 2005, p.100.
^ Motion 1993, p.238.
^ Bradford 2005, p.154.
^ Bradford 2005, p.241; Motion 1993, p.282.
^ Bradford 2005, p.183.
^ Bradford 2005, p.199.
^ Bradford 2005, p.181 & 193.
^ Myers Literary Guide: The North-East
^ Motion 1993, p.437.
^ Bradford 2005, p.170.
^ Motion 1993, p.407 & 431.
^ Eric McHenry. "High Standards" Slate 10 February 2003
^ Bradford 2005, p.245.
^ Bradford 2005, p.260.
^ Motion 1993, p.524.
^ Motion 1993, p.522.
^ John Ezard. "Larkin's lover bequeaths to church £1m of poet's agnostic legacy" The Guardian 12 January 2002 (updated 22 December 2003)
^ Bradford 2005, p.51.
^ Bradford 2005, p.77.
^ Bradford 2005, p.75.
^ Bradford 2005, p.103.
^ Motion 1993, p.242.
^ Motion 1993, p.269.
^ Andrew Swarbrick 1995
^ Bradford 2005, p.212.
^ Motion 1993, p.468.
^ Bradford 2005, p.70.
^ Bradford 2005, p.210 & 224.
^ Motion 1993, p.332
^ BBC TWO's summer of events. BBC (19-03-03).
^ Harrald. BBC radio play
^ Motion 1993, p.266—7.
Bibliography
James Booth (2005) Philip Larkin: The Poet's Plight, ISBN 1-4039-1834-1
Richard Bradford (2005) First Boredom Then Fear: The Life of Philip Larkin, Peter Owen Publishers ISBN 0-7206-1147-4
Maeve Brennan (2002) The Philip Larkin I Knew, Manchester University Press. ISBN 0-7190-6275-6
Andrew Motion (1993) Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life. ISBN 0-571-17065-X
Andrew Swarbrick (1995) Out of Reach: The Poetry of Philip Larkin, Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-12545-3
Anthony Thwaite editor (1992) _Select_ed Letters of Philip Larkin. ISBN 0-571-17048-X
Terry Whalen (1986) Philip Larkin and English Poetry, University of British Columbia Press ISBN 0-7748-0232-4
Plays about Larkin
Patrick Garland (devised) An Enormous Yes
Tom Courtenay (2005) Pretending to be Me: Phillip Larkin, a portrait, ISBN 1-4055-0082-4
Chris Harrald Mr Larkin's Awkward Day, a comedy radio play, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 29 April 2008.