Begin Afresh: The Evolution of Philip Larkin’s Poetry

Begin Afresh: The Evolution of Philip Larkin’s Poetry offers incisive, insightful and yet lucid analyses of all the individual poems contained in the four major collections of Larkin (1922–1985). It also deals with his “Juvenile Poems”, Brunette Coleman poems, those in In the Grip of Light and XX Poems, as well as his last poems. The book also discusses Larkin’s novels and débats. It evaluates the critical opinions regarding various aspects of Larkin’s poetry, especially the issue of its development, and shows that it may not follow a clearly identifiable, linear, chronological line of evolution, but it does evolve in a subtle way from one phase of his career to the next. The book explores how Larkin discovered his own original, inimitable, idiosyncratic poetic voice by truly democratising English poetry for the first time, by writing accessible and pleasurable poetry, and by forging a new poetic out of a philistine aesthetic, which stands out as an artistic holotype. It shows how Larkin restores the relation between poetry and the reading public, a relation which was broken down by Modernist poets. It also establishes how his poetic vision is neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but realistic in that it “preserves” the universal human condition without moralising or philosophising. The book aims to make a fresh departure in Larkin criticism and mark a new era in Larkin studies. This volume will be of interest to students and researchers of Modernism, twentieth-century literature, poetry, language and literature.

Table of Contents:
Contents Foreword x Acknowledgements xii Abbreviations xiv 1 Introduction 1 1 “I Remember, I Remember” 1 2 Larkin’s Status as a Poet 2 3 Critical Controversies 4 4 The Evolution of Larkin’s Poetry 9 5 “Begin Afresh”: A Re-Evaluation 13 6 Methodology 14 Notes 15 2 Early Poems to The North Ship (1938–1945) 17 1 Juvenile Poems 17 2 Brunette Coleman Poems: Sugar and Spice 22 3 The North Ship: Poeticisms, Rhetorical Hi-Jinks, and Innovative Imitation 27 (i) A Fortuitous First Volume 27 (ii) “Poetical” Poems 29 (iii) “Yeats-y” Poems 33 (iv) Audenesque Poems 36 (v) Gendered Poems 38 (vi) Eros-Thanatos Poems 42 (vii) Carpe diem 43 (viii) Purist Aestheticism 44 (ix) Poems of Poetic Vocation 46 Notes 48 3 From Novelist to Poet 50 1 The Novels and Débats 50 2 Biographical Pressures 62 3 Crisis: In the Grip of Light and XX Poems 64 4 Britain’s Political Transition 71 5 “The Movement” 73 6 Anti-Romanticism and Anti-Modernism 79 7 Religion, Consumerism, “Permissive Society” and “Race Relations” 84 Notes 87 4 The Less Deceived: “Clear-eyed Realism” and Demotic Poetics 89 1 Deceptions and Illusions 89 2 “Come and Choose Wrong”: Choice 94 3 “Threadbare Perspectives”: Triple Time 99 4 “Admirer and Admired”: Beyond Cynicism 107 5 A Disoccurrence 110 6 My Darling 111 7 Catching Happiness 112 8 Oblivion and Self-Transcendence 113 9 Elegy 116 10 Celebration 118 11 Awkward Reverence 121 Notes 125 5 The Whitsun Weddings: Larkin at the Zenith 127 1 Serio-Comic Poems 127 2 “How Life Should Be”: Advertisement Poems 135 3 Life’s Victims 140 4 “Something Hidden From Us”: Alter Ego Poems 144 5 “When We Start To Die”: Poems of Failure and Death 150 6 “What Will Survive Of Us” 155 7 “An Enormous Yes” 162 8 The End of Larkin’s Marriage Debate: 1963–1964 169 9 Epithalamium 170 Notes 176 6 High Windows: The Quotidian and the Transcendent 179 1 “Screaming for More”: Public Poems 179 2 Secondary Inspirations 183 3 The “Strength and Pain / Of Being Young” 187 4 “Uncontradicting Solitude” 191 5 Self-Satire 194 6 “Your Mum and Dad” 197 7 “Very Corny” 198 8 “The Eggs Unbroken” 200 9 “You Give For Ever” 201 10 Living 202 11 The Sad Song of Money 208 12 “It Didn’t Work For Them Or Me” 210 13 “O World, / Your Loves, Your Chances” 211 14 “Let It Always Be There” 218 Notes 223 7 Larkin After High Windows 227 1 “Furnace-Fear” 227 2 Betty Mackereth: The Love Poems of 1975–1976 233 3 “It Never Worked For Me” 241 4 “We Should Be Kind / While There Is Still Time” 244 5 A Lyric Moment 246 6 Friendly Doggerels 246 7 Occasional Poems 247 8 The “Last” Poem 249 9 “It Is By Bridges That We Live” 250 Notes 256 8 Conclusion 257 1 Pessimism 257 2 Lyricism 260 3 From Personal to Universal 261 4 The Ordinary 264 5 Transcendence 265 6 Larkin’s Achievement 270 Notes 271 Bibliography Index