Reading Philip Larkin

(1922-1985)

(1) The Anti-Thomas: saw Dylan Thomas as too artificial, both in his poetic-persona and in his writing. Larkin wanted writing to be more direct and personal. Even though he was first influenced by Yeats, he soon turned away from him, turning toward poets like Wordsworth , Owen, and Auden as his examples.

(2) Larkin wrote several novels! Quite several. Remember this when you are reading. He has a novelist’s sense of characters, place, and plot. Often times you can answer “what is this poem about” quite clearly.

(3) He rejected Eliot, not because he didn’t acknowledge his talents, but due to the fact that Larkin was bent on creating a more colloquial, ironic, “commonplace,” style of writing. The “commonplace” is an important theme in Larkin’s work. As your lovely Norton bio blurb reminds you, Larkin once said:  “Poetry is an affair of sanity, of seeing things as they are..I don’t want to transcend the commonplace, I love the commonplace life. Everyday things are lovely to me.”

(4) He was a dominant figure in what is known as “The Movement.” This was a group of several poets who went against the “high-flow rhetoric” of Modernism (i.e. Dylan Thomas, Eliot, Pound) and sought to create a more “down-to-earth” version.

(5) He declined the Poet Laureate position

(6) He loved jazz. Now that seems a little random, but it is important to keep this in mind as you are reading. When do his poems take on certain beats? How do his poems sound to the ear? In looking at “High Windows” for example, we witness a progression from beginning to end, a movement from a fast-paced colloquial speech to a more formal and drawn out one. His poems contain their own musicality, one that like jazz step outside of their tradition (i.e. modernism), turning toward new modes of representation.  “High Windows” reminds me a lot of the Beat poets, a very jazzy (if you will) beginning, very orientated on word-beat, word-sound. Here, don’t believe me? Listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcLNHNyzVcU&feature=related

(7) Just a small biographical note: He was a librarian! Remember that!

 Questions/ Thoughts for you consideration: What does a poem like “Church Going” say about religion?  Why is he drawn inside the church? Is he hoping to understand the war? His own existence? What is the attraction between the narrator and the church? How is this poem different from a poem by Dylan Thomas? At the end, does he hold onto to some belief, or does all of his faith vanish?

Also, please read “MCMXIV” which is 1914 in roman numerals. Think about how the war is described here. Also take into consideration the fact that it was published, and presumably written, around 1964, fifty years after the beginning of WWI. What does this say about the world’s inability to forget, fifty years later? Dylan Thomas was born in 1914, and Larkin in 1922, we are reading, for the first time in this class, poetry by the children of WWI/WWII. The poems become rather psychological in this sense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rjRYSfCJvM– Larkin Reading “This be the Verse”

This is one of my favorite poems by him, and safe to say one of the best poems, it has the power to take over you completely as you read it. You can read it with Larkin’s voice to help you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTSMH36tIQc&feature=related

 Please remember to laugh. 🙂

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Dylan Thomas

Listen to this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyWiE1vNSxU

Thomas’s Writing Room———————–>

Things to Keep in Mind in Regards to Theme and Life:

(1) Think about the movement from Eliot to Thomas- Thomas deliberately steps away from Eliot’s ironic effects, hoping to create a new kind of romanticism, one which uses traditional poetic form in a new way. For example, villanelle, a word Prof. Donelan spent some time talking about during class, is something Thomas employs in poems such as “Do not go Gentle into that Good Night,”  in order to show how form (i.e. poetic form) allows the poet to temper his passions.

(2)  He was very interested in ORDER. Ordering images and patterns in order (no pun intended) to create the impression of unity. The disorder of the high modernists did not attract him.  

(3) Biology interested him – idea of unity out of diversity. This is called his “dialectical method,” which is basically this idea that opposites (such as life and death) often work together (i.e. we must live to die, and to die we must have lived). Dylan describes it as:  “Each image holds within it the seed of its own destruction.”

(4 ) Substance Abuse-  Alcoholism- perhaps this is another way to understand just why he constantly used traditional forms, such as villanelle. We can perhaps note that his use of these forms was a way to enable the poetic voice to  temper its passions, the very temperance Thomas himself shunned.

(5) Constant combination of nature (birth/death) and man (birth/death)- natural process of growth and decay ,of “aliveness” and withering in many of his poems.

Thoughts: Reread “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”- What is the poem about? How is his sadness tempered through his use of villanelle? Also, look at “The Hunchback in the Park.” What does it say about art (i.e. the statue)? Is art the only thing that resists decay? Or does art decay as well? Think about what the professor said about the “death of high modernism.”

Also pick out three or four really important biographical facts about him. Post them on this site so everyone can get a chance to see them! Although we are not having section this week you can still take advantage of the virtual resource provided for you here.

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