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The Guilty Influence: Philip Larkin Among the Poets Mark Patrick The Guilty Influence: Philip Larkin among the poets Mark Patrick Davidson Roberts Submitted for the degree of PhD (English) Goldsmiths, University of London 2014 Signed Declaration I hereby declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where other sources of information have been used, they have been acknowledged. This thesis has not been submitted to any other institution. Mark Patrick Davidson Roberts Acknowledgements In the research and writing of this thesis there have been several invaluable individuals without whom it is unlikely that I would have completed it. First and foremost are my parents, sister, and two grandmothers, whose support in every way has been absurdly accommodating and without compare. My thanks also to my late Grandfather, Sidney Roberts, whom I suspect is the root of my interest in this subject, and as such I am irrecoverably in his debt. My supervisor, Chris Baldick, from taking on the project in the first place, through many anti-tangential editorial suggestions and discussions, has been immensely helpful, kind and wise. The staff of Senate House Library, of the University of London, helped enormously with my reading, writing, and archival research, so many thanks to them. For their advice, support, empathy and tolerance, I must thank Jo Robinson, Niall Sreenan, Michael Flexer, Rebecca Saunders, Declan Ryan and Guy Stevenson. Abstract The Guilty Influence: Philip Larkin among the poets Scholarship on Philip Larkin tends to limit him as a poet, through accusations of narrowness both of subject-matter, and of received influence. The paradox between Larkin’s undoubted place as an important, beloved poet, and the supposedly limited nature of his verse, has served to isolate him – unlike other poets (e.g Ted Hughes) – Larkin’s recognised influences are few. It is commonly accepted that he was influenced perhaps only by W. H. Auden, W. B. Yeats, and Thomas Hardy. He is seen as an opponent of modernism, specifically of the poetry of T. S. Eliot, and his accepted modernist heirs; Robert Lowell, Hughes, Sylvia Plath and others. My project sets out to prove that this view of Larkin is simplistically limited. Sufficient (indeed, much) evidence exists of Larkin as having been a keen reader and assimilator of a wide range of influences, from Eliot through Dylan Thomas, Lowell and Plath. Much of this evidence (e.g. 2010’s Letters to Monica) has come to light only recently, and is yet to be fully acknowledged for the effect that it has had on our reading of Larkin. Added to this is a body of older evidence (1992’s Selected Letters) arguing for Larkin’s ‘English’ influences to be rooted in the ‘studied impersonality’ of Edward Thomas and Wilfred Owen. When compared to Hughes and Thom Gunn, similar poetic and thematic concerns unite these three poets, so often thought to be at odds. These ‘guilty’ influences, show Larkin to be a far more culturally receptive poet than he is often thought of as being. Why such evidence has gone unused or under- appreciated is considered here, as is an assessment of both Larkin’s defenders and detractors. I argue for a more open, less limiting reading of Larkin, and note that, recently, this argument has been gaining ground in scholarship. Contents The Guilty Influence: Philip Larkin among the poets 1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 6 1.1 (i) ‘Force’ and the unanimity principle ............................................ 6 1.1 (ii) Four schools and two poles ...................................................... 15 1.1 (iii) The English reshapers ............................................................ 22 1.1 (iv) From America ......................................................................... 23 1.1 (v) Among the poets ...................................................................... 26 1.1 (vi) ‘The growth of a major poet’ .................................................... 29 Literature Review ................................................................................. 31 1.2 (i) The fact of the watershed ......................................................... 31 1.2 (ii) Early battle lines ..................................................................... 35 1.2 (iii) The first studies .................................................................... 40 1.2 (iv) The watershed ........................................................................ 52 1.2 (v) After the watershed ................................................................. 63 1.2 (vi) Letters to Monica and The Complete Poems ........................... 71 1.2 (vii) At present .............................................................................. 77 Chapter 1: Larkin and studied impersonality: Edward Thomas, Wilfred Owen, W. H. Auden and Dylan Thomas ................................................. 81 1.1 The three lines ........................................................................... 81 1 1.2 Misconceptions ............................................................................. 87 1.3 Edward Thomas and Wilfred Owen............................................... 94 1.4 Larkin and W. H. Auden .............................................................. 113 1.4 (i) Larkin as the ‘other’ Auden ..................................................... 113 1.4 (ii) Larkin and Auden’s early work.............................................. 120 1.4 (iii) Larkin and ‘late’ or ‘American’ Auden ................................... 131 1.5 Larkin and Dylan Thomas ............................................................ 141 1.6 Conclusions ................................................................................ 168 Chapter 2: Larkin and the Americans: Eliot, Lowell and Plath. ............ 171 2.1 Larkin and America ..................................................................... 171 2.2 Larkin and Eliot .......................................................................... 175 2.3 Lowell and Larkin ...................................................................... 203 2.4 Larkin and Plath ........................................................................ 227 2.5 Conclusions ................................................................................ 260 Chapter 3: the triple-headed creature; Larkin, Hughes and Gunn. ...... 263 3.1 An unlikely trio ........................................................................ 263 3.2 Larkin and Ted Hughes ............................................................ 271 3.2 (i) Alternatives to one another .................................................... 271 3.2 (iii) The influence of D. H. Lawrence. ......................................... 279 2 3.2 (iv) ‘Naked’ Lowell’s effect on Larkin and Hughes, and the question of ‘AutoBiography’ ........................................................................... 285 3.2 (v) Empire and War in Larkin and Hughes ................................. 295 3.2 (vi) Divergent paths .................................................................... 309 3.3 Larkin and Thom Gunn ............................................................. 311 3.3 (i) Movementeers ........................................................................ 311 3.3 (ii) Impersonality in Larkin and Gunn ........................................ 318 3.3 (iii) Larkin and Gunn in The New Poetry .................................... 322 3.3 (iv) The impersonal in bed. ......................................................... 326 3.3 (v) Decaying and destructive metamorphoses ............................ 330 3.3 (vi) The cold ‘I’ and studied impersonality .................................. 335 3.4 Larkin, Hughes and Gunn ........................................................ 336 3.4 (i)Casting off insularity ............................................................. 336 3.4 (ii) Modes of clarification ........................................................... 341 3.5 Conclusions – poets alongside one another ................................ 353 Conclusion - a move towards unanimity? ........................................... 355 Bibliography. ...................................................................................... 374 3 List of Abbreviations in footnotes Full details appear in Bibliography. Works by Philip Larkin RW Required Writing CP Collected Poems (1988) SL Selected Letters EPaJ Early Poems and Juvenilia FR Further Requirements LTM Letters to Monica Secondary Works KotF Keepers of the Flame (Ian Hamilton, 1993) TLoKA The Letters of Kingsley Amis TEA The English Auden DTCP Dylan Thomas: Collected Poems TCPaP The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot 4 LS Life Studies (Robert Lowell) PCP Sylvia Plath: Collected Poems THCP Ted Hughes: Collected Poems LoTH Letters of Ted Hughes TGCP Thom Gunn: Collected Poems 5 The Guilty Influence: Philip Larkin among the poets 1. Introduction 1.1 (i) ‘Force’ and the unanimity principle Time that with this strange excuse Pardoned Kipling and his views, And will pardon Paul Claudel, Pardons him for writing well.1 W. H. Auden has been largely proved right – seventy-five years on from his elegy for W. B. Yeats – about the passing and forgiveness of time, certainly as far as Kipling is concerned (I am not the first to question Auden’s mention of Claudel, and his inclusion in the poem seems more a matter of easy rhyme than genuine belief). By far the most pardoned group of writers of the twentieth century would seem to have been the modernists
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