The Iowa Review

Volume 8 Issue 1 Winter Article 35

1977

Poet in Transition: Philip Larkin's "XX Poems"

Roger Bowen

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Recommended Citation Bowen, Roger. "Poet in Transition: Philip Larkin's "XX Poems"." The Iowa Review 8.1 (1977): 87-104. Web. Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0021-065X.2171

This Contents is brought to you for free and open access by Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Iowa Review by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CRITICISM / ROGER BOWEN

Poet in Transition: Philip Larkin's XX Poems

s An appreciation of Philip Larkin development from the self-conscious lyricism of The North Ship (1945), with its debt to the "music" of Yeats, to the new, spare tone of The Less Deceived (1955), where the allegiances to an Hardy and Auden emerge strongly, forms the foundation of acceptanc of Larkins contribution to post-war British poetry. In his introduction to the mas second edition of The North Ship, Larkin acknowledges this change of too us to to as one ter1 and makes it easy for respond the poet's voice which error out in recovers begins in and of character 1945, and discovers itself in 1955 with The Less and moves on from in Deceived, there, growing authority from The Whitsun Weddings (1964) to High Windows (1974). We see a a second and abrupt beginning rather than gradual, but still purposeful transition.

Between Larkins widely known first and second volumes lies the pri vately printed XX Poems ( 1951 ),2 only 100 copies of which were distributed. s to a XX Poems is Larkin first collection mark different set of poetic objec a a tives, to suggest different poetic character. In 1948, manuscript entitled at six In the Grip of Light had failed major London publishing houses. Three reassess years later, tentatively and modestly, Larkin tries to his talent. This is an of new a slim pamphlet exploration possibilities and contemplation of a old but persistent habits; it is, in essence, cautious manifesto. Thirteen of these 20 poems were later added to The Less Deceived,3 and the 16 new poems which make up that volume only pursue the style he had begun to and to develop in XX Poems, refining expanding what had proved be the a more one most effective elements, and confirming authentic identity, on a use which depends controlled of metaphor, confidence in the ironic a was a stance, and realization that the "conventional compatible with total to devotion poetry."4 its small this first utterance a to re With distribution, of poet struggling matter was appraise style and subject doomed to anonymity. He did win the one attention of important critic, D. J. Enright, but the journal in which the review The did not command a appeared, Month, wide readership.5 XX a in Poems hardly caused ripple the year of its publication. Four years be Marvell Press launched The Less s fore the Deceived and caught the public attention Larkin to own had, nonetheless, begun sound the change for his work and that of his generation. 87

University of Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to The Iowa Review ® www.jstor.org to In his introduction the Larkin selection in British Poetry Since 1945, Edward Lucie-Smith refers to The Less as Deceived providing the "signal to for the Movement begin,"6 but this signal may be noticed from the same in a saw poet 1951, year which little sign of "movement" from Larkin's col who were later to in Robert leagues be assembled Conquest's anthology, Lines comes New (1956). Only John Wain's Mixed Feelings to mind from this a in the and it is a far less early point fifties, significant offering than a XX Poems by much less accomplished poetic craftsman. Two years later, Kingsley Amis, Larkin's undergraduate contemporary and friend at Oxford, out A Frame brought of Mind;7 Elizabeth Jennings published Poems in 1953, as while D. J. Enright, the "Lawrence Durrell of the Movement," Lucie same Smith styles him, offered The Laughing Hyena in the year. In 1954, Donald Davie, Amis, John Holloway, and Larkin all appeared in the Fan tasy Poets series,8 and Thorn Gunn emerges with Fighting Terms. Amis, a Davie, Gunn, Jennings, and Larkin earned place in G. S. Fr?sers and Iain Fletchers Springtime: An Anthology of Young Poets ( 1953). Larkin is repre from a Set sented by "Poems Selected of Twenty" (comprising 'Wedding Wind," VII, XII, 'Wants," and XIX). Apart from Enright's review this marks of XX Poems. Fraser's the only public recognition Despite acknowledge not ment and the space afforded Larkin, the anonymity is entirely dis no mention is pelled. In the anthology's introduction direct made of Larkin's two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl inWinter (1947). Furthermore, he is as a and as an Irish categorized "regionalist" mistakenly identified poet!9 a in Had Larkin obtained prestigious publisher 1951 he might well have an more had earlier and substantial influence, and his ultimate separation sooner. from the Movement might have been appreciated As Ian Hamilton remarks in his essay, "The Making of the Movement," "Philip Larkin's poems a was to provide precise model for what the Movement supposed be seeking. But having noticed his lucidity, his debunkery, his technical accomplishment one and other such 'typical' 'attributes,' would still be left with the different the of his and deeper task of describing quality peculiar genius, the task of rather than attention on talking about poems postures."10 By focusing repre XX we can witness his sentative pieces from Poems the process of commit a new more ment to and assured voice, and his emerging independence from masters. false or inappropriate This volume perfectly illustrates Larkin in transition and the germ of his "peculiar genius."

II a to The title page, apart from dedication Kingsley Amis, indicates that were written the poems included all between 1945 and 1951, entirely subse to North The quent, then, The Ship. poem which reintroduces Philip Larkin a not to reader of that first collection may offer any surprises. "Wedding 88 a woman in was com Wind," spoken by celebration of her wedding night, in in to posed 194611 and belongs spirit The North Ship, which gusts with its to us a symbolic winds in twelve of 31 poems.12 This lyric speaks from rural past; with the candlelight, the restless horses, the chipped pail, the on chicken run, the "thrashing" of the woman's apron and the clothes the line, the imagination is carried back to a world of ritual and necessity, where its human joy finds appointed place amid the strife of Nature's forces. The is wedding passion matched by the passion of the "high wind." But what as an in in begins exercise pictorialism, almost cinematic quality, with the turns a unsophisticated descriptive voice of the country bride, into labored to of love and attempt comprehend the unthinkable juxaposition mortality. he came back He said The woman's authentic simple-heartedness?"When / was man or the horses were restless, and I sad / That any beast that night a more mature should lack / The happiness I had"?is lost and voice, the poet's, takes over, with three rhetorical questions:

Can it be borne, this bodying-f orth by wind turn a Of joy my actions on, like thread Carrying beads? Shall I be let to sleep Now this perpetual morning shares my bed? even Can death dry up new These delighted lakes, conclude as Our kneeling cattle by all-generous waters?

In consequence, Larkin leaves behind an unbalanced poem. The measured or resolve and delicate optimism of "Whitsun Weddings," say, "Arundel more as as Tomb," are much significant works of joy and celebration, recog nitions of the imperatives of love and the ceremonies that surround it, than the blustery, engaging, but ultimately dissatisfying 'Wedding-Wind." At his best, and his "best" covers the greater part of his slender output, Larkin never so a "plays" at poetry. He does to considerable extent in The North not an and here at Ship because he has yet found appropriate voice, the XX Poems a of as very beginning of he demonstrates view poetry exercise, as a own assumes a seri challenge to versatility for its sake. In this poem he ous a a re pose, but sabotages the effect by cross-cutting descriptive and so flective response to the wedding night, and the finished work remains vigorous but confusing. a 'Wedding-Wind" is reminder of the kind of poetry he had offered the in a public The North Ship, and survival he still chooses to display; he did, after all, include it again in The Less Deceived. In both volumes its open sur country setting does contrast effectively with the claustrophobic urban 89 a a is roundings in "Deceptions," poem in which different kind of passion explored. a new What follows in XX Poems is dramatic indication of principles, a a framed in the simple brevity of "Modesties," lyric which introduces soft a en ening of tone, growing circumspection. The first of its three quatrains capsules the poem's modest proposal:

as as Words plain hen-birds' wings Do not lie, not Do over-broider things Are too shy.

in enacts The entire poem, effect, its subject. Plain words and essential are now thoughts the elements of the poetry he has in mind to write. The is no means re metaphor here simple and direct, but by commonplace. The in peated negatives the second and third lines celebrate, paradoxically, the poetic virtues of honesty and simplicity. The fourth line, though positive, at a movement is an still hints what might be weakness: the from implied excess to an a it condemnation of verbal admission of timidity which might a self be a form of excess. The balance is delicate one; the poet seems at sure once of, and taken aback by, the implications of his modest claims. to to That shyness is something be proud of and something question. The own final quatrain imagines his private and possible achievement, but again with cautious and ambiguous negatives:

are not Weeds supposed to grow, But by degrees a Some achieve flower, although No one sees.

The "But" in the second line cancels the "not" in the first, and the poem concludes with an image of bloom, despite the rather uncomplimentary we are that no one or image of the weed. Yet, reminded may notice, per nature haps understand the of that flowering. a on one's "Modesties" is poem about relying one's poetic instincts, using in and find own resources, curbing extravagance thought and language, a form of success in these observances. ing, hopefully, private and viable a is own "ars and is in As poem about poetic method it Larkin's po?tica" deed reminiscent of MacLeish's poem. A comparison proves instructive. more which swell "Ars Po?tica" is longer and elaborate with prescriptions as an rather than diminish the image of poetry autonomous interpretation not mean But be." Both and of experience: "A poem should / "poem" "should" are used six times in MacLeish's 24 line work, while Larkin uses

90 nor to himself rather than neither the noun the auxiliary verb and speaks to an audience. This is a rare occasion for Larkin; he has little time for about his poems "about poetry,"13 but "Modesties" is, significantly, poetry, no himself. with application beyond a as it a If it is manifesto poem, I have suggested, is, then, very private manifesto. He takes heed of this motto and in The Less Deceived finds no it. not in XX that he longer needs It has been reprinted. Here, Poems, or acts as a to which consciously not, it rebuke "Wedding-Wind," the poem it. and undercut the kind of bravura confidence precedes Its form message a exhibited there and suggest instead quiet assuredness which Larkin must cultivate in order to contend with the world in which he lives, with and It the toward the all its deceptions, illusions, false gods. points way use discovery and of irony. but at The remaining 18 poems illustrate the growth of this potential same most acute Larkin faces in the de the time exemplify the problem his to if not the velopment of craft: the temptation rely on, indulge in, his commitment to "words as elaborations of metaphor. Having voiced as he is nonetheless reluctant to shed the plain hen-birds' wings," entirely a notion of with all its and trappings of preconceived poetry, "difficulty," at its most in Portraits of contrived energy, certainly willful "Two Sex," the volume's immodest centerfold. What he has to learn is that a modest one serves a illumination use of metaphor, which function and allows apt answers He but which falls well short of obscurity, best his needs. does a can not have to recreate separate realm of experience; he describe with in he and his imagination and perception the world which lives, responses as to it. He can discover, above all, that this second task will require much is evident XX "art." This often painful learning process throughout Poems, transition. and underscores the difficulty and the effort of Larkin's as The third and fourth poems, both appearing in The Less Deceived contain essence "Next, Please," and "Deceptions," though here untitled, the our "bad of and self of Larkin's enduring subject: habits expectancy" a sense of deception. In the first poem, strong quotidian reality emerges a address to the and the at the beginning, with direct reader, mocking we are of our conventional wisdom. If disarmed by this approach then tone an of what alerted to a sudden change of and texture, by example one the run-on not from one becomes of Larkin's particular skills, only stanza to the next but from one level of experience to another:

too we Always eager for the future, Pick up bad habits of expectancy. is Something always approaching; every day Till then we say, 91 a Watching from bluff the tiny, clear, near. Sparkling armada of promises draw

a Thereafter, this "armada" sustains its meaning with figurative power that matches the literal bluntness of the opening. The final stanza reminds us of extension our the logical of "bad habits," the forgetting of death, comes some which unbidden. The poem works in two ways; it brings back more of the death-ship horror from "The North Ship" but prefaces these a to a traditional poetic images with noticeably modern voice admitting familiar human failing. The title given the poem four years later adds colloquial weight. In this instance the poet manages the extent of the metaphor, controls it, and demonstrates the kind of priority he should be seeking. a Poem IV represents further important advance for Larkin and remains one of the most significant of these 20 pieces. Above all, the program sug in is out to its gested "Modesties," the simplicity and caution, here worked not Con fullest potential, and the poet's honest disclaimers?"I would dare / can is exact. sole you if I could. What be said, / Except that suffering . . ."?only prove the actual dimensions of his sensibility He understates never so to his way to truths before clearly articulated. Larkin is trying over a extend his sympathies span of history and discovering the inevitable can limitations of this attempt. He "taste" the grief of the girl who lost her honor and her future while "bridal London" looked the other way, but the barrier of time, "slums, years, have buried you," prevents him from own recognizing a full act of consolation. He knows that one's perceptions can one as well as connect one someone else's separate from, with, exper own ience. He sees, with the coloring of his growing apprehension of not physical passion and its spiritual emptiness, what he knows she would aware have been of, that she was "less deceived" than her cruel and clumsy seducer, "stumbling up the breathless stair / To burst into fulfilment's extent desolate attic." He begins, then, his examination of the of sympathy can over with an admission of what he respond to, the passage of years, and ends with a confession of what cannot be claimed. We move from is to stanza stanza one, where the empathy outlined, the second where is what he denies lasting consolation. The entire poem balanced between as he "will not dare" to presume, a poet, and what he can in fact achieve even when he draws these limits about him. A careful discipline underlies to a is the poem; the lines, the images all work purpose. There the sharp, "he weak crudely physical apprehension of the grief made you gulp"; the an presence of the sun, indifference in Nature matched by the indifference a too of "unanswerable and tall of busy metropolis; the blankness light, blue that shows and and wide," which prefigures the "deep air, / Nothing, 92 identifies is nowhere, and is endless," from "High Windows," and itself as early Larkin's favored image for that "solving emptiness / That lies we just under all do" ("Ambulances," The Whitsun Weddings); the almost a and Plathlike pain of her mind "open like drawer of knives," the stunning a spatial image which concludes the poem with picture of his desolation on rather than the girl's, and leaves the reader uncomfortably the edge, faced at once with other considerations. That "desolate attic" is the place where was a the girl violated and metaphor expressing the circumscribed empti ness we of passion. The last line has the effect of undercutting any belief is a may have salvaged from the poem; there sudden and disturbing identi fication with the seducer. A poem which has its source in documentation with from Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor reverberates contemporary significance for poet and reader. to as One of the things Larkin has establish for himself he transcends own is an idea of poetry and finds his definition of the art, the legitimacy in a of his own response to experience contemporary world. A poem from which well such an is "Mr. Whitsun Weddings registers acceptance Bleaney." sense a new over an room It examines the of arrival in place, taking empty an someone with one's own. from old lodger and replacing else's loneliness In "Arrival," one of the few titled pieces in XX Poems, the cold reality of is and used "Mr. Bleaney" foreshadowed, the element of autobiography time. with a sense of directly for the first The poem begins strong present time and place:

a Morning, glass door, flashes names new Gold off the city, Whose white shelves and domes travel The slow sky all day. I land to stay here; And the windows flock open And the curtains fly out Uke doves a And the past dries in wind.

"Arrival" contends with one of those unreal interludes, where the con we are and this constant movement from tinuity used to, perhaps dread, to is It is here because past future, momentarily suspended. suspended in a new town to to the poet has arrived live and has yet engage with this new stage in his life. The "past dries in the wind" and the future is form as in to at less; in fact, he indicates the second stanza, he wishes keep it let me lie under A wide-branched indifference . . .And bay: "Now down, / to let the cluttered-up houses / Keep their thick lives themselves." The town is unaware its new citizen knowledge that the of gives him momentary 93 and but is awareness pleasure peace, this mood dulled by the larger of what a surrounds this vulnerable paradise, and by recognition that habit our and not novelty governs lives, no matter how often one moves on, no : matter how much time passes

For this ignorance of me Seems a kind of innicence. Fast enough I shall wound it: Let me breathe till then Its milk-aired Eden, Till own my life impound it? a Slow-falling; grey-veil-hung; theft, A style of dying only.

own His life will "impound" this precious stillness and that feared con This it tinuity will begin again. life, wherever may be lived, is "a style of same we witness in dying only." That "style" later the poem about Mr. in a manner even more Bleaney, and it is confronted there direct and bleak. men a we measures For both it is discovery that "how live our own nature." With poem VII we move from an observation anchored, in the first in to a sense a to one as stance, of place and specific time which is just clear more an but which relies upon apprehension of generalized experience. seems to This poem have been written with the prescriptions of "Mod in mind. are set to in a esties" Those principles work devastatingly concise about the difficulties of a is a rev revelation terminating relationship. It never an an elation which becomes avowal; it is anatomy rather than a confession, and echoes Donne's syllogistic method:

me Since the majority of Rejects the majority of you, Debating ends forthwith, and we Divide

a assertion The argument begins with confident about rejection and di vision, decided upon, planned and executed. The process is clinical?re are "disinfected" as a new of apportioned "days" regime separation takes is in which over?but rendered finally language suggests the weakening an of resolve and the pain caused by arbitrary curtailment of desire and need. "Unshared friends" and "unwalked ways," dictated by this cutting on off of further "debate," focus loss rather than decision. The poet's pres a ence in the poem changes, too, from public declarative voice?though he a as is, in fact, addressing the woman?to lonely disillusionment, he becomes 94 as as to aware of a "silence" which proves "eloquent" the original decision . . . "divide." It is a "silence of minorities / That return / Each night with want never learn." That final cancelled promises / They renewed. They us from an seventeenth sentence, with its colloquial shrug, pulls early context and of our own century poetic design into the rhythm speech. it The is about Though it concludes the poem, concludes nothing. poem the absence of conclusion?the "minorities . . . return / Each and u night" never Larkin is the condition learn" (my emphasis)?which, sees, abiding are beset so of human relationship. Our "major" decisions constantly by our called "minor" doubts. The intrusive power of "silent minorities" in lives verse. his becomes more and more the subject of Larkin's So many of on a with later poems rely process of deflation, of undercutting. Here, wry moves to an awareness of economy, he from strength and confidence the our we are inti vulnerability of all decisions involving those with whom a movement from to recall mate. There is also, appropriately, day night, a in The the man alone at ing repeated convention North Ship, solitary after of a to drive the shad night, frequently the departure guest, trying In ows back, to "confront / The instantaneous grief of being alone."14 a is poem VII this confrontation is less melancholy affair; the condition more clearly recognized and better endured. a XXIV in In some ways this exacting poem is refined version of poem with of a late Elizabethan or The North Ship, which begins, again, echoes we must now: do not let it be Calam early Jacobean mode, "Love part / itous and bitter," and concludes with the image of two tall ships parting an is on different courses at the mouth of estuary. "Always, there regret." But in Poem VII (XX Poems) this presence is subsumed in the eloquent no silence. Furthermore, there is metaphorical illustration, simply debate a to and demonstration. Larkin is clearly searching for way present personal or on is a reliance on experience, observations based it; he contemplating on as metaphor, or the formalised arrangement of the poem anatomy. are of XIII in XX Separation, denial, and loss the subjects, too, poem on is Poems, and here Larkin decides to rely metaphor, utilising what an the the virtually allegorical landscape, with bricked-up gates, planted ...... It is trees, the 'leaves unswept," and the "grass unmown." useful are an to to compare VII with XIII because they both about agreement attendant such a let a relationship "fall to disuse," and the problems upon a awareness is decision. The first poem reaches point of which concise and honest, with a touch of wry humor in that final sentence. Because of this the poem and the character of the poet appear less self-regarding. There a In was to be called "No Road" is clarity in line and thought. XIII, which are on a note four years later, the sentiments cluttered and the poem ends to self of self-c?nscious analysis which comes close pity: 95 To watch that world come up like a cold sun, is Rewarding others, my liberty. Not to prevent it is my will's fulfilment. Willing it, my ailment.

is a There disturbing calm about the completeness of Larkin's interpreta an one tion of this particular loss. His "sense of ending" becomes of his major achievements, but here the pace is too contrived; the poem predicts itself. Though failure is perhaps Larkin's predominant theme,15 his art skill is usually triumphs with such that despair rarely the mood inspired in his readers. In "No Road" it may well be. Larkin remains trapped inside no the metaphor of separation he builds here. In VII there is such structure, a in terms. but instead demonstration rendered finally human The effect never is to assert of that final "They learn" human experience; those "prom us as we and ises" clamoring for "renewal" become struggle with doubt in is on dissatisfaction. The emphasis poem XIII "rat/ ailment," and the never us is out poem takes beyond that condition; the reader shut by those last lines. At his most effective, Larkin includes us, uncompromisingly, own so that we giving his experience enough dimension may recognize a success or condition everyone has to contend with, whatever degree of failure may result. same 'Wild Oats" in The Whitsun Weddings takes what may be the an experience, an abandoned relationship, and builds around it instead a actual world of "cathedral cities," "two snaps" in wallet, the "bosomy in Larkin is told latter that English rose," and the "friend specs." by the he is "too selfish, withdrawn, / And easily bored to love," and decides that it is "useful to get that learnt." This is the same ailment acknowledged case in "No Road" but in this the rendering of the experience triumphs some too with novel and arresting insights. What Larkin learns is that on much reliance metaphor, of the elaborate and carefullly structured kind a a that dominates XIII, is in the end form of evasion, and it produces staleness of effect. same terse Poem XV illustrates the difficulty, though the introductory of once has a certain question exposing the power self-deception again technical power: "Who called love conquering, / When its sweet flower / sour Lanes of The entire com So easily dries among the / the living?" lyric an smothered the prises allegorical tableau, with the flower of love by sun. weeds of life and deprived of the life-giving power of the The only a more touches which suggest the poet's potential for original and per a are in exactness of suasive handling of well-worn theme the quotidian the flower's demise "by three o'clock" and the "dire cloak of dark" which "stiffens the town," an ironic allusion to a sexual energy which will forever 96 lie dormant. in Otherwise, the poem indulges itself romantic melancholy, no new pursuing interpretation of experience. more Metaphor of another and obscure character is the critical issue in "Two Portraits of Sex," placed side by side at the centre of the volume. two These poems, subtitled "Oils" and "Etching"? the latter survives as Point" in The Less to "Dry Deceived?attempt plumb the origin of such as so experiences loss and separation, which indeed dominate many of the in this is as poems volume. The culprit identfied the sexual imperative, that even as an "time-honoured irritant." "Dry Point" is better known, thanks to astute anthology piece, and, George Hartley's explication, is better to a understood: "Directly addressed personification of sex, the in this as poems volume. The culprit is identified the sexual imperative, theme the impossibility of reaching any kind of fulfilment through sexual is love."16 The sexual impulse "Bestial, intent, real," and that 'Imre and . . . is a sunscrubbed room, / that padlocked cube of light" platonic realm sex we are of experience beyond from which forever excluded. Hartley's in a more sense terpretation makes good deal when the "oil" is placed next to we can see some the "etching," and that Larkin made attempt to make himself clear in the latter is to poem; the meaning etched deep but there be discovered. "Oils" is another matter:

a Sun. Tree. Beginning. God in thicket. Crown. Never-abdicating constellation. Blood. Barn-clutch of life. Trigger of the future. Magic weed the doctor shakes in the dance. rains and one Many many rivers, making river. Password. Installation. Root of tongues.

In an to a attempt isolate and dramatize primitive instinct which is as old as the beginning of time, Larkin, in this first stanza, daubs his way fre about an his netically unlikely canvas, abrupt words and phrases ringing and remains emptily ineffectually. What impressive, by sheer weight of no repetition if for other reason, is the series of negatives in the third and final stanza where the in of poet's helplessness the face life's guiding principle is relentlessly exposed:

No one can migrate across your boundaries. can No one exist without a habit for you. No one can tear your thread out of himself. No one can tie you down or set you free. Apart from your tribe, there is only the dead, even use. And them you grip and begin to 97 In "Reasons for Attendance" (The Less Deceived) Larkin asks, 'What an answer. is Sex?" and does not find The question remains dramatic, and in the context of that poem especially provocative:

s Surely, to think the lion share Of happiness is found by couples?sheer

as as Inaccuracy, far I'm concerned.

But this question is rhetorical, and the rest of the poem benefits from Larkins decision not to make it otherwise. He does not pursue the invest or igation here elsewhere because his interest, that is, outside 'Two Por traits," is in the human and social consequences of such drives. He never once again visits this almost Darwinian arena, but the fact that he did two and placed these poems at the center of XX Poems is still intriguing. a These centerpieces reveal surviving temptation, dating from the days when his Celtic fever was far from abated, to follow life to its roots?this in to it in word appears twice "Oils"?and depict elemental and mytho terms. random of con logical The and desperate energy "Oils," energy trived to illustrate energy, is reminiscent of Ted Hughes, and in the third last line em stanza especially the method almost prefigures Crow, the one most to in his ploying of Hughes's used verbs, grip, whole vocabulary In "Oils" and sex is seen as of pr?dation. "Etching" the ultimate enemy, the source of failure in love, but it is only in these poems that Larkin turns back and identifies the source. In the final lines even Death is depicted as a victim, gripped and used by mindless power. XX Death, however, progressively in the latter half of Poems and, of most seven course, in Larkin's later volumes, becomes the thing feared. The in different tenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth poems confront death sees as a our ways: the first death governing principle throughout lives; a common the second suggests wish for death, the "desire for oblivion," "The and the last acknowledges fear of the unknown. The first, Dedicated," a man in concerns itself with master-servant relationship; follows life the com rules and bidding of the "angel," death himself, and obeys every moves a mand to the last. The poem with kind of religious dignity, and a to is a visitor to ex absence of protest and refusal struggle. Death be for: pected and prepared

must Some employ the scythe Upon the grasses. That the walks be smooth

For the feet of the angel. 98 in Some keep repair The locks, that the visitor Unhindered passes To the innermost chamber.

is no in an awareness There "willingness" this life's preparation, only of in what Larkin calls the second of three stanzas, "eternal requirings." a in is Nonetheless, shift emphasis recognizable within the poem. Larkin must.. begins with "Some .," suggesting compulsion, and he ends with the more a sense passive, "wait," and of resignation. The scythe of death is us our own our employed by "upon the grasses," upon lives; it embodies of our knowledge the coming visitation, necessarily governs apprehension of comes is in experience, until the time when that scythe the angel's hands. is nor The only respite possible neither sought taken intensely:

And if they have leave To pray, it is for contentment If the feet of the dove on Perch the scythe's handle, Perch once, and then depart Their knowledge....

a matter In the end it is simply of waiting upon "the colder advent, / The Without of terror or quenching of candles." images mystery?the "grass," the "smooth walks," the "angel," the "chamber," the "dove"?Larkin por as to as a bird use its trays life the way death, will wings to "fly to the our fowler's compass." Our agreement with the "angel" is first and last relationship. There is cohesion and order in the poem, yet, at the same an sense as a time, underlying of uncertainty. To describe life dedication to is to other more death pose and searching questions. The difficulty of a such sustained dedication to death is explored in later poems, and the is in a more stark reality of death frequently stressed contemporary setting, in a not as it is in "The landscape allegorical Dedicated" but identifiably "Ambulances" ours; in, for example, (The Whitsun Weddings) and the is "clean-sliced cliff" which "The Building" (High Windows). There are hints of this world in much contemporary the shorter lyric its that follows, with telegraphed suggestions of daily ritual, the "invitation cards," the "printed directions of sex," the family photograph, and the "life insurance," which cannot counteract our own "desire for oblivion." 'Wants," translates into more terms the eighteenth poem, accessible the true spirit of our We still dedication today. obey those "eternal requirings" but we do so our own not as servants some from will, of higher command, but as 99 individuals and final craving peace solitude. The incantatory quality of, to "Beyond all this, the wish be alone," and, "Beneath it all, desire of ob livion runs," lines which, respectively, begin and end the first and second stanzas, is reminiscent of Dylan Thomas's rhetorical method in "And Death Shall Have No Dominion" and "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night." the and Larkin, however, replaces "hwyl" grand gestured challenge of Thomas's lines with his own ironic admission of a common death wish. Poem XIX, called "Going" in The Less Deceived, closes with that very its in a manner. "oblivion" and depicts approach allegorically, yet kinetic The "quenching of candles," that "colder advent," is met head on; the turns into a not waiting growing apprehension of something quite expected. an sense There is increasing of panic in the face of death, in the guise across the ... at a of falling dusk, which advances poet's vision, "silken no distance," but like the winding sheet, bringing comfort. At the moment one of truth, then, that desire turns to fear. Larkin, in compact sentence, as exposes the simplest meaning of death, the absence of life, of the miss essence: tree to ing 'Where has the gone, that locked / Earth the sky?" The more poem concludes with two questions:

What is under my hands, That I cannot feel?

What loads my hands down?

Despite this metaphorical treatment of death's capture of life, its relentless final stress is on negating invasion of all that gives meaning, the physical or a new sensation, rather and terrible deprivation of normal sensory experience. The destination ("What is under my hands?") is not known and the force responsible ("What loads my hands down?") is not under stood. The poem is about the coming of the ultimate blindness; the questions can no see. are asked with such desperation because the poet longer Death an an remains entrance to incomprehensible oblivion. asked in unanswered in Larkin's Though the questions "Going" go also about the there is seen in more real subsequent poems death, experience terms. For in "The Old Fools" istic and specific example, (High Windows) on is Larkin elaborates the process of dying which old age. In the final stanza there are four searching questions which end this time with the curt response: "Well, /We shall find out." It is enough to know that "noth dark" ing contravenes / The coming ("The Building," High Windows). XX Poems does not end on such a note, however. From XX Poems to offer a sense of calm and affirma High Windows all the concluding poems tion: in The Whitsun Weddings it is "Arundel Tomb" with its poignant 100 us is it is assertion, "What will survive of love," and in High Windows, the vision of the dead coal miner in "The Explosion" still "showing the eggs unbroken." XX Poems, the Fantasy Press pamphlet, and The Less Deceived all end with "At Grass."17 With this last poem Larkin steps back from the struggle to tame meta once a as as phor?at wish to be liberated from it well the desire to control it?and from rhetorical confrontations with the larger human themes of on love, loss, and death. He concentrates instead the perceived world, and a in a re world particularly English and pastoral its flavor, group of tired in a is to reconnect racehorses resting field. Paradoxically, Larkin able so himself, and us, with those larger questions, but he does with less rhe torical urgency, and more detachment. "At Grass" is still "about" with a drawal from the demands and imposed responsibilities of life, desire for to peace and rest, and the chance stand "anonymous again." But there is an affirmation in the record of active life?"the starting-gates, the crowds, the cries"?in the fact that "their names live," and that there survives in some care their waning days and companionship: "Only the groom, and in the groom's boy, / With bridles the evening come." The eye which "can at to hardly pick them out" the beginning of the poem belongs the ob server scene who is concerned about these questions of futurity, and the depicted, the racehorses sheltering in the "cold shade," helps formulate an idea about the twilight of life, of talent, of whatever one's raison d?tre. one in ears There is only question the poem, "Do memories plague their at like flies?" and it sits comfortably the beginning of the penultimate stanza, and is further neutralized by the pathetic fallacy which follows: cannot not matter. "They shake their heads." We tell and perhaps it does returns to a The poem quickly comparison between the specifics of their lives then, and the welcome quiet of their lives now, uncomplicated or are and unpressured by fieldglass stopwatch. The horses ultimately to as to left themselves, Larkin decides avoid further speculation which comes may have relevance for him. The "evening" which in poem XX, in us contrast to that which slips upon in XIX, is welcomed rather than feared; the sombre perspectives of desired oblivion are muted. Death, the final anonymity, is yet to be countenanced. The impulse toward nostalgia is it as strong here, true, but falls far short of the weaknesses frequently sociated with that mood. The past, present, and future coexist assuredly in this technically assured poem. This same level of technical achievement, and the same affirmative in ranks merging of time, may be witnessed poem XII, which with "Decep as one the most tions" and "At Grass" of effective and affecting examples verse in Poems. sentence is an of lyric XX The subject of the first light, a in image which has played significant part Larkin's poetry from "The 101 to North Ship" "High Windows." Here it is "chill and yellow," and suburb serene a anized, bathing "the / Foreheads of houses," while thrush sings and a heralds Spring. Upon hearing this song the poet, "whose childhood / Is a comes on a scene forgotten boredom," feels "like child / Who / Of adult can reconciling, / And understand nothing / But the unusual laughter, / starts to a And be happy." The song of the bird, natural energy, "astonish asserts ing the brickwork," the present, gives it sound and beauty and value as the it evenings gradually lengthen, and promises the advance of a repeated genesis: "It will be Spring soon, / It will be Spring soon." These lines duplicate the thrush's warbling cadence. The past is also a can evoked and given value of its own; though the child understand and "nothing" finds the laughter "unusual" (my emphasis), he nonetheless a recon "starts to be happy." The bird's song becomes vehicle for the poet's as we come ciliation of past, present, and future. The final affirmation, as to expect with Larkin, is cautious but earned. This poem, does the entire new volume, suggests beginning, poetic incarnations. "Coming," "At Grass," are to and "Deceptions" themselves enough indicate the grace and intelli gence of Larkin's mature achievement. an to XX Poems is attempt redefine Larkin's poetic sensibility after the and imitative and ennervating indulgences of The North Ship the complete to a failure of In the Grip of Light. An urge display variety of talent, for own is its sake, still apparent?the pretensions and obscurities of "Two Portraits of Sex" and the embarrassing self-analysis of "If, My Darling," for example?but the germ of Larkin's authentic voice is there. The second as I announces new poem, "Modesties," have suggested, this authenticity, but underestimates the true impact of his developing skills. He learns to curb poetic language dominated by rhetorical and metaphorical excess, to is as walk Amis's "temperate zone";18 he learns that metaphor best used a as a trope which deepens reflection, rather than structural principle can a which strangle the life out of poem, and he begins to understand own at last that his frequently ironic response to his life, and the life of his his matter. It is that will his fellow, will provide subject here he make or source. poetry, not from the "myth-kitty"19 any other such traditional a new This awareness of and appropriate direction, together with surviv ing temptations for less appropriate poetic ambitions, may be witnessed a is in XX Poems. The future of poet is proposed in this volume, and pro rehearsal posed modestly; it provides the necessary for the sound judg ments of The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings, and High Windows.

102 NOTES

1 to The North Ship (1945; rpt. London: Faber, 1966), pp. 7-9. Larkin refers the of Yeats "ruined a "particularly potent music" which many better talent." 2 XX Poems Author: is no (The Queen's College, Belfast, 1951). There pagination. Permission to volume was quote from this kindly granted by Mr. Larkin. 3 in the in The Less their They are, order they appear Deceived, with earlier numerals in parentheses: "Wedding-Wind" (I), "Coming" (XII), "Dry-Point" (XI), "Next Please" (III), "Going" (XIX), "Wants" (XVIII), "No Road" (XIII), "Wires" (XVI), "Spring" (VIII), "Deceptions" (IV), "Latest Face" (V), "If, My Darling" (XIV), and "At Grass" Of in (XX). these, only "Wedding-Wind," "Spring," and "Wants" had tides XX while was Poems, "Dry-Point" originally called "Etching." 4 Philip Oakes, "The Unsung Gold Medallist: Portrait of a Poet," Sunday Times Magazine (March 27, 1966), p. 65. This lesson, Larkin admits here, was imparted to him by Vernon Watkins. David Timms, in his excellent study, Philip Larkin (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1973), comments: . . . p. 69, "Between the publication of XX Poems and The Less Deceived he had the manner and form in which he wrote most In recognized effectively." his few remarks on XX Timms makes no mention general Poems, pp. 68-9, of the unreprinted pieces. 5 The Month (November, 1951), pp. 309-10. Of the ten volumes of verse discussed Larkin's is as the by Enright, described "most impressive." He elaborates: "The author . . . has that for which is to look respect language beginning old-fashioned these days; he words into he does not them. This little persuades being poetry, bully pamphlet whets the appetite; it is to be hoped that some publisher will take the hint." 6 British Poetry Since 1945 (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1970), p. 127. 7 an Amis did make earlier appearance with Bright November (London: Fortune Press, most a even 1947). These poems, however, dating from 1943 and few earlier, do not convey much certainty of style. in No. 21 and was on a 8Larkin appeared (March 1954), represented by: "Lines Young Lady's Photograph Album," "Whatever Happened," "If, My Darling," "Arrivals, were Departures," and "At Grass." "If, My Darling," and "At Grass" reprinted from XX were in The Less Deceived Poems, and all of them published the following year. Consult Michael Schmidt and Grevel Lindop, eds., British Poetry Since 1960: A Carcanet for an Critical Survey (Oxford: Press, 1972), pp. 260-84, invaluable bibliog verse in the raphy of published post-war period, compiled by Barbara Atkinson. 9 "Editor's Introduction," Springtime: An Anthology of Young Poets (London: Peter 12: Mr. in Owen, 1953), p. "Irish poets, like Larkin, though writing standard English, reflect another regional value, that of rootedness; Mr. Larkin's horses and meadows and stable are more real to him than the furniture is to creaking doors physical of London fact that Larkin had this volume the abstracted metropolitan mind." The published while a at leads the to sub-librarian Queen's, Belfast, obviously editors their "regional" identif ication. In the note is as the author bibliographical Larkin described of "one volume of poems" and "a novel." (p. 60) 10 Schmidt and Lindop, p. 73. n Larkin's unpublished notebook, in full: MS. 52619, in the British Library, provides this date. 12 Namely: I, VI, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XVII, XXI, XXII, XXIV, XXXI, from the 31 poems which comprise the first edition of The North Ship. 103 13 The of and subject poetry poetic inspiration may be found in poems IX, XVII, and XX in The North Ship, and there is "that lifted, rough-tongued bell / (Art if you like)" from "Reasons for Attendance" in The Less Deceived. 14 Poem VI from The North Ship; a similar loneliness is described in IV, XVI, XVIII. 15 describes "failure" as the in Geoffrey Thurley "great theme of all Larkin's work," The Ironic Harvest: English Poetry in the Twentieth Century (London: Arnold, 1974), 147. Calvin in refers to Larkin's de p. Bedient, gentler tones, "ancient familiarity with in feat" his critical study, Eight Contemporary Poets (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 70. 16 "No Right of Entry," Phoenix (Autumn andWinter, 1973-74), p. 107. 17 David Timms in this connection remarks: "Larkin has a fine dramatic sense, within " and within collections." 'Church The poems Going' Revisited: 'The Building' and Notion of in Larkin's Development Poetry," Phoenix (Autumn and Winter, 1973-74), p. 15. 18 From Amis's a in New Kingsley "Against Romanticism," manifesto poem included Lines. 19 Philip Larkin, in Poets of the Fifties: Anthology of New English Verse, ed. D. J. Enright (Tokyo: The Kenkyusha Press, 1955), p. 78.

CRITICISM / M. D. UROFF

Sylvia Plath and Confessional Poetry: A Reconsideration

When M. L. Rosenthal first used the term, confessional poetry, he had a in career to in mind phase Robert Lowell's when Lowell turned themes in a of sexual guilt, alcoholism, confinement mental hospital, and developed them in the first person in a way that intended, in Rosenthal's view, to was to point to the poet himself. Rosenthal careful limit the possibilities of name a as the mode but he did Sylvia Plath confessional poet well because, at he said, she put the speaker herself the center of her poems in such a as to an way make her psychological vulnerability and shame embodi ment was of her civilization.1 Rosenthal's widely accepted estimation out uses challenged first by Ted Hughes who pointed that Plath autobio in in a more graphical details her poetry emblematic way than Lowell, more and recently by Marjorie Perloff who claims that Plath's poetry are lacks the realistic detail of Lowell's work.2 If Hughes and Perloff right, we nature and I think they are, then should reconsider the of the speaker in Plath's poems, her relationship to the poet, and the extent to which the poems are confessional. 104