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Philip Larkin's The Iowa Review Volume 8 Issue 1 Winter Article 35 1977 Poet in Transition: Philip Larkin's "XX Poems" Roger Bowen Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview Part of the Creative Writing Commons This work has been identified with a http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">Rights Statement In Copyright. 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.
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