Begin Afresh

Contents

Foreword x

Acknowledgements xii

Abbreviations xiv

1 Introduction 1

1 âI Remember, I Rememberâ 1

2 Larkinâs Status as a Poet 2

3 Critical Controversies 4

4 The Evolution of Larkinâs Poetry 9

5 âBegin Afreshâ: A Re-Evaluation 13

6 Methodology 14

Notes 15

2 Early Poems to The North Ship (1938â"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) âPoeticalâ Poems 29

(iii) âYeats-yâ 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 D©bats 50

2 Biographical Pressures 62

3 Crisis: In the Grip of Light and XX Poems 64

4 Britainâs Political Transition 71

5 âThe Movementâ 73

6 Anti-Romanticism and Anti-Modernism 79

7 Religion, Consumerism, âPermissive Societyâ and âRace Relationsâ 84

Notes 87

4 The Less Deceived: âClear-eyed Realismâ and Demotic Poetics 89

1 Deceptions and Illusions 89

2 âCome and Choose Wrongâ: Choice 94

3 âThreadbare Perspectivesâ: Triple Time 99

4 âAdmirer and Admiredâ: 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 âHow Life Should Beâ: Advertisement Poems 135

3 Lifeâs Victims 140

4 âSomething Hidden From Usâ: Alter Ego Poems 144

5 âWhen We Start To Dieâ: Poems of Failure and Death 150

6 âWhat Will Survive Of Usâ 155

7 âAn Enormous Yesâ 162

8 The End of Larkinâs Marriage Debate: 1963â"1964 169

9 Epithalamium 170

Notes 176

6 High Windows: The Quotidian and the Transcendent 179

1 âScreaming for Moreâ: Public Poems 179

2 Secondary Inspirations 183

3 The âStrength and Pain / Of Being Youngâ 187

4 âUncontradicting Solitudeâ 191

5 Self-Satire 194

6 âYour Mum and Dadâ 197

7 âVery Cornyâ 198

8 âThe Eggs Unbrokenâ 200

9 âYou Give For Everâ 201

10 Living 202

11 The Sad Song of Money 208

12 âIt Didnât Work For Them Or Meâ 210

13 âO World, / Your Loves, Your Chancesâ 211

14 âLet It Always Be Thereâ 218

Notes 223

7 Larkin After High Windows 227

1 âFurnace-Fearâ 227

2 Betty Mackereth: The Love Poems of 1975â"1976 233

3 âIt Never Worked For Meâ 241

4 âWe Should Be Kind / While There Is Still Timeâ 244

5 A Lyric Moment 246

6 Friendly Doggerels 246

7 Occasional Poems 247

8 The âLastâ Poem 249

9 âIt Is By Bridges That We Liveâ 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 Larkinâs Achievement 270

Notes 271

Bibliography

Index