Synopses & Reviews
When Anthony Thwaite's edition of Philip Larkin's Letters was published in 1992 and Motion's biography came out a year later. Larkin's enemies seized on the new disclosures with a frenzy hardly witnessed since the McCarthy era. What had hitherto been regarded only as potential inclinations hinted at in his poems - misogyny and xenophobia in particular - were no indisputable facts, and since then Larkin's reputation as a poet has been tarnished by his image as a human being. Richard Bradford's new biography reveals that Larkin treated his prejudices and peculiarities with detached circumspection. Sometimes he shared them, self-mockingly, self-destructively, with his closest friends: he divided up his life so that some people knew him well but none completely. It was only in the poems that the parts began to resemble the whole. The trajectory of his poetic writing was influenced principally by his friendship with Kingsley Amis. Without Larkin, Amis's immensely successful first novel, Lucky Jim, would not have been written. Its success caused Larkin to finally abandon his own ambitions as a novelist, to concentrate exclusively on his poetry and his poetry would thereafter become his autobiography, Larkin's poetry is in its own right magnificent, and readers of Bradford's biography will be able to extend their appreciation of his art to an acquaintance with the artist at work.
Synopsis
When Philip Larkin's "letters" were published in 1992, the poet's enemies seized on the new disclosures with a frenzy unseen since the McCarthy era. What had previously been regarded only as potential inclination hinted at in his poemsmisogyny and xenophobia in particularwere now indisputable facts, and since then Larkin's reputation as a poet has been tarnished by his image as a human being. Richard Bradford's acclaimed biography, now in paperback for the first time, reveals that Larkin treated his prejudices and peculiarities with detached circumspection. Sometimes he shared them, self-mockingly, self-destructively, with his closest friends. He divided up his life so that some people knew him well but none completely, and it was only in his poems that the parts began to resemble the whole.
About the Author
Richard Bradford is professor of English at the University of Ulster. He previously taught at the universities of Oxford, Wales, and Trinity College, Dublin. He is the author of 12 books on a variety of subjects, including two critical monographs of Kingsley Amis.