Early Larkin

"Astute." Times Literary Supplement Beginning in the late 1930s, this is the first book-length critical study of Larkin's early work: his poetry, novels, short fictions, essays, and letters. The book tells the story of Philip Larkin's early literary development, starting with Larkin's earliest literary efforts and his remarkable correspondence with Jim Sutton, and ending at the point Larkin's maturity begins, with the writing of his first great poems. In providing a comprehensive and systematic study of this part of Larkin's life, this book also presents a new and surprising narrative of Larkin's development. Critics have presented Larkin's early career as a false start which he overcame by swapping Yeats's influence for Hardy's. Having re-discovered Hardy's poetry in 1946, the story goes, Larkin realised the potential of writing about his own life, and disavowed Yeats. Central to this book's controversial counter-narrative is an insistence on the significance of Brunette Coleman, the female heteronym Larkin invented in 1943. Three years before his re-discovery of Hardy, Larkin wrote a strange and unique series of works for schoolgirls under Coleman's name. These writings not only led him away from Yeats and other hindering influences, but also away from himself. Whereas the Yeats-to-Hardy narrative emphasises the autobiographical qualities of Larkin's mature verse, Early Larkin proposes that the writer's breakthrough was a result of his burgeoning 'interest in everything outside himself' – itself the consequence of his curious experiment with Brunette Coleman. Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction ‘The Dixon problem’ Twentieth-century Larkin Larkin and personae Twenty-first-century Larkin Prospectus Chapter 1: A portrait of the artist as a young man: The Larkin-Sutton letters Epistolarity War and letter-writing A shared artistic identity Writerly anxieties Influence Lawrence Art and life Chapter 2: Larkin’s short fictions Very early Larkin ‘Maurice’ and ‘The Eagles Are Gone’ ‘Story I’ and ‘Peter’ ‘An Incident in the English Camp’ Chapter 3: Brunette Coleman: Experiments in genre Who is Brunette Coleman? Coleman’s critical reception ‘Why are these books so bad?’ Connolly and Orwell The ‘Ideal Book’ Fiction, the reading public and the Leavises Chapter 4: Brunette Coleman: Experiments in gender Characterization Plot Narration Sex and sexuality ‘It’s good because it’s awful’: Coleman’s camp The end of an oeuvre Chapter 5: The outward turn: Larkin’s novels Coleman’s legacy John’s otherness Jill and the problems and possibilities of authorship Perspective Political perspectives Sympathy Gender Chapter 6: The Coleman effect: Sugar and Spice and Larkin’s early poems The influence of Yeats The influence of Hardy Sugar and Spice ‘Femmes Damnées’ Coleman’s delayed influence Brunette Coleman and The North Ship Coleman, 1966 Coleman, 1978 Chapter 7: Larkin’s first great poems No For An Answer and A New World Symphony ‘Round the Point’ The poetry workbooks Larkin’s first major poems ‘At Grass’ ‘Deceptions’ Chapter 8: The Less Deceived Larkinesque Absences and continuities Gender Genre and persona ‘Church Going’: Tradition and community Notes Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Conclusion Bibliography Works by Philip Larkin Other works Index Beginning with Philip Larkin’s earliest literary efforts and his remarkable correspondence with Jim Sutton, this book traces the writer’s development from the 1930s through to The Less Deceived, his first poetic masterpiece. Drawing on the poetry, novels, short fictions, essays and letters, Underwood presents a new and surprising narrative of Larkin’s literary development. Whilst many critics have described Larkin’s early career as a false start, overcome by swapping Yeats’s example for Hardy’s, Underwood emphasises the influence of Brunette Coleman, the female heteronym Larkin invented in 1943. Based on extensive archival research, and covering the full range of Larkin’s published and unpublished early writings, this book radically re-thinks Larkin’s literary breakthrough. It shows it to be the result of Larkin’s burgeoning interest in everything outside himself – itself the consequence of his curious Brunette Coleman experiment. "Beginning in the late 1930s, this book tells the story of Philip Larkin's early literary development. It is the first book-length critical study of Larkin's early work: his poetry, novels, short fictions, essays, and letters. Starting with Larkin's earliest literary efforts and his remarkable correspondence with Jim Sutton, the study ends at the point Larkin's maturity begins, with the writing of his first great poems. In providing a comprehensive and systematic study of this part of Larkin's life, this book also presents a new and surprising narrative of Larkin's development; that he suffered a 'false start' under the influence of Yeats, and discovered his unique voice by re-discovering Hardy."-- Provided by publisher Acknowledgements -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 1 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: the Larkin-Sutton Letters -- 2 Larkin's Short Fictions -- 3 Brunette Coleman: Experiments in Genre -- 4 Brunette Coleman: Experiments in Gender -- 5 The Outward Turn: Larkin's Novels -- 6 The Coleman Effect: Sugar and Spice and Larkin's Early Poems -- 7 Larkin's First Great Poems -- 8 The Less Deceived -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index