7/28/2019 James Atlas, On Philip Larkin
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sentimental commentaries on lifethat are, if one may say so,
typical of the British temperament.It was with the publication,just
over ten years ago, of TheWhitsun Weddings, that Larkinachieved his
present eminence;and one can see why, from the title poem alone.
This is, to mymind, Larkin's greatest accomplishment, the fusion of
a rhapsodic intensity reminiscent of theYeatsian poems in The
NorthShip with the rich, detailed texture of his novels. The
subject ofthe poem, wedding parties entering a train where the
narrator sitsalone, is treated with a great dealmore charity and
less cynicismthan is Larkin's habit inHighWindows: his contempt is
so tempered by humilitythat theresultis a poem of uncommon
wisdomabout how hope depends on a kindof innocence lost to the
speakerforever. The effect of the measured pentameters and
orderedstanzas is tomove us relentlesslyfrom pastoral repose to the
intrusion of social life in the formofthe boisterous newlyweds
breaking in upon the poet's melancholysolitude. His own joyless
passagebecomes an example of excludedness against which he
strugglesat first reluctantly, and then witha sense of
quasi-mystical assent:
/ thought ofLondon spread out in thesun,Its postal districts
packed like squares
of wheatThere we were aimed. And as we raced
acrossBright knots of railPast standing Pullmans, walls
ofblackened moss
Came close, and itwas nearly done, thisfrail
Travelling coincidence; and what it heldStood ready to be loosed
with all thepowerThat being changed can give. Weslowed again,And as
the tightened brakes took hold,there swelledA sense of falling,
like an arrow-showerSent out of sight, somewhere becomingrain.
Nowhere else in this volume doesLarkin reveal such power;
theother poems seem to prefigure the?npleasant, weary tones
adoptedinHigh Windows.After Auden's death, some unkindly critics
were saying that wewould have to invent "a newAuden", a figure
whose authoritywould be compelling in this militantly democratic
and secularage. How else can one account forthe success ofHigh
Windows, except to wonder at the English fidelity to those who
chronicle their
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moeurs? In all these poems, Larkin's pose is that of the
tightlipped elder, lamenting the ugliness of industrial England in
illtempered, half-facetious rhymes.Everywhere he sees
monotony,desuetude, the vulgar rituals ofthe middle class. Of
course, thereis a long tradition in our centuryofwriters expressing
their hatredof the commonplace bourgeoisie.Somehow, though, the
reactionary attitudes ofYeats, WyndhamLewis, Pound and Eliot
exemplified a vigorous refusal of all thatwas ordinary; their
impulse wasto transcend rather than imitatethe conditions that
oppressedthem. With Larkin, one feels thathe no longer aspires to
do morethan represent the dispirited posture of resignation that
has fallenover England. Unleavened bypity or even by nostalgia, his
vision of contemporary England isof a nation evolving blindly
towardthe future, spoiling the rural landscape with grim Housing
Estatesuntil it threatens to become the"first slum of Europe."
Mingledinwith this regret is an obsessionwith his own aging that,
unlikeYeats's ambivalent contemplation of "The young in one
another's arms," prompts him to bevindictive about their
ignoranceof history.There is a certain daring to Larkin's
employment of idiom, thebrutal vocabulary and casual refrains; and
yet, if one compares,in the title poem, his unsubtle useof
obscenity to a parallel passagein a poem by W.D. Snodgrass, Ithink
Larkin's will be found wanting.He writes:When I see a couple of
kidsAnd guess he's fucking her and she'sTaking pills or wearing a
diaphragmI know this isparadiseEveryone old has dreamed of all
theirlives?
Here is Snodgrass, in a similarmood:/ stand, Prince ofLiesWho's
seen bliss; now I can drive back
Home past wreck and car lot,past shackSlum and steelmill
reddening the skies,Past drive-ins, the hot pits where
ourteensFingerfuck and that huge screen'sImages fill their vacant
eyes.
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Larkin's language is, finally,bland, having forfeited its
capacity to shock by the hostile indifference of its tone;
Snodgrass, morerestrained, allows the image togain a sort of lurid
intensity byplacing it among others that possess an equal force.
These twostanzas suggest tome one of thecrucial differences between
American and British poetry now; Larkin's tradition, with all its
accretions through time of nuance andecho, simply cannot support
hisaggressive colloquialism (evenWordsworth, that most colloquialof
English poets, cultivated eloquence), while Snodgrass, lesshampered
by convention, avoidsthe self-consciousness that has always been
Larkin's most obviousflaw.This isnot to imply hatLarkinhas done
nothing to deserve hisreputation; his best poems are nofewer than
most poets can hope toproduce, and these alone justifyhis current
stature. I think especially of the closing stanzas fromthe title
poem of his last collection:
/ wonder ifAnyone looked at me, forty years back,And
thought,hat'll be the life;No God any more, or sweating in
thedark
About hell and that,orhaving tohideWhat you think of the priest.
HeAnd his lotwill allgo down the longslideLike free bloody birds.
And
immediatelyRather than words comes the thought of
high windows:The sun-comprehending glass,And beyond it, the deep
blue air, thatshowsNothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
Nevertheless, he appears, inHighWindows, to have been
temporarily mastered by his limitations,and just when his
reputation ismore secure than ever.
A t The University of ConnectiucJLcut's Fourteenth Annual
Wallace Stevens Program on April 6Richard Wilbur read from his
ownpoems and awarded prizes to studentwinners of the poetry
contest:First Prize, Deborah Cramer and AlexSmithSecond Prize,
Robert Calaluce andSusan Ralph JackmanThe reading, and the prizes
havebeen generously sponsored by theHartford Insurance Group.
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A Rain of RitesJAYANTA MAHAPATRA"Few contemporary poems in" ur
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The Heisenberg VariationsJOHN BRICUTH"Of the year's many
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of poems"-?Virginia Quarterly Review.$7.50 cloth, $3.95 paper
The University ofGeorgia PressAthens 30602
July/August1977 Page 19
