Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Philip Larkin
-
Standard Name: Larkin, Philip
Birth Name: Philip Arthur Larkin
PL
is now widely regarded as one of the leading English poets of the later twentieth century. His output was small and his chosen form is brief, tightly structured, rhyming and self-contained, using a demotic vocabulary of deceptive simplicity. Though he often expresses brief, exuberant joy, he also returns again and again to the prospect of personal death, and the general tone of his poems is downbeat. He also published two novels as well as volumes of his reviews (of jazz and books), and other occasional prose writings.
Reviewers were again appreciative, and many recognised several sides to PB
: oddity as well as cleverness and elegance, risk-taking as well as delicacy and astringency. Martin Dodsworth
, however, sounded a warning note about...
Reception
Elizabeth Jennings
In the Times Literary SupplementPeter Redgrove
welcomed EJ
as a good rather than a great poet, lyrical, metaphysical, and psychologically penetrating, a very accomplished writer of short pieces.
Delay became a popular poem. It was selected twenty years after publication, by Philip Larkin
, for The New Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century Verse, and years later again to appear among the advertising placards...
Reception
Barbara Pym
When An Unsuitable Attachment was finally published (posthumously), Larkin remarked that it was richly redolent of her unique talent, despite some aspects of the text that were not fully done.
Allen, Orphia Jane. Barbara Pym: Writing a Life. Scarecrow Press.
34
Meanwhile in September...
Reception
Caroline Blackwood
This was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Philip Larkin
(a member of the jury) voted against it on the grounds that it was memoir rather than fiction, and it did not win.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Schoenberger, Nancy. Dangerous Muse, A Life of Caroline Blackwood. Phoenix.
MC
wrote, It mattered to me . . . what Q
thought of my poems more than anyone except my father
.
Cannan, May, and Bevil Quiller-Couch. The Tears of War. Editor Fyfe, Charlotte, Cavalier Books.
173
Rouen, April 26 - May 25, 1915 became MC
's best-known work...
Reception
Susan Miles
The Times Literary Supplement said that Little Mirrors would move the reader not by any particular charm in the clear and modestly modern verse, but by SM
's point of view, her quick observation...
Reception
Iris Murdoch
It is not clear why Philip Larkin
and Monica Jones
chose a copy of this novel for systematically defacing every page with childishly salacious alterations and insertions (lips were parted, for instance, became...
Reception
Ruth Pitter
During her lifetime RP
was deeply appreciated by some readers. C. S. Lewis
scatters through his letters such remarks as Whenever I re-read your poems, I blame myself for not re-reading them oftener.
King, Don W. “The Anatomy of a Friendship: the correspondence of Ruth Pitter and C. S. Lewis, 1946-1962: Mythlore, Summer 2003”. Findarticles.
BP
was the only living writer named as under-rated by two people, Philip Larkin
and Lord David Cecil
, in a list compiled by the Times Literary Supplement of the most over- and under-rated authors...
Reception
E. J. Scovell
For a poet whose calm clarity, ordinariness, and reach towards the simple sublime seem to give her a kinship with Philip Larkin
(without the cynicism), EJS
is remarkably neglected. In 1990 the Feminist Companion quoted...
Publishing
Barbara Pym
In a letter to Philip LarkinBP
wrote that she felt she had been treated very badly by Cape
, but that she was also not altogether surprised. For one thing she knew that other...
Author summary
Ruth Pitter
During a career that spanned the greater part of the twentieth century, RP
published eighteen collections of poetry. She left letters and a journal, and occasionally spoke or wrote on literary topics. Her admirers have...
Author summary
Elizabeth Jennings
EJ
was a twentieth-century English poet writing on family, literary, and religious subjects. Peter Levi
calls her maybe the last poet of what may be called the soul.
