II- iii The Theme of
Death
Life in Time: Larkin's Perspective of Death,
"A Black-sailed Unfamiliar"
=======================================================
Synopsis:
For Philip Larkin, time initiates life
with birth and advances it through growth ultimately to culminate in death, the
end of life. Life turns a victim to the harsh reality of death, the death-prone
reality to mark mortality. He,
therefore, treats death as the climax and the curtain-fall of the drama of
life. He looks at time as the only destroyer because it has eroding agents for
corroding powers. Death marks mortality but not eternity of life, the spiritual
aspect of life as in The Gita. The spiritualists are unlike him
with his agnostic background. He treats time as a double-edged weapon for it
turns our life mortal on one side and our life with all ambitions futile on the
other. He, therefore, does not believe in life after death, the state of
oblivion in life. Life is therefore a journey to flow from womb to tomb, the
two oblivions of life. He further believes that death is “anaesthesia” because
it does not let man know its silent occurrence. In time's endless fleet, the
evening, symbolic of old age, culminates in the night that symbolizes death.
Time puts an end to life like winter to put an end to the cycle of seasons. Life,
in the flux of time, is transient like the flower. Life is a hard journey
through time as he finds the present hollow and dreary and the future bringing
inevitable death. He grows conscious of the motionlessness, emptiness,
nothingness of life as death puts an end to everything, causing pain and
suffering. Life leads to the desperate cry in the horror of death. The fact of death constantly worries him "dreadfully." His
poetry reflects man's struggle in evading the horrifying and terrifying fact of
death. There
is no poet to delineate death, the harsh reality, so vividly as Larkin. His
poetry, therefore, presents the concept of death in kaleidoscopic details.
Keywords:
Time, double-edged weapon, life, age, birth,
growth, death, climax, night, evening, old age, transience (mortality),
spirituality, futility, inevitable, consciousness, destroyer, shocking,
constant, worrying, oblivions, agnostic, struggle, motionlessness, boredom,
frightening, hospital, pain, suffering, unaesthesia, desperate cry, reality.
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Research Article:
Philip Larkin, the jewel of the galaxy of
Movement writers, focuses on life in the reign of time. It as the nucleus theme
recurrently reflects in his poetry. For him, life flows in the river of time's
inexorable flow. Life is the voyage in the ocean of
time as time initiates life with birth and advances it through growth
ultimately to culminate in inevitable death, the end of life, the state of
motionlessness and nothingness. Life is therefore a transient journey. In the
awareness of time's ceaseless fleet and in the ageing process of life, he
explores the effects of time to lead life to death and grows death conscious.
He concurs with time for time conquers life with its invincible powers. In the
poem, "Nothing to be Said', he ascribes every change in man’s life to
time’s corroding powers:
Hours giving
evidence
Or birth,
advance
On death
equally slowly.
And saying so
to some
Means nothing;
others it leaves
CP, 136
As man and poet, Larkin grows
with the consciousness of time and its effects on life, and wakes to the
reality, "life is slow dying"(CP, 138). In his middle age, he looks
more for old age followed by inevitable death in the invincible powers of time.
As Andrew Swarbrick points out, “There he looked at death from life; now he
looks at life from death". (130)
The awareness of time in
life to lead to death haunts Larkin in his life. He is ever time-haunted, 'time
honored irritant' (TLD, 19). He firmly believes that time brings about age that
eventually culminates in death, bestows on life against his wish. In his middle age, the stage of experience,
he is haunted more by death-horror than in his youth, the stage of innocence.
He says, “The passage of time, and the approach and arrival of death, still
seems to me the most unforgettable thing about our existence." (223)
For Larkin,
life turns a victim to the harsh reality of death, the death-prone reality when
“Life is slow dying” (CP, 138,), to mark mortality. He feels death is
inevitable in life as it traverses in the unstoppable and irreversible flow of
time. Hans Meyerhoff says, “This is the
irreversibility of the movement of time toward death." (65)
Larkin, as an ordinary
man, believes that death is an inevitable and inescapable prophecy as in the
poem, “Aubade”: "Most things may
never happen: this one will,” (CP, 209).
People are bound to face the seriousness of inescapable death. He treats death as the climax and the curtain
fall of the drama of life. He wakes up to discover the reality that life turns
transitory in time's eternal flow, he lives with the consciousness of the
inevitable arrival of death to put an end to life.
Larkin believes in the
fact that time in its flow turns life transient and death is an integral part
puts an end to life. In this, he is akin
to Wolfe who says (Quoted in Time in Literature), “The mystery of
strange million-visaged time haunts us with the briefness of our days…”66
Larkin looks at time as
the only destroyer because it has eroding agents for corroding powers. Death
marks mortality but not eternity of life, the spiritual aspect of life as in The
Gita with the faith that time is both the creator and destroyer to
bestow on man life after death. The holy book says whoever dies will have
rebirth as per the message of Lord Krishna to Arjuna that one should not lament
over the idea of inevitable death in 'Sankhya Yoga' as life leads to eternity
from spiritual point of life,
jaatasyahi dhruvo mrityu
rdhruvam janma
mrityasyacha,
thasmadaparihaaryerthye
rthe
nathvam shochitu
marhasi.
Gita,
27
Poets like Browning, Donne, Eliot, Emily
Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Bergson present the faith that life continues even
after death. They believe in rebirth after death as the renewal of life, as
death is certain to one whoever is born. In 'Little Gidding', Eliot opines that
death is the beginning of spiritual life. In this aspect, Eliot reflects his
view of life after death:
We die with
the dying:
See, they
depart, we go with them.
We are born
constant with the dead:
FQ, 58
What we call
the beginning is often the end
And to make an
end is to make a beginning
The end is
where we start from.
FQ, 58
For Emily Dickinson, life
to lead to death, as described in her poem, “Because I could Not Stop for
Death” is evident as the journey, sometimes strangely as a marriage procession
and sometimes as a funeral procession.
For her, death approaches her in the funeral procession to lead her to
eternity in the poem in contrast with what Larkin who thinks of death. She
feels that death leads to the life of eternity,
We paused
before a House that seemed
A swelling of
the Ground –
The Roof was
scarcely visible –
The Cornice –
in the Ground –
Since then –
‘tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter
than the Day
I first
surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward
Eternity.
Selections from English Poetry, 75
Larkin’s
concept of death is in contrast with the poets like Robert Browning, John
Donne, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, T.S. Eliot, D.J Enright, Emily Dickinson
and the like to portray the eternity of life.
For Larkin, life is a transitory life and single journey. There is no life after death. He does not
believe in rebirth as he believes in life that ends in death and so it only
flows between birth and death.
The spiritualists are
unlike Larkin with his agnostic background. He does not believe in life after
death. For him "some thing" is nothing but the fleet of time to lead
life to the stage of death. For Thom Gunn, a movement poet, "one" is
nothing but the flux of time that brings in “age and the only end of age”. In ‘The Building’ (CP. 193), Larkin firmly
believes that nothing evades the arrival of inevitable, inescapable death to
put an end to life, the curtain-fall of life-drama, '…nothing contravenes/The coming
dark.’
In the voyage of ship,
“Only one ship is seeking us” is the voyage of life to attain “the only end of
age” as described in 'Next, Please' (TWW, 38) that is death. Here Larkin
presents the metaphor of ship, a vehicle to carry us on our voyage to death. Hence “Only one ship” (TLD, 20) is suggestive
of death to put an end to life.
Larkin’s symbols of death are from day-to-day
life. The refrain: “A drum taps: a wintry drum” (CP, 272) is symbolic of winter
that destroys the beauty of spring as death puts an end to life while ageing
through youth. The idea echoes in the refrain represents the harsh reality of
the approach of death represented by winter as in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The
Raven”.
In the consciousness of
the fact that time to advance life eventually to culminate in death, the
inevitability reality in the flux of time in Larkin remains as a riddle of time
in life. The Larkin speaker attempts to conquer time’s eroding forces but fails
to find a solution to the riddle. For him, neither the priest nor the doctor
finds a solution to the riddle of time.
Life turns a transitory
journey at the arrival death as the state of oblivion in life. Larkin believes
in the harsh truth of life that man sinks into oblivion in the state of death.
For him, “It’s only oblivion, true” (HW, 19). Life is therefore a journey to
flow from womb to tomb, the two oblivions of life: birth and death. Death to
occur in man’s life in time's ceaseless flow creates a vacuum, approaching
nearer. For Larkin, life does not exist after death. Death puts an end to man’s
life and man wakes up to the reality:
Days are where
we live.
They come and
wake us
Time and time
over. CP,
67
Larkin in the poem,
'Aubade' further believes that death is “anaesthesia” because it does not let
us know its silent occurrence:
… no sight, no
sound,
No touch or
taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to
love, or link with
The
anaesthetic from which none come round. CP,
208
In time's endless fleet,
life is like a day that starts with the rising of sun, advances to the morning,
the noon, the evening and culminates in the night. The poem, “Coming” reflects
the fact the first stage of man’s life, as stated in the lines “a child/Who
comes on a scene” (CP, 33), advances his life to “the only end of age”. Old age
is the evening of life, and the climax of age is the sunset of
"silken" life. The evening, symbolic of old age, culminates in the
night to symbolize death,
There is an
evening coming in
Across the
fields, one never seen before,
That lights no
lamps.
Silken it
seems at a distance, yet
When it is
drawn up over the knees and breast
It brings no
comfort.
CP, 3
In the poem,
'Going', the phrase, "an evening coming in” suggests the approach of
death, "that lights no lamps." The line, “With the bridles in the
evening come” (CP, 29) reflects the fact that life slips into darkness, “with
no one to see” (CP, 196). In the poem 'Next, Please', the expressions, 'A huge
and birdless silence', 'a black-sailed unfamiliar' and 'no waters bread or
break' are symbolic of death, the curtain fall of the life-drama.
For Larkin,
time puts an end to life like winter to put an end to the cycle of seasons. Life,
in the flux of time, is like the flower that starts its beautiful journey from the
stage of the bud in dreams, to the stage of the pretty flower to shine in
brightness and spread its perfume but falls onto the ground when its glitz and
glitter fade away to mark its transience. The million–petalled flower in
“Nothing to Be Said” is symbolic of the transience or brevity of life. The
flower with its temporary treasures: fragrance, bloom, sweetness, etc., are
like those in man's life. The fruit is like that of the flower as it falls down
in times of its ripeness to reflect the sign of transience of life in the
endless flow of time. So is the case with life to end in death, the inevitable
award of mortality.
Larkin
believes in the mortality of life against the immortality and eternity of life.
Larkin shares the opinion of Dylan Thomas in "Fern Hill" on time and
its effects on life:
Time held me
green and dying
Through I sang
in my chairs like the sea.
The Modern Poets’ World, 91
Dylan Thomas feels that
he who was once “green” is dying like all “green” things. The poem reflects an
outpouring of Thomas’s nostalgia for a vanished past unlike Larkin’s poems.
Thomas concurs with the concept of time and its powers like Larkin.
John Masefield deals with
the transience of life in the unstoppable passage of time. Life is brief “for
the time is brief, as thread the length of a span”. He, at the same time,
exhorts man to enjoy life until life comes to end, as the earth is the place
where man has to make short life worth enjoyable. He reminds us of Larkin's
view of transient life,
Guesting a
while in the room of a beautiful inn,
Glad till the
dancing stops and the lilt of music ends
Laugh till the
game is played; and be you merry, my friends
Poetry for Pleasure, 31
For Masefield, this earth
is “the dear green earth” but for Larkin it is “serious earth” (TLD, 29).
Larkin opines that life can never turn happy despite man’s efforts to be happy
and permanent.
D.J., Enright, a Movement
poet considers life a constant cycle of birth and death. Life is for renewal:
“Where so much withering is and so much bloom”. In respect of Larkin, the
incessant flow of time brings death to life against man’s wish.
Larkin’s idea of death as
depicted in 'Aubade' is only physical as death puts an end to life, "the
endless extinction". Death comes in life with its own inevitable role
under the reign of time to put an end to life:
Slowly light
strengthens, and the room takes shape,
It stands
plain as wardrope, what we know,
Have always
known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t
accept.
CP, 209
Larkin’s agnostic
philosophy is different from those who think that there is life after death for
spiritual or eternal life. For Larkin,
there is no sense of an after-life as in the “wake” of death, “no waters bread
or break” (CP, 52). According to Clive
James, something remains when everything is lost for nothing. He opines that Larkin is “the poet of the
void. The one affirmation his work
offers is the possibility that when we have lost everything, the problem of
beauty still remains. It’s enough” (38)
in the wake of death, there remains nothing except fame, as there is no life
after death.
Thus, Larkin differs from
those poets in this aspect. He treats time as a double-edged weapon for it
turns our life mortal on one side and our life with all ambitions futile on the
other. In man’s consciousness in the approach of death, life turns transitory
on one hand and dreary on the other for death is inevitable in life. As a
result, we feel life in death and death in life. Anthony Thwaite says, “Dead
leaves strew the lawns: in the midst of
life, we are in death". (15)
For Larkin, life is a
hard journey through time as he finds the present hollow and dreary and the
future bringing inevitable death. Especially the approach of inevitable death
fills one’s heart with horror. Larkin depicts death so vividly as any great poet.
According to Donald Hall “The fear of dying is a daily companion of many found
its Homer, Dante and Milton in Philip Larkin." (165)
Man lives in the horror
of death, extinction, and obliteration. He grows conscious of the
motionlessness, emptiness, nothingness of life and of the inevitable arrival of
death to put an end to everything, causing pain and suffering from the thought
of death lifelong. When life flows against the desperate cry in the horror of
death, life is what D. R. Draper calls “an expression of horror and appalled
dread a protest against mortality" (205). In the ceaseless flux of time, the
journey of life proceeds from hopeful future, 'armada of promises' through the
dry and dreary present to the regretful past and finally to emptiness and
nothingness caused by death: 'The end of choice, the last of hope;
and all' in “The Building” (CP, 191)
Death is the fearful
thing. The idea of inevitable death frightens us. As Larkin says, “Most things
may never happen: this one will” (CP, 209). Man attempts to be free from the
fear caused by the existence unalterable death. Larkin rightly calls “Aubade”
“in-a-funk-about-death poem." (CP, 574)
Life ultimately leads to
nothingness, and it is certain in time's flow.
As Salem K. Hasan points out, “Truly, life becomes even thinner when contemplating
the idea of human life being ‘dispersed’ into nothingness." (38)
The
concept of death is evident through the spectrum of Larkin's poetry right from
the beginning of his career. Time has annihilating powers, "eroding
agents" in its endless fleet by advancing life to the stage of aging and
finally to culminate in death. The idea flows through as the main vein in all
the volumes, throughout his poetry:
Take the grave's part,
Tell the bone's
truth.
C.P. 295
Only one ship is seeking us, a
black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.
TLD, 20
Life is first boredom,
then fear
Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden
from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of
age. CP,
152
All know they are going to die
Not yet, perhaps not here, but in
the end,
And somewhere like this. That is what it means. CP, 19
Most things may never
happen: this one will...
CP, 209
Larkin as a poet and man
is quite aware that in its endless flow, time brings about age and the only end
of age as in the poem, "The Old Fools'. Larkin says that the old are
already at death’s orbit:
At death you break up, the bits
that were you
Start speeding away from each
forever
With no one to see.
CP, 196
The advance of
death is deeply shocking to the old in “the power/Of choosing gone”. The old
are ignorant of death. The poet poses a question on their ignorance of death:
“How can they ignore it?”
CP, 197
Larkin's poetry reflects the
idea of man's struggle against the idea of death to evade the harsh reality of
life in the poem, 'The Building'. Man struggles to "transcend/The thought
of the dying" in the hospital. The efforts of medical science to heal the
sick and to ward off death become futile ultimately because "Somewhere
like this", the sense of mortality is the inevitable fact of life. The
people bring "wasteful, weak, propitiatory flowers" at the end. Larkin stoically accepts
the sense of defeat in the helpless condition as he, as man and poet fails in
his efforts. Andrew Swarbrick rightly says, “Larkin’s equivalent epitaph is
anti-death by being anti-life."(138)
Hence, the hospital building serves as a symbol for the place of
life's beginning and end because life starts with birth and ends with death in
the hospital. People in different ages, are victims of time either by sickness
or old age ultimately to culminate in death, "...Some are young,/ Some old
but most at that vague age that claims/The end of choice, the last of hope; and
all" ('The Building', CP,191). The building here serves the natural or familiar symbol as a
constant reminder of sickness heading to death or to the life-truth that “all
are going to die”. As Terry Whalen says, “The hospital is a natural symbol, not
of healing, but of the undeniable fact of death." (103)
“The Building” reflects
the facts of birth and death, the arrival and the departure of life whereas
“Church going” does with birth, marriage and death. When the church is “a
serious house on serious earth”, the hospital in “The Building” is a serious
place for the people to suffer and die.
Sir Thomas Browne says, “For the world, I count it not an inn, but a
Hospital; and a place not to live, but to die in." (115) T. S. Eliot sees
the hospital from the same angle, “The whole earth is our hospital” (FQ, 30).
The poem, “The Building” (CP, 191) serves as a place where death-cry always is
in echo.
The ambulances in the poem
'Ambulances', used for bringing the sick to the hospital indirectly remind them
of hospital-beds that are likely to serve as the beds of their death. The sight
of ambulances fills the idea of inevitable death in the minds of the
on-lookers. Man wakes to the reality that death occurs in life due to accident,
disease, or old age. Death surely puts an end to life. For Larkin, there is no reference
to life after death.
.
The poem, 'Explosion'
reflects the death of miners, ascribed to an accident or explosion in the mine.
It is the tragic experience of death by accident:
At noon, there
came a tremor; cows
Stopped
chewing for a second; sun,
Scarfed as in
a heat-haze, dimmed.
CP, 175
Another fact as stated in
'Ignorance' is that we are ignorant of the time of death’s arrival though the
horror of death haunts us all through life,
And yet spend
all our life on imprecision,
That when we
start to die
Have no idea
why.
CP, 107
The endless extinction
causes “Furnace-fear” in the heart of man.
Larkin himself dreads death. When
death is frightful and horrifying, it is most unwelcome. Death is most welcome
and joyful when it is a starting point for immortal life. In 'When Lilacs last
in the Dooryard Bloomed', Walt Whitman addresses death as “Dark mother” with “a
chant of fullest welcome”:
Come lovely and soothing
death,
Undulate round the world
serenely arriving,
In the day, in the night,
to all to each,
Sooner or later delicate
death.
American Literature of
the 19th Century. 390
For
Larkin, the sick in the constant awareness of death, felt “so perturbed” by his
father’s death at the age of sixty-three from cancer. He was not able to forget
the idea of death, and “became convinced that he too would die at the same age,
land from the same cause.” (1) He grew consciousness of death as the harshest
reality in life. His poetry presents the concept of death in kaleidoscopic
details.
Larkin has the constant awareness of the ceaseless flow of time that
advances life from birth to youth, middle age, old age and finally to death. It
is a horrifying and terrifying fact for Larkin. The
fact of death constantly worries Larkin "dreadfully". He himself
admits the fact, referring
to the concept of death in an interview:
“Yes,
dreadfully. If you assume you’re going to live to be seventy, seven decades,
and think of each decade as a day of the week, starting with Sunday, then I’m
on Friday afternoon now. Rather a shock,
isn’t it? If you ask, why does it bother
me? I can only say I dread endless
extinction." (55)
Life is prone to become
transient in the endless flow of time against our desires and we experience the
fear of extinction and obliteration of the self. For Larkin, the idea of the arrival of death
is uniquely horrifying and terrifying in life.
As Pater Hollindale says, “Larkin’s imaginative vision of death is a
kind of agoraphobia.” (60) For Larkin, death is a messenger, sent at
the command of the time to obliterate life and serves as a fearing friend until
the end of life.
In this connection,
Larkin identifies with the old fools in 'The Old Fools' and shares their dread
and suffering of the approach of death:
Perhaps being old is having lighted
rooms
Inside your head, and people in
them, acting
CP, 196
The old are sure to feel
that they are at death’s door or in depth's orbit and suffer from the
terrifying reality of death’s approach against their wishes. In Larkin's 'Deceptions', life is bound to be
suffering on one’s failures in fulfilling desires:
What can be said,
Except that suffering is exact, but
where
Desire takes charge, readings will
grow erratic?
CP, 32
Larkin, at the same time,
admits the fact that “suffering is exact” and inescapable from death. Life is
full of sad music when man is preoccupied with the idea of inescapable
death. He feels like running away from this
sad state of life:
If grief could burn out
Like a sunken coal,
The heart could rest quest.
CP. 298
In time's annihilating
powers, “Life is slow dying” (CP, 138). Man’s fatal state is quite shocking to
his kith and kin they are in consolation of visitors on the receipt of
death-message, as in 'Aubade', 'Postmen like doctors go from house to house'
CP, 208.
As a poet and man, Larkin
never congratulates himself on the approach of death but dreads the coming of
death and emptiness caused by its arrival. In 'Toads Revisited' He accepts his
defeat in the face of time despite his attempts to transcend the thought of
dying:
Give me your arm, old
toad;
Help me down the
The “Cemetery” is
symbolic of death that helps man ultimately to conclude his life. Doctors treat
patients and patients have a sigh of relief in the hospital. When patients fail
to live longer and die against their wishes, there is desperate cry on the part
of their kith and kin:
Higher than the handsomest hotel
The lucent comb shows up for miles,
but see,
All round it close –ribbed. Streets
rise and fail
Like a great sigh out of the last
century.
CP, 191
Man wants to live longer
and fulfill his desires but fails to do so as time destroys by its annihilating
powers to turn his life mortal and futile. Life becomes a hard journey to come
across harsh realities in the reign of time. Larkin as man and poet finds
“boredom” in his life.
Death in Larkin is never
a master but a slave because it responds to the call of time in the endless
flow in 'Cut Grass'. It is time to turn
life transient, leading it to death: 'Brief is the breath/Mown stalks exhale/
Long, long the death'(CP, 183). Life is full of experiences, but death is one
death, the curtain-fall of the drama of life.
As David Lodge says, “death is not an event in life: we don’t live to
experience death." (291)
Larkin looks at death
differently in the poems: “Explosion” and “The Whitsun Weddings”, dealing with
the renewal of life or rebirth of life. “The poem deals with the death of
miners in the explosion and the aftermath of death,
…and for a second
wives saw men of the explosion
… … …
One showing the eggs unbroken.
CP, 175
The unbroken eggs in 'Explosion' serve as a
symbol of renewal. The fear of death seems transcended. Larkin contemplates on
funeral service in the wake of the tragic experience of death. There is a
consolation with a religious or spiritual sense to the wives of dead husbands
in the explosion by means of the symbol of unbroken eggs for rebirth,
The dead go on before us, they
Are sitting in God’s house in
comfort,
We shall see them face to face-
CP, 175
The poem “The Whitsun Weddings” celebrates a
happy funeral. These lines reflect the theme of death and renewal because of
consummation of love. The showery arrows
imply death as well as fertility. Man’s journey that comes across marriage to
death, involves sexual act only for the renewal of life or the perpetuation of
race even though it ends in death,
We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took
hole, there swelled
A sense of failing, like an
arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere
becoming rain.
CP, 114
Larkin explores the
acceptable fact that inevitable death is the ultimate reality of life. Death
puts the end to life. Death causes vacuum in life. Death leads life to
motionless and nothingness. Larkin believes that the death is slave to time's
inexorable powers. The endless flow of time puts an end to life, bestowing on
life darkness, "black-sailed unfamiliar (CP, 52). Life is death-prone in
time’s flow against one's choice. Man grows with the increasing horror in his
heart, as life is “slow dying”. Like an ordinary man, Larkin acknowledges death
as ultimate reality not only for man but also for nature. Beauty in nature is
prone to decay only for renewal in time’s flow in contrast with the life of
man. There is no poet to delineate death, the harsh reality, so vividly as
Larkin.
Works
Cited
Larkin, Philip. Collected Poems (CP).
--------------- The North Ship
(NS).
---------------- The Less
Deceived (LD). Yarkshire: Marvell Press, 1955.
----------------The Whitsun
Weddings (WW).
---------------- High Windows
(HW).
Eliot, T.S. Four Quartets (FQ).
Vyasa, Veda. Srimad Bhagavadgitha.
Madrs: Sri Ramakrishna Printing Press, 1993.
Swarbrick, Andrew. Out
or Reach: The Poetry of Philip Larkin.
Larkin, Letters to Pasty
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Published: Poetcrit Vol. 37 , No. 1, Jan-Jun 2024
