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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Listings for Reader:  

Philip Larkin

 

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Frank Richards : [Billy Bunter stories]

'he swapped and shared books, especially Billy Bunter stories. ("[Bunter's] roars and squeaks of anguish were constantly imitated then and for years after", says Sutton; "Philip seemed to identify with Bunter up to a point.")'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

David Herbert Lawrence : [unknown]

'Sutton and Larkin grew steadily closer as they moved up through the senior school. Tiring of their childish reading, they turned to weightier matters, Larkin discovering D.H. Lawrence and Sutton "retaliating with Cezanne".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

[unknown] : [various fiction works in his father's library]

'Sydney [Larkin's father] gave him free run of his library and his appetite for books grew enormously. "Thanks to my father", he wrote later: "our house contained not only the principal works of most main English writers in some form or other (admittedly there were exceptions, like Dickens), but also nearly-complete collections of authors my father favoured - Hardy, Bennett, Wilde, Butler and Shaw, and later on Lawrence, Huxley and Katherine Mansfield".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

John Cowper Powys : [unknown]

'Sydney shaped Larkin's taste skilfully, leading him away from J.C. Powys and towards Llewelyn and T.F., towards James Joyce with no expectation that he would enjoy him, and towards poets who would remain favourites all his life: Hardy, Christina Rossetti and A.E. Housman. In late 1939, when Larkin discovered T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood, Sydney also encouraged him - continuing, as he had always done, to make reading seem an independent activity, only tenuously linked to schoolwork.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Llewelyn Powys : [unknown]

'Sydney shaped Larkin's taste skilfully, leading him away from J.C. Powys and towards Llewelyn and T.F., towards James Joyce with no expectation that he would enjoy him, and towards poets who would remain favourites all his life: Hardy, Christina Rossetti and A.E. Housman. In late 1939, when Larkin discovered T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood, Sydney also encouraged him - continuing, as he had always done, to make reading seem an independent activity, only tenuously linked to schoolwork.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Theodore Francis Powys : [unknown]

'Sydney shaped Larkin's taste skilfully, leading him away from J.C. Powys and towards Llewelyn and T.F., towards James Joyce with no expectation that he would enjoy him, and towards poets who would remain favourites all his life: Hardy, Christina Rossetti and A.E. Housman. In late 1939, when Larkin discovered T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood, Sydney also encouraged him - continuing, as he had always done, to make reading seem an independent activity, only tenuously linked to schoolwork.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

James Joyce : [unknown]

'Sydney shaped Larkin's taste skilfully, leading him away from J.C. Powys and towards Llewelyn and T.F., towards James Joyce with no expectation that he would enjoy him, and towards poets who would remain favourites all his life: Hardy, Christina Rossetti and A.E. Housman. In late 1939, when Larkin discovered T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood, Sydney also encouraged him - continuing, as he had always done, to make reading seem an independent activity, only tenuously linked to schoolwork.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Christina Rossetti : [unknown]

'Sydney shaped Larkin's taste skilfully, leading him away from J.C. Powys and towards Llewelyn and T.F., towards James Joyce with no expectation that he would enjoy him, and towards poets who would remain favourites all his life: Hardy, Christina Rossetti and A.E. Housman. In late 1939, when Larkin discovered T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood, Sydney also encouraged him - continuing, as he had always done, to make reading seem an independent activity, only tenuously linked to schoolwork.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Alfred Edward Housman : [unknown]

'Sydney shaped Larkin's taste skilfully, leading him away from J.C. Powys and towards Llewelyn and T.F., towards James Joyce with no expectation that he would enjoy him, and towards poets who would remain favourites all his life: Hardy, Christina Rossetti and A.E. Housman. In late 1939, when Larkin discovered T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood, Sydney also encouraged him - continuing, as he had always done, to make reading seem an independent activity, only tenuously linked to schoolwork.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Thomas Stearns Eliot : [unknown]

'Sydney shaped Larkin's taste skilfully, leading him away from J.C. Powys and towards Llewelyn and T.F., towards James Joyce with no expectation that he would enjoy him, and towards poets who would remain favourites all his life: Hardy, Christina Rossetti and A.E. Housman. In late 1939, when Larkin discovered T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood, Sydney also encouraged him - continuing, as he had always done, to make reading seem an independent activity, only tenuously linked to schoolwork.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Wystan Hugh Auden : [unknown]

'Sydney shaped Larkin's taste skilfully, leading him away from J.C. Powys and towards Llewelyn and T.F., towards James Joyce with no expectation that he would enjoy him, and towards poets who would remain favourites all his life: Hardy, Christina Rossetti and A.E. Housman. In late 1939, when Larkin discovered T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood, Sydney also encouraged him - continuing, as he had always done, to make reading seem an independent activity, only tenuously linked to schoolwork.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Edward Falaise Upward : [unknown]

'Sydney shaped Larkin's taste skilfully, leading him away from J.C. Powys and towards Llewelyn and T.F., towards James Joyce with no expectation that he would enjoy him, and towards poets who would remain favourites all his life: Hardy, Christina Rossetti and A.E. Housman. In late 1939, when Larkin discovered T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood, Sydney also encouraged him - continuing, as he had always done, to make reading seem an independent activity, only tenuously linked to schoolwork.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Christopher Isherwood : [unknown]

'Sydney shaped Larkin's taste skilfully, leading him away from J.C. Powys and towards Llewelyn and T.F., towards James Joyce with no expectation that he would enjoy him, and towards poets who would remain favourites all his life: Hardy, Christina Rossetti and A.E. Housman. In late 1939, when Larkin discovered T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood, Sydney also encouraged him - continuing, as he had always done, to make reading seem an independent activity, only tenuously linked to schoolwork.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Paul Verlaine : [unknown]

'Throughout 1939 his reports speak of "improvements", and even though he still did "not much like" his English teacher he worked hard, widening his reading to include Verlaine and Lamartine as well as Auden and Eliot'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Verlaine : [unknown]

'Throughout 1939 his reports speak of "improvements", and even though he still did "not much like" his English teacher he worked hard, widening his reading to include Verlaine and Lamartine as well as Auden and Eliot'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

George Moore : [unknown]

'Larkin later admitted that he spent most of his time straying from the path Bone [his tutor] intended him to follow. "I was on a great [George] Moore kick at that time", he said; "probably he was at the bottom of my style, then".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Unknown

  

Henry Green : [unknown]

'This "new direction" [in literature], Larkin was beginning to realize, would depend on subtlety as well as candour - the sort of approach he was learning to associate with other writers he now re-read, or read for the first time. With Henry Green and Virginia Woolf (he admired "The Waves"); with Julian Hall, whose novel of public school life "The Senior Commoner" he approved for its "general atmosphere of not shoing one's feelings in public"; and with Katherine Mansfield. "I do admire her a great deal", he told Sutton, "and feel very close to her in some things".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Unknown

  

Virginia Woolf : Waves, The

'This 'new direction' [in literature], Larkin was beginning to realize, would depend on subtlety as well as candour - the sort of approach he was learning to associate with other writers he now re-read, or read for the first time. With Henry Green and Virginia Woolf (he admired "The Waves"); with Julian Hall, whose novel of public school life "The Senior Commoner" he approved for its "general atmosphere of not shoing one's feelings in public"; and with Katherine Mansfield. "I do admire her a great deal", he told Sutton, "and feel very close to her in some things".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Julian Hall : Senior Commoner, The

'This "new direction" [in literature], Larkin was beginning to realize, would depend on subtlety as well as candour - the sort of approach he was learning to associate with other writers he now re-read, or read for the first time. With Henry Green and Virginia Woolf (he admired "The Waves"); with Julian Hall, whose novel of public school life "The Senior Commoner" he approved for its "general atmosphere of not shoing one's feelings in public"; and with Katherine Mansfield. "I do admire her a great deal", he told Sutton, "and feel very close to her in some things".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Katherine Mansfield : [unknown]

'This "new direction" [in literature], Larkin was beginning to realize, would depend on subtlety as well as candour - the sort of approach he was learning to associate with other writers he now re-read, or read for the first time. With Henry Green and Virginia Woolf (he admired "The Waves"); with Julian Hall, whose novel of public school life "The Senior Commoner" he approved for its "general atmosphere of not shoing one's feelings in public"; and with Katherine Mansfield. "I do admire her a great deal", he told Sutton, "and feel very close to her in some things".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Christopher Isherwood : All the Conspirators

'Although Larkin had first read them [Auden and Isherwood] at KHS [his school], it wasn't until he reached Oxford that he began fully to appreciate their irony and ebullient detachment (he described Isherwood's first novel, "All the Conspirators", as being like "life photographed"). Eventually Larkin would praise Auden as "the first 'modern' poet, in that he could employ modern properties unselfconsciously". Reading him in St John's during his first term he felt: "Auden rose like a sun. It is impossibly to convey the intensity of the delight felt by a ... mind reared on 'Drake's Drum', 'Westminster Bridge' and 'Ode to a Nightingale, when a poet is found speaking a language thrilling and beautiful, and describing things so near to everyday life that their once-removedness strikes like a strange cymbal. We entered the land, books in hand, like travellers with a guidebook... 'Poems', 'The Orators' and 'Look, Stranger!' seemed three fragments of revealed truth... To read 'The Journal of an Airman' was like being allowed half an hour's phone conversation with God".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

William Wordsworth : 'Composed Upon Westminster Bridge'

'Although Larkin had first read them [Auden and Isherwood] at KHS [his school], it wasn't until he reached Oxford that he began fully to appreciate their irony and ebullient detachment (he described Isherwood's first novel, "All the Conspirators", as being like "life photographed"). Eventually Larkin would praise Auden as "the first 'modern' poet, in that he could employ modern properties unselfconsciously". Reading him in St John's during his first term he felt: "Auden rose like a sun. It is impossibly to convey the intensity of the delight felt by a ... mind reared on 'Drake's Drum', 'Westminster Bridge' and 'Ode to a Nightingale, when a poet is found speaking a language thrilling and beautiful, and describing things so near to everyday life that their once-removedness strikes like a strange cymbal. We entered the land, books in hand, like travellers with a guidebook... 'Poems', 'The Orators' and 'Look, Stranger!' seemed three fragments of revealed truth... To read 'The Journal of an Airman' was like being allowed half an hour's phone conversation with God".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

John Keats : 'Ode to a Nightingale'

'Although Larkin had first read them [Auden and Isherwood] at KHS [his school], it wasn't until he reached Oxford that he began fully to appreciate their irony and ebullient detachment (he described Isherwood's first novel, "All the Conspirators", as being like "life photographed"). Eventually Larkin would praise Auden as "the first 'modern' poet, in that he could employ modern properties unselfconsciously". Reading him in St John's during his first term he felt: "Auden rose like a sun. It is impossibly to convey the intensity of the delight felt by a ... mind reared on 'Drake's Drum', 'Westminster Bridge' and 'Ode to a Nightingale, when a poet is found speaking a language thrilling and beautiful, and describing things so near to everyday life that their once-removedness strikes like a strange cymbal. We entered the land, books in hand, like travellers with a guidebook... 'Poems', 'The Orators' and 'Look, Stranger!' seemed three fragments of revealed truth... To read 'The Journal of an Airman' was like being allowed half an hour's phone conversation with God".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Henry Newbolt : 'Drake's Drum'

'Although Larkin had first read them [Auden and Isherwood] at KHS [his school], it wasn't until he reached Oxford that he began fully to appreciate their irony and ebullient detachment (he described Isherwood's first novel, "All the Conspirators", as being like "life photographed"). Eventually Larkin would praise Auden as "the first 'modern' poet, in that he could employ modern properties unselfconsciously". Reading him in St John's during his first term he felt: "Auden rose like a sun. It is impossibly to convey the intensity of the delight felt by a ... mind reared on 'Drake's Drum', 'Westminster Bridge' and 'Ode to a Nightingale, when a poet is found speaking a language thrilling and beautiful, and describing things so near to everyday life that their once-removedness strikes like a strange cymbal. We entered the land, books in hand, like travellers with a guidebook... 'Poems', 'The Orators' and 'Look, Stranger!' seemed three fragments of revealed truth... To read 'The Journal of an Airman' was like being allowed half an hour's phone conversation with God".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Wystan Hugh Auden : Poems

'Although Larkin had first read them [Auden and Isherwood] at KHS [his school], it wasn't until he reached Oxford that he began fully to appreciate their irony and ebullient detachment (he described Isherwood's first novel, "All the Conspirators", as being like "life photographed"). Eventually Larkin would praise Auden as "the first 'modern' poet, in that he could employ modern properties unselfconsciously". Reading him in St John's during his first term he felt: "Auden rose like a sun. It is impossibly to convey the intensity of the delight felt by a ... mind reared on 'Drake's Drum', 'Westminster Bridge' and 'Ode to a Nightingale, when a poet is found speaking a language thrilling and beautiful, and describing things so near to everyday life that their once-removedness strikes like a strange cymbal. We entered the land, books in hand, like travellers with a guidebook... 'Poems', 'The Orators' and 'Look, Stranger!' seemed three fragments of revealed truth... To read 'The Journal of an Airman' was like being allowed half an hour's phone conversation with God".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Wystan Hugh Auden : Orators, The

'Although Larkin had first read them [Auden and Isherwood] at KHS [his school], it wasn't until he reached Oxford that he began fully to appreciate their irony and ebullient detachment (he described Isherwood's first novel, "All the Conspirators", as being like "life photographed"). Eventually Larkin would praise Auden as "the first 'modern' poet, in that he could employ modern properties unselfconsciously". Reading him in St John's during his first term he felt: "Auden rose like a sun. It is impossibly to convey the intensity of the delight felt by a ... mind reared on 'Drake's Drum', 'Westminster Bridge' and 'Ode to a Nightingale, when a poet is found speaking a language thrilling and beautiful, and describing things so near to everyday life that their once-removedness strikes like a strange cymbal. We entered the land, books in hand, like travellers with a guidebook... 'Poems', 'The Orators' and 'Look, Stranger!' seemed three fragments of revealed truth... To read 'The Journal of an Airman' was like being allowed half an hour's phone conversation with God".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Wystan Hugh Auden : Look, Stranger!

'Although Larkin had first read them [Auden and Isherwood] at KHS [his school], it wasn't until he reached Oxford that he began fully to appreciate their irony and ebullient detachment (he described Isherwood's first novel, "All the Conspirators", as being like "life photographed"). Eventually Larkin would praise Auden as "the first 'modern' poet, in that he could employ modern properties unselfconsciously". Reading him in St John's during his first term he felt: "Auden rose like a sun. It is impossibly to convey the intensity of the delight felt by a ... mind reared on 'Drake's Drum', 'Westminster Bridge' and 'Ode to a Nightingale, when a poet is found speaking a language thrilling and beautiful, and describing things so near to everyday life that their once-removedness strikes like a strange cymbal. We entered the land, books in hand, like travellers with a guidebook... 'Poems', 'The Orators' and 'Look, Stranger!' seemed three fragments of revealed truth... To read 'The Journal of an Airman' was like being allowed half an hour's phone conversation with God".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Wystan Hugh Auden : Journal of an Airman, The

'Although Larkin had first read them [Auden and Isherwood] at KHS [his school], it wasn't until he reached Oxford that he began fully to appreciate their irony and ebullient detachment (he described Isherwood's first novel, "All the Conspirators", as being like "life photographed"). Eventually Larkin would praise Auden as "the first 'modern' poet, in that he could employ modern properties unselfconsciously". Reading him in St John's during his first term he felt: "Auden rose like a sun. It is impossibly to convey the intensity of the delight felt by a ... mind reared on 'Drake's Drum', 'Westminster Bridge' and 'Ode to a Nightingale, when a poet is found speaking a language thrilling and beautiful, and describing things so near to everyday life that their once-removedness strikes like a strange cymbal. We entered the land, books in hand, like travellers with a guidebook... 'Poems', 'The Orators' and 'Look, Stranger!' seemed three fragments of revealed truth... To read 'The Journal of an Airman' was like being allowed half an hour's phone conversation with God".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Vernon Watkins : Ballad of the Mari Lwyd, The

'Before the meeting, Larkin had no detailed knowledge of Watkins's work - what he had read, including the newly published "Ballad of the Mari Lwyd", seemed to him too full of symbols, too arty, too removed from the recognizably modern world described by Auden.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

Ben Jonson : extract

"Which reminds me I noticed an extract from Ben Jonson the other day which said 'the third requisite in our poet, or maker, is imitation... to follow him (Auden, in my case) till he grow very He; or so like him that the copy may be mistaken for the principal...'"

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      

  

Katherine Mansfield : Letters and diary

'Katherine Mansfield is a cunt, but I share a hell of a lot of common characteristics with her. I should like to read her letters again. The trouble with her seems to be that she luxuriated in emotion far too much. Admittedly the head is an evil thing & I'm a tied-up bugger, but anyone who can spew out their dearest and closest thoughts, hopes, and loves to J. M. Murry must be a bit of an anus.'

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      

  

D. H. Lawrence : Jimmy and The Desperate Woman, in The Woman Who Rode Away and Other Stories

'By the way! 'Jimmy & the Desperate Woman' is fucking good! 'After he had given his lecture (it was on Men in Books and Men in Life: naturally men in books came first)...' Lawrence so good I daren't really read him.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Book

  

D. H. Lawrence : unknown

'As Lawrence (+ sign of cross - not christian cross - no devil down in Hell: [Christian cross] (!!)) said 'The reason the English Middle Classes chew every mouthful 30 times is that a bite any bigger than a pea would cause stoppage in their narrow guts,' or words to that effect). Which I approve [...] I am reading Lawrence daily (like the bible) and with great devotion.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      Print: Unknown

  

Herbert Ernest Bates : 

[Lengthy, uncomplimentary quote from H. E. Bates on D. H. Lawrence] 'Perhaps you would like to know who is writing this? H. E. Ballocks. I mean H. E. Bastard. That is, H. E. Bates: [Quotes H. E. Bates comparing Lawrence unfavourably to Rilke]... No, I can't go on. When will these sodding loudmouthed cunting shitstuffed pisswashed sons of poxed-up bitches learn that there is something greater than literature? A bastard who can bastard well write bastard shit like that bastard well ought to be bastard well stuffed with broken glass, the bastard.'

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin      

 

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