Relationships that influenced Philip Larkin
Throughout the life of the poet Philip Larkin, multiple women had important roles which were significant influences on his poetry. Since Larkin's death in 1985, biographers have highlighted the importance of female relationships on Larkin: when Andrew Motion's biography was serialised in The Independent in 1993, the second installment of extracts was dedicated to the topic.[1] In 1999, Ben Brown's play Larkin with Women dramatised Larkin's relationships with three of his lovers,[2] and more recently writers such as Martin Amis, continued to comment on this subject.[3]
Amis is the son of the British novelist, and Larkin's long-standing friend, Kingsley Amis. While primarily a novelist, Amis also wrote more than six volumes of poetry.[4] Biographer Richard Bradford contends that, over the course of Larkin's life, his relationship with Amis transformed from one of mutual appreciation and encouragement, to a much more fraught dynamic. Bradford has stated that in the later years of their relationship Larkin "was subterraneously driven by resentment and near hatred" of Amis.[5]
Eva Larkin
Eva Larkin was Philip Larkin's mother. Born in 1886, she lived until 1977, dying 29 years after her domineering husband, Sydney Larkin. Larkin is often considered to have had a tense relationship with his parents; mainly due to his famous lyric poem "This Be The Verse" beginning with the line "They f*** you up, your mum and dad". However, mother and son wrote to each other twice weekly for about 35 years from 1940, when Larkin went to
"Reference Back" from The Whitsun Weddings, is a poem written from his mother's viewpoint or his imagination of it.[7]
Ruth Bowman
Ruth Bowman was a schoolgirl living in Wellington, Shropshire when Larkin moved there in 1943 to become librarian at the public library. They met the following year when she came into the library. She was 16, an academically-minded schoolgirl, and the person with whom Larkin had his first sexual encounter a year later when he visited her at King's College London.[8] Their relationship continued and in 1948 they became engaged. The engagement was broken in 1950, shortly before Larkin moved to Northern Ireland. These events are referred to sardonically in the poem "Wild Oats", written in the early 1960s.[1] She died in 2012, at the age of 85.[9]
Monica Jones
Monica Jones was born Margaret Monica Beale Jones on 7 May 1922 in Llanelli, South Wales.[10] She moved with her family to Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire, when aged seven. Educated at Kidderminster High School for Girls, she won a scholarship to study English at Oxford University, a period of her life which was immensely influential to her; she acquired her distinctive accent and flamboyant dress sense whilst studying there.[11]
Larkin's long and extremely close relationship with Monica Jones dated from the autumn of 1946, when they met at
Jones taught at Leicester University from 1946 until 1981 when she retired. She never published anything during her academic career; she "regarded publishing as a bit showy", though she was noted for "the panache of her lecturing, in which, for example, she would wear a Scottish tartan when talking about
There is evidence that Jones gave Larkin editorial advice on his writing. A copy of Jill he inscribed to her to thank her for making it "decent, ie literate"'. Anna Farthing, a curator of a 2017 exhibition in Hull, told The Guardian: "All the evidence suggests he sends her drafts of his work, he’s constantly asking for her opinion."[15]
In October 1982, Jones was taken to Hexham Hospital after a fall downstairs in her Haydon Bridge cottage. At Easter 1983, she was stricken with
She is said to be the model for the character of Margaret Peel, Jim Dixon's
Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me, a 2021 book by Jones' friend John Sutherland reveals that Jones and Larkin sent each other many letters containing racist and anti-semitic opinions.[17]
As with Larkin and another of his long term companions Maeve Brennan, Monica Jones was buried in Cottingham Cemetery near Hull. Her white headstone is of identical design to the one situated at Larkin's grave.
Winifred Arnott
Patsy Murphy
Larkin knew Patricia Avis Strang Murphy (1928–1977) during the 1950s, and wrote her his first love letters. As Patricia Avis, she is the author of Playing the Harlot (1996, Virago), a roman à clef; the character of Rollo Jute is thought to have been inspired by Larkin.
Patsy Strang discovered and read some of Larkin's sexual diaries.[21] She later married the poet Richard Murphy.[22]
Maeve Brennan
Maeve Brennan (27 September 1929 – 11 June 2003)[23] was born in Beverley, East Yorkshire and was the eldest of three children. Brennan's father was a dental surgeon from Kilkenny, Ireland. Brennan attended Saint Mary's high school for girls in Hull. She had a successful academic career there, becoming head girl, a title she shared with Ruth Bowman and Winifred Arnott, both previous companions of Larkin.[24]
Brennan was a colleague of Larkin's at
Brennan and Larkin's relationship is detailed extensively by Brennan herself in The Philip Larkin I Knew, which was published in 2002. Brennan's book speaks of both the friendship and romantic relationship that existed between her and Larkin, as well as recalling the poet's 30 year tenure of office as librarian of the University of Hull. Brennan aimed for the book to show Larkin in a new light: namely, that the poet was "considerably more compassionate, generous and warmhearted than autobiographical, biographical and critical works published since his death have revealed". The Philip Larkin I Knew includes a significant collection of letters between Brennan and Larkin, despite many from the last six months of Larkin's life having been previously destroyed.[25] Brennan also advised on the BBC2 drama, Love Again, which is based on the last 30 years of Larkin's life, as well as contributing to the Channel 4 documentary Philip Larkin: Love and Death in Hull.[24]
Brennan died in June 2003 following a short illness, and like both Larkin and Monica Jones, she is buried in Cottingham Cemetery. Her grave is situated approximately 20 metres from that of Monica Jones and the epitaph on its red granite headstone comes from one of Larkin's best known poems, "An Arundel Tomb": "What will survive of us is love".
Betty Mackereth
Betty Mackereth (born 1924, in Hull)[26] was Larkin's "loaf-haired"[27] secretary for most of his time at Hull University, joining the staff in that role in 1957.[2] After his death, it was she who, on his wishes, destroyed his diaries, feeding them sheet by sheet into a university shredder. They began an affair in 1975, when they were both in their fifties.[28] She knew about both Monica Jones and Maeve Brennan, and also about Larkin's large collection of pornography. In 2002, a poem written to her, "We Met at the End of the Party", was publicised by her, prompted by the discovery of a notebook which contained its opening lines.[27] As depicted in Larkin's little drawings sometimes added to letters Mackereth appeared as a whale – Monica Jones was a rabbit and Maeve Brennan a mouse.
References
- ^ a b c d Morton, Andrew (21 March 1993). "Larkin in love: Part two of the authorised biography of Philip Larkin". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015.
- ^ a b c Brennan, Maeve (April 2000). "Larkin with Women: An Inside View" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 February 2014.
- ^ OCLC 60623878. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
- ^ Christopher Tayler (20 December 2012). "Keep yr gob shut". London Review of Books. Vol. 34, no. 25.
- ^ Alberge, Dalya (15 January 2018). "Newly seen letters show Philip Larkin's close relationship with mother". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 October 2018.
- ISBN 978-374-0-12696-4.
- ^ Cooke, Rachel (26 June 2010). "In search of the real Philip Larkin". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 October 2018.
- ^ Booth, James (22 January 2013). "Ruth Siverns obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 October 2018.
- ^ a b c Longworth, Kate; Priestman, Judith (2010). "Catalogue of letters from Philip Larkin to Monica Jones, 1946-84". Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
- ^ ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 9 February 2024.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-571-23910-8.
- ^ Larkin, Philip (2010). Letters to Monica. Faber Poetry.
- ^ Larkin 2011, p. ix.
- ^ Ellis-Petersen, Hannah (4 July 2017). "Philip Larkin exhibition in Hull offers fresh insights into poet's life". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 April 2021.
- ^ Larkin 2011, p. xi.
- ^ Kelly, Liam (11 April 2021). "Philip Larkin's muse, Monica Jones, revealed as a racist". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 17 April 2021. (subscription required)
- ^ Penelope Fitzgerald (March 1993). ""Really, one should burn everything" by Penelope Fitzgerald – The New Criterion". newcriterion.com. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
- ^ ISBN 9781847601001. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
- ^ John Banville. "Homage to Philip Larkin by John Banville | The New York Review of Books". nybooks.com. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
- ^ Richard Bradford, (2005) First boredom, then fear: the life of Philip Larkin. Peter Owen. London. Pages 96–100.
- ISBN 978-0-571-15174-5.
- ^ Hartley, Jean (22 December 2003). "Maeve Brennan". The Guardian. London.
- ^ ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
- ^ Maeve, Brennan (2002). The Philip Larkin I Knew. Manchester University Press.
- ^ "Papers of Betty Mackereth relating to Philip Larkin" (PDF). Hull History Centre.
- ^ a b McHenry, Eric. "The new Philip Larkin poem". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 28 October 2018.
- ^ "BBC One - Philip Larkin and the Third Woman". BBC. Retrieved 28 October 2018.
External links
- Philip Larkin in the Novel of Patricia Avis, accessed 22 January 2010
- Monica Jones entry in ODNB by John Sutherland, Retrieved 4 October 2012. Pay-walled or via subscribed library.