Volume 3, Number 11 · January 14, 1965
A True Poet
By Christopher Ricks
The Whitsun Weddings
by Philip Larkin
Random House, 46 pp., $1.95 (paper)
Philip Larkin is the best poet England now has. And that is not said with the intonation with which R. A. Butler once described Harold Macmillan as 'the best Prime Minister we have.' Future examination-papers will endlessly reiterate 'Is Larkin a major or a minor poet?' and the obvious answers will spring to their stations. Yes, we ought to be impatient with his having written so little. The Whitsun Weddings is the work of the last nine years, and that means thirty-two poems (which is a few more than in The Less Deceived in 1955). Larkin has recently said that he hardly writes anything that he doesn't publish, and that he hasn't written a poem for eighteen months. Yet if we were to insist on calling him a 'minor poet,' what words are we left with to describe most of our others? Minimal? Still, a historical perspective is provided by the apt coincidence that The Less Deceived was published by the Marvell Press at Hull, Yorkshire. Andrew Marvell served Hull as its Member of Parliament; Mr. Larkin is the Librarian of its University. Let us call them both minor poets if we wish—so long as we don't call too many people major. Technical surety, imaginative delicacy, a feeling heart, and unforgettable rightness of cadence—oh, he is minor, is he? I wish he would bite some other of my majors.
Review, 1708 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |