Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica

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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] Alberge, Dalya (15 January 2018). "Newly seen letters show Philip Larkin's close relationship with mother". The Guardian . Retrieved 28 October 2018. a b c Hartley, Jean (19 June 2003). "Obituary: Maeve Brennan". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 5 February 2020. 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] This is a stirring book, despite the absence of uplift, because these were people who lived in their letters. Larkin refers to what he is doing in his letters as "talking to you", rather than writing. The one-way medium, not immediately reflexive, seems to liberate him. Interactivity doesn't suit everyone.

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 Oxford University. The writer Philip Pullen has described these letters as "very significant" and proof that "the relationship was deeper and more valuable to Larkin than anybody might have thought". [6] 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 was a colleague of Larkin's at Hull University, from which she graduated with a degree in history, French and English. They first met in 1955 when he moved from Belfast to Hull, but it was in 1960, when Larkin coached her for a Library Association exam, that their relationship became meaningful and romantic. This happened despite Larkin's deep and by then long-standing relationship with Monica Jones. The romance between the two lasted for eighteen years, while their friendship as a whole spanned nearly three decades. [2] Larkin's longest poem, "The Dance" is about an evening spent with Brennan. "The Dance" remains unfinished. The poem "Broadcast" was also written about her. [1] "Broadcast" sees Larkin listening to a live transmission of a concert from Hull's City Hall where Brennan was seated in the audience. Much of Larkin's writing was heavily influenced by his relationship with Brennan, including his collection The Whitsun Weddings, which he once described as Brennan's book. [24] a b c Longworth, Kate; Priestman, Judith (2010). "Catalogue of letters from Philip Larkin to Monica Jones, 1946-84". Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. 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]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 [ edit ] Penelope Fitzgerald (March 1993). " "Really, one should burn everything" by Penelope Fitzgerald – The New Criterion". newcriterion.com . Retrieved 9 August 2012. Motion, Andrew (1993). Philip Larkin – A Writer's Life. London: Faber & Faber. p.232. ISBN 978-0-571-15174-5.

Burnett, Archie (2012). The Complete Poems. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp.429–430. ISBN 978-374-0-12696-4. 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. Ellis-Petersen, Hannah (4 July 2017). "Philip Larkin exhibition in Hull offers fresh insights into poet's life". The Guardian . Retrieved 17 April 2021.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]

a b Martin Amis (23 October 2010). "Martin Amis on Philip Larkin's women | Books | The Guardian". The Guardian. London: GMG. ISSN 0261-3077. OCLC 60623878 . Retrieved 9 August 2012. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ Cooke, Rachel (26 June 2010). "In search of the real Philip Larkin". The Guardian . Retrieved 28 October 2018. This was a sexual relationship, if not a very fluent one. Its eroticism announces itself in a bat's squeak or a librarian's whisper. The bicycle-clip cries out to the garter-belt, but softly, softly. Larkin asks for pointers on technique, Monica asks for emotional reassurance. He tries to oblige, but the words he chooses are, "I don't mean, of course, that I don't like making love with you." In this fond struggle between two passive-aggressive types, each of them trying to finesse some decisiveness out of the other, she must have known that a double negative was the most she could hope for. When she points out that he tends to be chilly in letters after a successful meeting, as if to re-establish distance, he does better. His next communication at such a juncture is downright warm. John Banville. "Homage to Philip Larkin by John Banville | The New York Review of Books". nybooks.com . Retrieved 9 August 2012.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. 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 Macbeth." [12] Her literary enthusiasms (not entirely shared by Larkin) included Walter Scott, Jane Austen and George Crabbe. They shared enthusiasm for Thomas Hardy and Barbara Pym, and swapped scornful opinions of C. P. Snow, Pamela Hansford Johnson, William Cooper and others. [14] They shared a sympathy with animals: both of them deplored vivisection and myxomatosis, were fond of Beatrix Potter's creations, and of real creatures, in particular cats and rabbits, though Monica Jones had a fear of hens, and of some other birds. Larkin's letters to Jones were sometimes "embellished with [his] skilful sketches", Jones as a rabbit ("Dearest bun"), himself as a seal. 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] The Larkin-Amis correspondence and the Larkin-Jones have complementary leitmotifs. Most letters to Amis end ritually with "bum", most letters to Monica Jones begin with "bun". Larkin and Jones had a cult of the fluffy rodent, in a running joke that acquired its own seriousness. He wrote in September 1959: "I do deeply feel 'somehow' there is a rabbit there too, doing the things you do; even lecturing on Hopkins. It is a strange fancy. I can't explain it. I think perhaps the rabbit takes your place at times… Of course I know it doesn't really! but I feel loth to say 'there is no rabbit'." They liked Beatrix Potter even when she strayed beyond bunnies, with Larkin declaring that he would sacrifice Joyce, Proust and Mann (foreigners all, admittedly, and he had become scrupulously xenophobic) for The Tailor of Gloucester.

Amis, Martin (22 October 2010). "Martin Amis on Philip Larkin's women". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 5 February 2020. a b c Brennan, Maeve (April 2000). "Larkin with Women: An Inside View" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 February 2014.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". The most extraordinary letters are ones where he is listening to a record or the radio ( The Messiah, for instance, or The Critics) and transmutes the experience even before it has finished. In March 1958 he riffs lovingly on Handel's Solomon as if the characters were all rabbits. At times like this his letters take on the shapely frenzy of the jazz he so loved. It's like the automatic writing at a séance or surrealist soirée, expressive but absolutely untethered, coming very close to that unimaginable thing, a disinhibited Larkin. Never mind that he was relying on the faux spontaneity of drink. It was probably the only kind he trusted.