Change and cultural survival in the poetry of Philip Larkin and Carol Ann Duffy

269 Pages·2010·9.51 MB·English

by  Brenda Allen

Emperors of the Text:
change and cultural survival
in the poetry of
Philip Larkin and Carol Ann Duffy.
A thesis
submitted in fulfilment
of the requirements for the Degree
of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the
University of Canterbury
by
Brenda Allen
University of Canterbury
1999
To the memory
of my husband, Ashley,
of my parents, Amy and Jack,
and of my sister, Yvonne.
iii
Contents
Abstract
IV
Aclmowledgments
VI
Preface
Vll
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: The Cata-tomes: Archive and Imperialism 7
Chapter 2: Book-World: Ruling the Pages 38
Chapter 3: Love Story 79
Part I: Larkin's Dangerous Liaisons
Part II: Modem Love: Duffy Fires the Canon
Chapter 4: Religio Medici: Faith, Hope and Charity 122
Chapter 5: Lands of Hope and Glory: Putting People
in their Place 172
Chapter 6: War and Peace: Fighting the Good Fight 209
Conclusion 251
Bibliography 257
IV
Abstract
Philip Larkin and Carol Ann Duffy have been, and are, regarded as a step ahead, as the
voices that aid other citizens in their struggle to delineate the nature of their concerns
about their society and the changes that must be coped with, internalised and
incorporated into daily life. Because they are living in times of change, Larkin and
Duffy are forced to find new ways to preserve their cultural identity that are not
predicated on traditions that are dying or being superseded. The most startling of these
changes, however, also affects Britain at the national and international level and in this
thesis I examine the writing (including archival material) and life ofthese poets to argue
that their efforts to deal with change may be seen as mirroring the stance of their nation,
since in a nation with an elected government there must be, at some level, approval for
and participation in, the modus operandi of that government. That these practices are
imperialistic can come as no surprise, but ideas and practices of imperialism have
changed. Thus it is that the older of the poets, Philip Larkin, harks back to the time of
British Imperial glory, and the younger, Carol Ann Duffy, maintains a watching and
speaking brief based on humanistic values of egalitarianism.
Larkin, although he purports to be liberal, especially in matters he regards as the
merely conventional, fights against the very structures that could be helpful to him and
prioritises the sustaining of a past that has no future except as memory and text. His
refusal to conform to the social and canonical demands of his younger days, however,
v
ensures that he experiences ambivalence toward most of the structures he criticises as
well as toward those he embraces. Nevertheless, his directionless rebellion paves the
way for Carol Ann Duffy to move freely between the canonical and the vernacular, in
terms of diction and subject matter. To this, DuffY has added her own determination to
interrogate meaning, and to represent a culture that is changing by de constructing and
reconstructing canonical form in a way that Larkin did not.
The first two chapters of this thesis are about the importance of data and archive,
especially the written word, to ideas of the British Empire, and Larkin's over-reliance
on archive in his own life. The dysfunctional subjects of DuffY's poems, who display
similar reliance on data and archive, are then discussed and related to her own,
contrasting awareness ofthe difference between data and knowledge. The third chapter,
in two parts, demonstrates that the imperialist practices of each poet are carried over
into the world of personal relationships. Because of his more rigid attitudes, Larkin
does not achieve transcendence in this sphere, but Duffy demonstrates that moments of
rapture are possible. The last three chapters deal with the most prominent features of
imperialism: religion, territory and war. The chapter on war, in particular, is based on
archival material that Larkin wrote during or about war, that he saw fit to keep private
until after his death; and the chapter also utilises Duffy's lesser-known early works.
The conclusions of these chapters confirm those of the previous chapters.
Vi
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank and acknowledge the assistance of a number of people:
My supervisors, Dr Rob Jackaman and Dr James Acheson, gave me good advice,
encouragement, and were generous with their time. Andrew Motion and Carol Ann
Duffy, both busy people, found time to talk with me. My daughters, Emily and Rachael
and my partner, R. Michael Peck, showed faith in me and endured uncomplainingly my
pre-occupation with my work. My friends Ian Hall, Maureen Coulter, Heather McCann
Dr Alma Smith, Paul Vincent and R. Michael Peck all assisted with proof-reading and
provided me with stimulating discussion from time to time. When I went to Hull to
research, I was kindly and well assisted by those at the Brynmor Jones Library,
especially Brian Dyson and Rebecca Johnson.
I would also like to thank the following institutions for assistance with funding,
without which I could not have travelled to the Larkin archives or undertaken this
thesis:
The University of Canterbury (scholarship); the University of Canterbury English
Department (travel grant); Claude MacCarthy Foundation (travel grant); the University
of Canterbury Federation of University Women (travel grant), and the University of
Canterbury Mature Student's Society (MATSOC), especially Jim Johnson.
vii
Preface
New Zealanders have begun to interpret British art with a wide cultural view that takes
into account their own post-colonial aspirations. But in order to develop a full
awareness of what we have learned at the knee of Britannia, an understanding of
imperialist power structures is necessary, as these underpin ideas and habits we must
throw off in order to be secure in our separateness. This must surely be seminal to the
ongoing well-being of a post-colonial identity, for unless we do so we may be
susceptible to messages of imperialism that pervade art. This idea may seem obvious in
terms of the increased status of art that is peculiarly ours and in terms of our developing
bi-culturalism, but that it should be extended to our understanding of twentieth-century
British poetry is less obvious, if only because it has been the custom to read poetry in
the context of its own time and place without reference to the disjunction between that
set of circumstances and those of the reader. Because of this, I have chosen to examine
the work of two poets, each of whom has been acclaimed, while still relatively young,
as the voice of the nation, to establish the terms of its imperialistic inheritance in order
that I may read it with impunity.
1
Introduction
Imperialism operates at the national and international levels, so that while nineteenth
century explorers (on whom we may look back with an overview) are seen as
imperialist, contemporary poets have not usually been interrogated as part of that
now outdated political system. But it seems reasonable to assume that, in a country
with an elected government, the power strategies of the nation will be mirrored in
the social, cultural and inter-personal relationships of its citizens and that when the
operation of the nation changes, citizens will have to make an effort to learn new
ways of inter-relating and new ways of regarding themselves. One of the forums
where this negotiation (or refusal to negotiate) can take place is in the art that
purports to be predicated in the experience of the writer/citizen and those in the
community who are observed by these writers.!
But imperialism has changed. In the course of the twentieth century, Britain
has gone from enjoying a position as the hub of the world's most powerful and
respected Empire, to a rather less secure and much less powerful position as a
sometimes unwilling and unappreciated member of the EEC. Even as the twentieth
century draws to a close, there is resistance to metric measurements and the
Eurodollar and this, in part, demonstrates that there are some Britons who still feel
the need to cling to the signs of authority which have acted as tokens of imperial
power throughout the Empire and the Commonwealth. For the British, then, these
signs are invested with cultural capital that is not easily replaced and may represent
stability in a time when life has been characterised by a range of changes. Not only
do we now have a computer age, but the intellectual climate has changed; the growth
2
of multi-culturalism in Britain has changed the semantic content of the very term
" British"; and the Scots and the Welsh now have more say in the running of their
respective parts of Britain. In a sense, the periphery has come to the metropolis,
destabilising that which made the nation 'great'. This means that not only must the
former colonial populations seek decolonising strategies, but that the British
themselves will have to go through a similar process of shifting their centre of
identification onto that which is predictable and under their control.
Some might say that Britain is no longer imperialistic. But the fact that
imperialism has changed to accommodate modem life is demonstrated by America,
an imperialistic nation that watches more than it occupies, but which steps in to
enforce its values outside its own borders. This allows the privileging of the status
quo of one nation over that of another, although it seems less exploitative,
particularly as the overt aim is to preserve peace and engender tolerance. But for
Britain, the borders have come to town, both through the shrinking of the Empire
and through the increased multi-cultural nature of British society. Citizens must
negotiate to keep the peace in their own back yard. Somehow they must learn to
withdraw their cultural capital from the imperialist banks, and reinvest it, perhaps in
themselves. These days, it is possible to see, in contemporary British poetry, the
kind of watching that at least attempts an understanding of the observed, similar to
that commonly associated with American imperialism.
***
Between them, Philip Larkin and Carol Ann Duffy span most of the twentieth
century, because although he was not born until 1922, Larkin began writing early
3
and the imprint of the first half of the century is on his work. This is traceable
through the influence of his parents, his conservative education and his own
conservatism that causes him to locate his centre firmly in the past, so that the
present is peripheral, elusive, and even foreign. The identity he protects is that of
the Englishman who stays at home, enj oying the fruits of empire without having to
face up to the practicalities. At the time of his death in 1985, when Larkin had
stopped writing, perhaps because he had nothing more to say, Duffy was publishing
her first volume of youthful poems, demonstrating an identity that rests more on a
stable self that can negotiate change than on a need to preserve the past.
Their differences are obvious: not only are they born into different historical,
social, intellectual and political climates, but while Larkin was born in England, a
male of the middle class, Duffy was born in Scotland, a female of the working class
-- a female who has come to realise that she is gay. Nevertheless, these two poets
have a great deal more in common than might at first be realised: each began
reading voraciously and writing at an early age; each has written a body of work that
is diverse enough to inform the reader of the changing social and historical
atmosphere of their society as well as to allow glimpses into the ways in which their
local contexts are related to the national and international contexts; and each
purports to write from a body of experience. Of course, for each, that experience is
British.
While I do not mean to suggest that Britishness does not admit diversity, that
they seem similar relates, no doubt, to the fact that Britishness is no longer seen (as
it was throughout the empire) as encompassing all points of view that are worth
having. From the outsider position, it seems that the older view is predicated on
spurious assumptions that privileged the very culture that is allowed to be its own