AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PHILIP LARKIN

Philip Larkin

Philip Arthur Larkin ( Coventry , August 9, 1922 - Hull , December 2, 1985 ) was an English writer , poet and jazz critic. He was associated with The Movement .

Larkin was born as the only son of Sydney Larkin, a treasure keeper in Coventry. He went to school at the City's King Henry VIII School in Coventry, then went to St. John's College in Oxford. He could get his diploma here with some luck. The war had already started and Larkin was called by the British army but was rejected because he saw badly.

After his studies, Larkin went back to live with his parents, after which he became a librarian in Shropshire in 1943 . Earlier, in 1940 , Larkin's first poem 'Ultimatum' was published in The Listener , and also in 1943 A Stone Church published Damaged By A Bomb , 'Mythological Introduction' and I dreamed of an out-thrust arm of land in the magazine Oxford Poetry ; now that he was a librarian, he simply continued to write and publish poems. In 1946 his first novella Jill appeared and shortly thereafter, in 1947 , A Girl became Winterreleased. Larkin was meanwhile a librarian at the University of Leicester , after which he went to the University of Belfast . XX poems was published in Belfast .

Larkin moved again and became a librarian in Hull in the year 1955 . It was in that year that his collection The Less Deceived was published. This collection is considered to be his most important collection. A few years later Larkin started writing jazz reviews for The Daily Telegraph ; he continued to do this until 1971 . Later these reviews were bundled in 'All what Jazz'. In the meantime he had published a new collection of poems, The Whitsun Weddings , in 1964 , for which he received a few prizes. His last collection of poems High Windows dates from 1974 .

Larkin was a celebrated writer and poet, and received many awards, including the CBE and The German Shakespeare Prize .

Tombstone on the municipal cemetery of Cottingham .

In 1982 Larkin became a professor at the University of Hull. In 1984 he received an emeritus from the University of Oxford and was elected Member of the Board of the British Library . In 1984 Philip Larkin also had the chance to become Poet Laureate after the death of John Betjeman, but on principle he did not accept the title. For he thought that, due to his deteriorating state of health, he had virtually lost his 'poetic gift'. Instead of Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes became the new Poet Laureate.

In 1985 Philip Larkin had to be hospitalized due to oesophageal cancer. He received the Order of the Companion of Honor , a prize for his merits in art, literature, religion or science, but he could no longer be present at the ceremony at Buckingham Palace . He died at the age of 63 that same year.

Bibliography [ edit ]

Poetry

·         The North Ship (1945)

·         XX Poems (1951)

·         The Less Deceived (1955)

·         The Whitsun Weddings (1964)

·         High Windows (1974)

·         Collected Poems edited by Anthony Thwaite (1988)

Fiction

·         Jill (1946)

·         A Girl In Winter (1947)

·         'Trouble at Willow Gables' and Other Fiction 1943-1953 (written under the pseudonym of 'Brunette Coleman')

Non-fiction

·         All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961-68 (1970)

·         Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955-1982 (1983)

·         Selected Letters edited by Anthony Thwaite (1992)

Miscellaneous

·         The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century Nederlands Freshly chosen by Philip Larkin (1973)