First Boredom, Then Fear: The Life Of Philip Larkin - Rilegato

Bradford, Richard

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0720611474 ISBN 13: 9780720611472

Casa editrice: Peter Owen Ltd, 2005

Riassunto

He formed a spectrum of impressions which invariably interferes with any reading of his verse. Lisa Jardine, when writing about High Windows, forgot the poems and concentrated on the 'casual habitual racist, [this] easy misogynist...who relished savagely abusing acquaintances'. Even Andrew Motion treats Larkin's later, controversial poems with a kind of embarressed circuitousness, providing, contra Jardine, a dignified fabric of excuse. Richard Bradford's life of the poet will engage directly with Larkin the man, his writings and the controversies surrounding both. It will go beyond the condescending tolerance by those commentators who see Larkin as a terrible man who wrote beautiful verse and will tackle head-on the politically correct McCarthyism which attends his status in academia (two US universities have effectively banned his poetry). Larkin is difficult to categorise because he is an assortment of contradictions. In someways he is an index to to the mood or mind-set of post-war Britain, or at least those aspects of it that all but middle-aged Tories would want to forget: an intolerant, provincial reactionary. In others he is a disturbing assembly of cosmopolitan radicalism: a Lawrentian, a Freudian who experimented with bisexuality and treated monogamy as an unnatural imposition, a man whose father took him to Germany in the 1930s to impress upon him the benefits of Nazism, an experience from which he never fully recovered.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

'This book, easily the best on Larkin yet to appear, is a masterful analysis of the weirdly fatalistic interweaving of his life and his writing. Bradford is in such complete command of the subject matter, nothing escapes him. It is as if he has had access to Larkin's very thought processes. A great biography of a great artistic genius. Utterly Magnificent.' --Roger Lewis, Daily Express

'Quite the best thing to appear on Larkin in ages.' --D.J. Taylor, Evening Standard

'Bradford gives us a refreshingly sympathetic assessment of the poet's life. After the damaging disclosures of xenophobia and misogyny in the letters and Andrew Motion's biography, Bradford points the way to reading what really matters: Larkin's verse. --London Review of Books

L'autore:

Richard Bradford is one of the UK's most acclaimed literary biographers. Proffesor of English at Ulster University, he has specialised for many years is post-war English Literature. He has published biographies of Kingsely Amis and Alan Sillioe and his next work, also to be published by Peter Owen, will be the authorised biography of Martin Amis.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Peter Owen Ltd
• Data di pubblicazione: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0720611474
• ISBN 13: 9780720611472
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 272