Such Deliberate Disguises: The Art of Philip Larkin

Description

Such Deliberate Disguises: The Art of Philip Larkin argues that a true understanding of Philip Larkin as man and poet lies beyond his enduring public appeal and the variety of criticism that has recently been applied to his work. Richard Palmer suggests that the ostensible simplicity of Larkin's writing, which continues to attract so many readers to him, is deceptive, masking as it does one of the richest and most resonant of oeuvres in twentieth-century poetry. Penetrating the many masks of Larkin, the book sheds new and considerable light on the hitherto largely ignored spiritual significance of his work. Based upon close and scrupulous reading of the poems themselves, it draws upon insights gained from the history of art and the study of religion and myth as much as literary criticism and personal biography. It also brings long-overdue attention to what is seen to be perhaps the chief love, and operative aesthetic force, of Larkin's life: jazz. Such Deliberate Disguises is thus a major contribution, not just to Larkin studies, but to the wider cultural history of our times.

Richard Palmer writes regularly for Jazz Journal International and is series editor for Eastnote, Hull University Press's new imprint of jazz studies. He is the author of a number of books on jazz. Richard Palmer is Director of General Education at Bedford School, where for twenty years he was Head of English. A regular contributor to Jazz Journal International, he has published widely in the fields of literature, education and jazz.

"Richard Palmer has written a highly intelligent, sharp and challenging book. 'Larkin Studies' (as Larkin ruefully called them as early as 1981) are likely to be changed by Palmer's alert ventures into this contentious area." Anthony Thwaite, Poet and Co-Executor of the Larkin Estate -- Anthony Thwaite, Poet and Co-Executor of the Larkin Estate "A very interesting, well-researched and deeply felt book" - Jazzwise Review in The New Criterion, November 2009