Short description:

This book extensively investigates the integral nature of spatiality and spatial imagination in the works of Philip Larkin. It addresses Larkin's idea of space and place, both private and public, and reflects upon his early fictional works as well as poems. To do so, the book also emphasizes the essential spatiality of modern British literature with suitable examples from other great poets of the early 20th century modernist movement, including T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden, and Dylan Thomas. By including detailed analysis of many unpublished poems and his early fictions, the book aspires to be a comprehensive study of Larkin's oeuvre and thus examines how Larkin's sense of place changed as he developed as a writer, starting with Brunette Coleman novels and going on to High Windows. Featuring suitable references from his biographies and letters, the book will examine Larkin's works in relation to a number of relevant ideas from the interdisciplinary spheres of literature, geography and Spatial Humanities.

Ujjwal Kr. Panda is Assistant Professor in the Post Graduate Department of English at Hooghly Mohsin College, which is affiliated with the University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India. He did his PhD on the works of Seamus Heaney and Philip Larkin from Vidyasagar University in 2017 and has widely published in many national and international journals and books. His publications include the co-written monograph Geographical Imaginations Literature and the Spatial Turn and an edited volume entitled Indian Classical Literature: A Collection of Critical Essays.

Long description:

This book extensively investigates the integral nature of spatiality and spatial imagination in the works of Philip Larkin. It addresses Larkin's idea of space and place, both private and public, and reflects upon his early fictional works as well as poems. To do so, the book also emphasizes the essential spatiality of modern British literature with suitable examples from other great poets of the early 20th century modernist movement, including T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden, and Dylan Thomas. By including detailed analysis of many unpublished poems and his early fictions, the book aspires to be a comprehensive study of Larkin's oeuvre and thus examines how Larkin's sense of place changed as he developed as a writer, starting with Brunette Coleman novels and going on to High Windows. Featuring suitable references from his biographies and letters, the book will examine Larkin's works in relation to a number of relevant ideas from the interdisciplinary spheres of literature, geography and Spatial Humanities.

Table of Contents:

Chapter - 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Chapter - 2: Larkin's Fiction: Emplacement, Displacement and Transcendence of Belonging.- Chapter 3: The North Ship, The Less Deceived and the Unpublished Works: Early Displacements and Negation of Homogenised Spatial Identity.- Chapter 4: The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows: Growing Disgust and Negation of Spatial Belonging.- Chapter 5: Conclusion: A Quest for Relevance.