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El-Youssef / The Levantine Review Volume 1 Number 2 (Fall 2012)

THE LEVANT :

ZONE OF CULTURE OR CONFLICT?

Samir El-­Youssef∗

2012

The Levantine Review: The Journal of Near Eastern and Mediterranean Studies at Boston College 1(2) 200-204

Boston College

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

I didn’t read Philip Larkin until the publication of his Selected Letters (1940-­1985,) and the heated debate that they provoked. Larkin had been seen as one of the most beloved contemporary English poets, but in 1993, the year of the Letters’ publication, it was revealed that in some of his private correspondence this great poet had expressed views that could only be deemed to be those of a racist. Some insisted that Larkin must be seen as the good poet he’d ever been. Others thought he should be dismissed. The intransigent question about Art and Politics had managed to make its way into the centre of attention again.

My first reading of Larkin was more like a detective mission; thorough text searching for clues, which could link his poetry to those few offending letters. Larkin’s poems are riddled with signs of nostalgic yearning. In themselves such signs would have been deemed harmless were they not issuing from an English writer. In them were also hints of resentment towards anything modern or abroad. But there was no real evidence, no proof as it were, of a racist expression that could be used or brandished by way of indictment in any serious debate. My mission to impeach Larkin, I’m happy to report, was an absolute failure.

-­Why happy?

-­Happy because as I read Larkin’s poems I came to enjoy quite a good number of them. Indeed I enjoyed more poems now than when reading many other poets whom I’d explored without the grudge of a detective-reader. Enjoying so many poems in such a small output made me come back to Larkin time and again, reading him with open mindedness and with no other purpose than the pleasure of reading poetry.

Repeated readings over the years made Larkin one of my most favourite poets. Still, racism is a serious matter, and when one’s favourite poet is branded a racist, one must explain how it is possible to reconcile the irreconcilables. Some commentators and friends of the late poet tried the usual method of playing down the issue of racism. Some insisted that art and politics, especially politics expressed in private correspondence, are two separate realms that mustn’t be confused. Others argued that those letters should only been seen within the historical and cultural context in which they were written. But none of these arguments holds water. Larkin is a bigot and there is no way of getting around this disgraceful fact. So how could one read him knowing what he is or what he was? ISSN: 2164-6678