Sisir Kumar Chatterjee is Associate Professor at Hooghly Mohsin College, Burdwan University, West Bengal, India. His first monograph on Philip Larkin was published in 2006 and he has published extensively on fiction, non-fiction and poetry. He co-edited The World of Agha Shahid Ali (2021) and is currently co-editing Arundhati Roy: Political, Ethical and Aesthetic Perspectives and a book on Thomas Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge. His novel Burning Burning was published in 2022.

• ContentsForeword xAcknowledgements xiiAbbreviations xiv1 Introduction 11 “I Remember, I Remember” 12 Larkin’s Status as a Poet 23 Critical Controversies 44 The Evolution of Larkin’s Poetry 95 “Begin Afresh”: A Re-Evaluation 136 Methodology 14Notes 152 Early Poems to The North Ship (1938–1945) 171 Juvenile Poems 172 Brunette Coleman Poems: Sugar and Spice 223 The North Ship: Poeticisms, Rhetorical Hi-Jinks, and Innovative Imitation 27(i) A Fortuitous First Volume 27(ii) “Poetical” Poems 29(iii) “Yeats-y” Poems 33(iv) Audenesque Poems 36(v) Gendered Poems 38(vi) Eros-Thanatos Poems 42(vii) Carpe diem 43(viii) Purist Aestheticism 44(ix) Poems of Poetic Vocation 46Notes 483 From Novelist to Poet 501 The Novels and Débats 502 Biographical Pressures 623 Crisis: In the Grip of Light and XX Poems 644 Britain’s Political Transition 715 “The Movement” 736 Anti-Romanticism and Anti-Modernism 797 Religion, Consumerism, “Permissive Society” and “Race Relations” 84Notes 874 The Less Deceived: “Clear-eyed Realism” and Demotic Poetics 891 Deceptions and Illusions 892 “Come and Choose Wrong”: Choice 943 “Threadbare Perspectives”: Triple Time 994 “Admirer and Admired”: Beyond Cynicism 1075 A Disoccurrence 1106 My Darling 1117 Catching Happiness 1128 Oblivion and Self-Transcendence 1139 Elegy 11610 Celebration 11811 Awkward Reverence 121Notes 1255 The Whitsun Weddings: Larkin at the Zenith 1271 Serio-Comic Poems 1272 “How Life Should Be”: Advertisement Poems 1353 Life’s Victims 1404 “Something Hidden From Us”: Alter Ego Poems 1445 “When We Start To Die”: Poems of Failure and Death 1506 “What Will Survive Of Us” 1557 “An Enormous Yes” 1628 The End of Larkin’s Marriage Debate: 1963–1964 1699 Epithalamium 170Notes 1766 High Windows: The Quotidian and the Transcendent 1791 “Screaming for More”: Public Poems 1792 Secondary Inspirations 1833 The “Strength and Pain / Of Being Young” 1874 “Uncontradicting Solitude” 1915 Self-Satire 1946 “Your Mum and Dad” 1977 “Very Corny” 1988 “The Eggs Unbroken” 2009 “You Give For Ever” 20110 Living 20211 The Sad Song of Money 20812 “It Didn’t Work For Them Or Me” 21013 “O World, / Your Loves, Your Chances” 21114 “Let It Always Be There” 218Notes 2237 Larkin After High Windows 2271 “Furnace-Fear” 2272 Betty Mackereth: The Love Poems of 1975–1976 2333 “It Never Worked For Me” 2414 “We Should Be Kind / While There Is Still Time” 2445 A Lyric Moment 2466 Friendly Doggerels 2467 Occasional Poems 2478 The “Last” Poem 2499 “It Is By Bridges That We Live” 250Notes 2568 Conclusion 2571 Pessimism 2572 Lyricism 2603 From Personal to Universal 2614 The Ordinary 2645 Transcendence 2656 Larkin’s Achievement 270Notes 271BibliographyIndex

"Sisir Kumar Chatterjee revisits Larkin’s oeuvre in light of a host of recent developments: editorial, critical and personal. The idea to ‘begin afresh’ may be only ‘almost true’, but the close re-readings yield a new harvest of fascinating details and intriguing insights."Raphaël Ingelbien, Associate Professor of English Literature, KU Leuven and author of Misreading England: Poetry and Nationhood since the Second World War (Rodopi 2002)."Larkin’s own passions and ambitions have never been so intelligently explained. Begin Afresh offers an insightful exploration into the development of Larkin’s oeuvre, viewing the novels and poetry as a whole. The author’s deep appreciation of Larkin’s work gives us a renewed vision of and affection for it."Janice Rossen, author of Philip Larkin: His Life’s Work (Harvester Wheatsheaf 1989)