Abstract

Philip Larkin’s poetry has been subject to considerable critical attention with respect to a wide range of themes and critical approaches. Since the publication of Philip Larkin’s Selected Letters and the year following, Andrew Motion’s definitive biography Philip Larkin: Writer, Larkin has been subject to enormous biographical scrutiny. This scrutiny placed strong emphasis on “place” in Larkin’s poetry as being linked to actual physical locations which has led to criticisms of Larkin as an anti-modernist parochial poet of the real. Sufficient attention has not, however, been given to the significance of placiality and spatiality in Larkin’s poetry. With particular focus on a selection of poems from The Collected Poems, this thesis argues that Larkin’s poetics represent a debate over the conflicting values of place as rootedness and space as freedom. Larkin’s poetic sensibility oscillates between an affinity for the freedom that a modern conception of open spaces allows for, and the consequent losses to the values of rootedness and placiality these changes entail.

Chinese Abstract


由於菲利普．拉金(Philip Larkin)的詩篇作品包含多方面的主題，因此長久以來受到各界相當大的批判性關注，甚至批評的主題與方式也很廣泛。自從菲利普．拉金的著作“信札選”出版，以及此後一年，安德魯．莫遜(Andrew Motion)出版最後確定版的“菲力普拉金傳記”後，拉金的生平便開始受到龐大的注意。拉金傳記出版後，各界大多將焦點聚在拉金詩篇中所描述的地點，與實際地點之間的關聯。這些關聯使得拉金被批評者稱為實際地點的地方性反現代主義者詩人。不過這也讓拉金詩篇中所襯托出的地點性(placiality)與空間性(spaciality)極少受到當有的注意。本論文特別將重點放在拉金的“詩合集”(The Collected Poems)上，並主張拉金的詩論代表的就是，以根深蒂固性的地方性，還有代表自由的空間性之間的價值衝突的辯論。拉金詩篇的敏感度總是在一種開放空間的現代概念所允許對自由的親和性，以及隨之發生的遺落，以至於這些改變所承受根深蒂固的價值與地方性之間擺動。

TABLE OF CONTENTS


Abstract (English) …………………………………………………………………………..i
Abstract (Chinese)………………………………………………………………………….ii
Chapter One: Introduction - Living on the Periphery………………………………………1
Chapter Two: Rootedness versus Freedom………………………………………………..15
Chapter Three: Distance and Intimacy…………………………………………………….39
Chapter Four: Encroaching Space…………………………………………………………60
Chapter Five: Conclusion – To the Lighthouse……………………………………………84
Appendix: Larkin’s Sketches………………………………………………………………89
WORKS CITED……………………………………………………………………………92

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