By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Myxomatosis’ was written by Philip Larkin in 1954. Myxomatosis, a disease which affects rabbits and is lethal to them, was introduced into Britain in the 1950s in an effort to control the rapidly growing rabbit population. Larkin’s poem is a response to this measure.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Philip Larkin wrote ‘As Bad as a Mile’ in February 1960, during one of his most productive periods of poetry-writing. It was published four years later in his volume The Whitsun Weddings. You can read ‘As Bad as a Mile’ here; what follows is our analysis of this six-line poem.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Written in August 1960 and published in Larkin’s 1964 volume The Whitsun Weddings, ‘A Study of Reading Habits’ touches upon one of Philip Larkin’s favourite themes in a more explicitly humorous way than many of his most famous poems, and is great fun to analyse. You can read ‘A Study of Reading Habits’ here.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Home is so Sad’ was completed on New Year’s Eve 1958, while Philip Larkin was staying at his mother’s house in Loughborough during the Christmas holidays. Larkin was often inspired to write some of his most moving poems about home while visiting his mother, and this is one of his clearest poems written on this theme. It appeared in The Whitsun Weddings in 1964.