It is little wonder that Robert Lance Snyder, writing in 2007, opens his discussion of Larkin and āplaceā with the rather exasperated assertion that āconsider[ing] the significance of place in Philip Larkinās oeuvre may seem a foredoomed endeavourā (115). The reasons behind Snyderās assertion are complicated and far-reaching and direct us more towards deficiencies besetting the critical school of place and space than they do any particular shortcoming in Larkin scholarship itself. Therefore, I wish to begin our exploration of Philip Larkin, place, space and journeying by outlining a series of critical issues and oversights which, I believe, may have prevented Larkinās poetics of place over the last 20 years from receiving the full breadth of critical rigour it deserves.
For me, these issues were no better outlined than in the introduction of a series of collected essays, published in 2008. In the introduction to Literature and Place 1800ā2000, Peter Brown exposes a terminological inchoateness underlying the very concept of āplace and literatureā. The ramifications of this act extend beyond a mere lesson in the importance of phraseological attentiveness and serve, additionally, to highlight several key problems besetting how one thinks about literatureās relationship with āplaceā in general. While, for Brown, āplace and literatureā offers an opportunity for the critic to regroup his or her understanding of, and approach towards, literary appropriations of place, at the same time Brown remains seemingly oblivious towards the lexical uncertainties that prompt such a paradigmatic rethinking of āplaceā criticism in the first place. In attempting to make sense of the question of āliterature and placeā, Brown bifurcates the phrase into two divergent critical approaches: an āoutsideā approach (which looks at āliterary placesā), and an āinsideā approach (which addresses āplaces in literatureā). The first approach Brown deems āempirical and quasi-antiquarianā given its focus upon, and inclusion of, ārealā places in literature; the second approach he considers ātheoreticalā owing to its focus on placeās function as a literary topos (13).1 In attempting to develop his twofold critical approach further, Brownās reasoning takes on an unconvincing air of extemporisation: āPractitioners of the outside methodā, he suggests, concern themselves solely with the authorās life, and āquarry relevant written materialāletters, diaries, and biographies [&c.]ā in order to pander to āgeneral literary enthusiasm [and] curiosity about authors [lives]ā; a process which Geoffrey Hartman famously states, with some scorn, reduces a text to a mere ātourist guide and antiquarian signpostā (208). In contrast, the practitioner of the āinsideā critical approach appears to be held in considerably higher esteem by Brown, owing to the approachās inherent focus on text rather than the author; thus, channelling the āproperā literary critic towards the ācomplex dynamics of literature and placeā. Indeed, through an āinsideā approach, the āidea of place is more important than the identification of topographical correlativesā (Brown 13). Crucially, this means an āinsideā approach for Brown eschews all interest in the possible role of locational verisimilitude, and the stylistic or aesthetic advantages that this approach could offer by including real locations and geographies in the text.
While this attempt to split the phrase āliterature and placeā into two divergent critical paradigms may be useful in helping us organise critical thought within the field, one cannot help feeling that Brownās logic gives rise to a dangerous false dichotomy here. After all, it is difficult to ascertain how the poetry of Philip Larkin might benefit from this critical model; poetry which, much like Thomas Hardyās Wessex, often creates āan imaginative construct in geographical realityā, or, to put it another way, fuses fictional places within, or proximate to, real places (Millgate 332). On the contrary, the model runs the risk of obstructing avenues of critical exploration owing to its inherent prejudices and reductiveness.
And yet Brownās view that the study of real places in literature is somehow a lesser pursuit is not without precedent: as well as Hartmanās aphoristic denunciation mentioned above, Leonard Lutwack in 1984 castigated the decision of the author to include real places in his or her work by advancing the rather damning indictment that āfidelity to geographic realism ā¦ exact[s] a price that the writer cannot afford to payā (29). Gillian Tindall, a little later in 1991, views the authorial decision to include real places with equal wariness, deeming the act to be largely futile owing to the notion that the verisimilitude of a real place invariably has its presence overpowered by the ancillary symbolic agenda it is forced to inhabit:
Indeed, both the critical attitude towards the analysis of real places and the circumspection with which critics address authors who integrate real-life locales in their work are enough to make one doubt whether critical scrutiny is being fairly attributed. The disinclination of such critics to establish a working critique for the incorporation of real places in literature is further testament to this and makes us consider whether aspects of place theory, in general, may have endured a degree of critical ostracism over the last 20 years.2 While a small amount of defence has persisted,3 one wonders whether an altogether new critical idiom of place needs to be cultivated in order that writers who feature high levels of loco-specificity in their work receive a just amount of critical scrutiny. A re-examination of this nature may well benefit poets who, whilst fond of the incorporation of loco-specific elements, nevertheless remain mindful of the symbolic, stylistic and representational capacity of āimaginedā places as well; an undertaking that would invariably dismantle the false dichotomy that sits at the heart of Brownās critical approach.[T]he specific, real place [becomes] so entirely subsumed by what it comes to represent that it ceases to be an identifiable place at all, at once a triumphant consummation and a defeat. (ix)
A further issue with these criticsā theorising is their relative lack of focus on the important distinction between āplaceā and āspaceāāwith the latter receiving comparatively scant attention. Although Franco Moretti comes close to a working definition of āspaceā in the outset of his monograph Atlas of the European Novel 1800ā1900,4 the investigative line is ultimately sacrificed for an (albeit necessary) argument advocating an interdisciplinary approach to literature and place via geography.5 A symptom of this reluctance to provide a critical glossing for āspaceā is expressed through the never-ending obfuscation and slippage that seems to exist between the words āplaceā and āspaceā. Indeed both Moretti and Brown use place and space interchangeably, and it is down to Michael Irwin to settle upon a convincing set of rules to govern the separation of the two nouns critically.6 No more an advocate of consistency (moving freely and without explanation between capitalisation and italicisation of both āplaceā and āspaceā), Irwin nevertheless offers a compelling working definition of āplaceā: it is, for Irwin, āany fictional mapā applied in literature to āauthenticate the reality of a real-life locale or the pseudo-reality of a fictional oneā (25; emphasis Irwinās). Conversely, āspaceā for Irwin concerns literature that is āoccupied, or seemingly occupied, by a āconceptionā or āidealā [= abstract] formā (qtd. in Brown 27). Beyond these attempts, little headway has been made towards establishing a solid set of critical definitions for place and/or space suitable for application within literary studies. Consequently, ardent literary scholars in this field have been forced to revisit the teachings of Heidegger and Husserl7 or, more commonly, to borrow critical apparatus from neighbouring disciplines; notably that of human geography, where Yi-Fu Tuanās edict of place āas one unit among others ā¦ subsumed under the geographerās concept and analysis of spaceā holds sway, pulling critical reasoning away from the arts, and in the direction of āthought, quant...