Class, capital, and distinction in Philip Larkin's The Whitsun Weddings
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17398/2660-7301.45.261Keywords:
capital, culture, field, habitus, distinction, Philip Larkin, The Whitsun WeddingsAbstract
With the publication of Philip Larkin’s letters, his claim to celebrate the common reader and the common English lifestyle, in contrast to modernist elitist’s attitudes, was revealed to be not quite sincere. Some poems in his The Whitsun Weddings collection particularly depict Larkin’s ambivalence toward issues of social class, habitus, and distinction. Deploying Pierre Bourdieu’s theorization of society and culture, this article explores issues of social class, the embedding of characters in their social class and habitus, and forms of capital figuring in four poems in Larkin’s collection. Four poems («Mr. Bleaney», «Dockery and Son», «For Sidney Bechet» and «The Whitsun Weddings») are examined to see how Larkin attaches common characters to their social space through describing the kinds of capital they possess or lack, and how, ironically, the speakers attempt to keep their distance –to mark out distinction– while professing sympathy and understanding. Thus, some light is shed on Larkin’s ambivalence about common people and lower classes as well as toward the very idea of distinction.
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