Larkin's Blues: Jazz, Popular Music, and Poetry

by B.J. Leggett

A jazz and blues enthusiast, poet Philip Larkin drew upon both kinds of music as his model for a poetry that would oppose the modernism of Eliot and Pound. This work seeks to demonstrate the extent to which Larkin's jazz life, as he referred to it, informed his poetry and but also effectively articulates the wider confluence of music and poetry. The study incorporates jazz and blues criticism and discussion of such artists as Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, and the Beatles to illustrate the significance of musical intertext in Larkin's poetry.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807123420
• ISBN13: 9780807123423
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
• Length: 227 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.7"