No prizes for guessing what the grumpiest of modern poets thought of Christmas. It was a regular target for Philip Larkin’s eloquent gloom.
He aired his gripes to various correspondents, complaining that he was expected to send cards, buy presents, go to parties, and endure a whole ‘Niagara of nonsense’. He sometimes complained, or rather stoically related, that he was spending quality time with his sour mother, who habitually became ill with festive stress.
In a letter of 1960, Larkin told a friend he had been depressed over Christmas: ‘Of course such ghastly festivals as the one we have just endured make life seem blacker & bleaker and generally more savourless.’
It sounds like comic exaggeration, but it isn’t. Christmas really does have the power to heighten just-about-manageable gloom. ‘And now Christmas is coming again’, he writes to another friend, ‘as if we hadn’t enough to put up with.’
In another letter he says that it feels like ‘the straw that is going to break my back – Yule log more like.’ In
Get Britain's best politics newsletters
Register to get The Spectator's insight and opinion straight to your inbox. You can then read two free articles each week.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in