6 - Translating the ‘Foreign’

Summary

‘I wonder if you read much foreign poetry?’ ‘Foreign poetry? No!’ Philip Larkin's reply to Ian Hamilton's question has not only been taken as expressing an attitude to reading poetry written in other languages, but as a riposte which (in just three words) catches Larkin's adopted posture of the little Englander. While it has not been difficult to show that his reply will mislead, if taken as conveying information about some of his reading experiences and their impact on his poetry, it has been less easy to relieve Larkin of the prejudicial in the formulation of that reply. The publication of his letters has even tended to reinforce the assumption that it is prejudicial in a way continuous with some of the poet's beliefs outside the area of poetry in other languages. He is not, after all, merely saying that he doesn't read poetry that happens not to have been written originally in English, and nor is he saying that he doesn't read translations of such poetry because it can be (in Frost's sense) a disappointing experience. Rather, as suggested in the first chapter, he appears to be leaping on Hamilton's conventional use of the word ‘foreign’ to indicate ‘not in English’ and relishing the chance to say he doesn't read poetry written by poets who don't happen to be English-born.