Annus Mirabilis by Philip Larkin
Irony, Sex and Poetic Form in Larkin's Paen To The Sixties
Sep 30, 2007
The title of Philip Larkin’s Annus Mirabilis means “year of wonders” in Latin. It’s a phrase that has been used to describe several years, including 1989, 1905, but it seems likely that Larkin has in mind a poem by John Dryden, also entitled Annus Mirabilis, about 1666. Larkin comments in a letter from his student days at Oxford that he particularly loathed Dryden, and objected to having to pretend he thought him manly and poetic in order to get good marks in his exams.
Annus Mirabilis
The year Larkin identifies as annus mirabilis is 1963, when, he declares with casual authority, “Sexual intercourse began.” Of course he doesn’t literally mean this, but it’s a splendid hook to get the reader interested. He goes on that this astonishing event occurred between the lifting of the “Chatterley ban” and the “Beatles’ first LP.”
These are references to events which defined the new spirit of the “swinging Sixties”. D.H Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley had been the subject of a high profile court case, after it was banned as being obscene, and The Beatles became an emblem of what some saw as “swinging London”, and others criticised as a “permissive society”. Either way, Larkin is obviously referring to a dramatic shift in attitudes to sexuality, which he exaggerates into the beginning of sex itself.
He contrasts the previous years in which sex was a source of “shame” which caused “haggling” between the sexes and could only be obtained by a reluctant marriage with an era in which life is compared to a gamble which everyone wins: “a brilliant breaking of the bank/ A quite unlosable game”.
This is not, of course, to be taken literally. The deliberate simplification of the world which identifies available sex with “life”, and insists that “everyone felt the same” is emphasized by the simple rhyme-scheme and the repetition of the first stanza. The words fall into the rhymes too neatly: “sank...bank”, “same...became...game”, particularly for a poet who is capable of much more subtle patterns.
Double Vision
It’s worth noting too that the point when “Life was never better than” is 1963, not the years which came afterwards – Larkin identifies the era of bliss as the moment when sexual mores changed, not the untroubled hedonism which apparently followed. There’s a hint here of the self-aware attitude of High Windows, in which Larkin eloquently expresses his feeling about sex, whilst simultaneously analysing them and considering how different it might seem for other generations. The apparently simple sentiments and structure of High Windows are no doubt intended to give the reader a similar sort of double vision, whilst still appreciating the rather wry emotion behind the lines.
