Epistolary Psychotherapy: The Letters of Edward Thomas and Philip Larkin

This chapter takes a psychological approach to the letters of Edward Thomas and Philip Larkin; and to the relation between their letters and their poems. The main focus is on Thomas’s correspondence with the poet and playwright Gordon Bottomley (an invalid, who lived in the Lake District); and on Larkin’s letters to his lover Monica Jones. The chief ground for comparison is that both Thomas and Larkin are lyric poets, whose letters can be read as rehearsals for poetic psychodrama. The word ‘psychotherapy’ suggests that they write letters which seek relief from inner distress, and which may themselves relieve it.