Apparently she failed to help him reach the proper targets...
I did not previously realise that poets were meant to fulfill targets, and clearly P Larkin fell down on the goal set for him, and it was Monica Jones' fault?
Sex, lies and despair: unseen letters reveal Larkin's tortured love: The fact that he wrote so little poetry has been blamed on the stultifying effect of Jones, Sutherland said: “His poetry depends on four slim volumes … Around 100 poems.”
This was a man who had a full-time job as a University Librarian which one understands he performed with due diligence, was running affairs with two other women besides Ms Jones, maintained copious correspondence with his horrible bro mates, kept a diary, wrote a couple of a novels and also quite a lot of unpublished pornography. I think if he'd been moved to write more poems, he might have squeezed in the time.
Not that I think one should judge on this rather peculiar measure. More does not mean better, anymore than massive epic trumps sonnet.
(Do the Muses conduct regular performance reviews and set deliverables?)
While there is always this implication that their relationship drove her to drink, one does rather wonder whether being a woman in academe at that period had significant stresses quite distinct from those of her love-life. In fact, a biography of a woman in that field at that time would be interesting in its own right.
One is, of course, creeped out generally by the suggestion that a woman with whom a bloke in some creative line has some emotional connection is there to be muse or handmaiden: I was reminded of the recent thing about the opening of the TS Eliot/Emily Hale correspondence, and Eliot saying 'o, Vivienne made me suffer, but ART' (and once that's achieved, dump her in a mental institution?). Cf also R Graves and his 'White Goddess'.
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