Larkin as a Movement poet

Philip Arthur Larkin (09 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was one of the greatest English
postwar poets, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry_ The North ship, was published in
1945, followed by two novels, Jill and “A Girl in Winter”, but he came to prominence with the
publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived (1955), followed by The
Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). His many honors include the Queen’s
Gold Medal for poetry. Ambulances, 1914, An Arundel Tomb, Aubade, and At Grass are some
of his major poems. Poet Andrew Motion says of Larkin’s poems:

“Their range or contempt is always checked by the energy of their languages and of their
articulate formal control.”

Movement poetry:
The movement poetry stands for a group of poets who rebelled against the inflated romanticism of
1930s and 1940s, and were writing their poems in the fifties and sixties of the 20th century in a
new mode poetry and this new mode is called the Poetic movement. The Movement poets wanted
a poetry that was clearer, simpler, more obviously structured, and more modest in its style and
subject matter. Philip Larkin was early identified as a figure associated with “the movement” and
rightly so. Other poets of the movement are; Elizabeth Jennings, D.J. Enright, Kingsley Amis,
Thomas Gunn, and Donald Davie. Larkin comments about the poetry of the movement group

“The members of this group did not have many artistic aims in common but that they agreed,
in general, in things which they found funny or humorous.”

Larkin as a movement poet:

Larkin was also a prominent poet of the movement group. His poetry consistently displays almost
all of the traits_ clearer, simple, obvious structure etc. Moreover, it deals with a common, mundane
experience, written in very plain common language, has a clear stanzaic structure (three lines in
each stanza, with a predictable rhyme scheme), dealing with the ironies of relations between people
and between people and nature, and ends with a stanza that is both understated and ironic. Let’s
see to how much the features of movement group are there in his poems.
The poem “Church Going” is realistic in almost every detail. This poem depicts the
decline of religious faith and a decrease in the number of people attending church services. He
speculates upon the future of these churches some of which might become museums with their
display. He says:
“A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases,

The poem “Mr Bleaney” is again wholly argumentative and wholly realistic in its imagery
and even in its theme. The use of irony to links it with the poetry of the Movement. There is nothing
in this poem to suggest the symbolist influence. And the most conspicuous feature of this poem is
the use of irony. He says:
“How we live measures our own nature

Faith Healing is, again, a Movement poem. Here we have a realistic description of the
scene and the event which constitute the main substance of the poem. Furthermore, the poem is
written in a colloquial style:

“Now, dear child,

What’s wrong”

Though in some lines the diction does become unusual:

“Their thick tongues blort, their eyes squeeze grief, a crowd
Of huge unheard answers jam and rejoice”

Another Movement poem is Dockery and Son. Here we have an argumentative poem,
with logical reasoning about a man’s having a wife and a son, and a man’s not having a wife and
a son. The realism of the lines such as the following is also noteworthy:
“And ate an awful pie, and walked along
The platform to its end to see the ranged

High Windows is another poem in which a couple of the characteristics of Movement

poetry combine with some Modernist ones. This poem has a colloquial beginning, but it ends with
symbolic lines. The colloquial manner is obvious in the opening lines:
“When I see a couple of kids
And guess he’s f-ing her and she’s / Taking pills.”

The poem called Water begins like a Movement poem because of the irony behind the poet’s
presumption that he might be invited to construct a new religion. But the closing lines are
obviously symbolic. The poet’s intention to raise the glass of water reminds us of the raising of
the chalice by the priest during the Holy Communion.
“Any-angled light congregating on the water”

Thus one can say that LARKIN belongs to the movement which was shaping itself in the 1950s
and it is commonly called as “The Movement”. The poets of this movement were quite new in
their approach to the purpose of poetry. They were united by a negative determination to avoid
that principle and follow stark realism. A more positive trade which bound them together was their
detestation of the modernism which EZRA POUND and T.S. ELIOT had ushered into English
poetry.