THEMES IN PHILIP LARKIN'S POETRY

Theme is derived from the Greek words "Proposition, Deposit".  According

to A Dictionary of Literary Terms by MARTIN GRAY:
"Theme is the abstract subject of a work, its central idea or ideas, which may or
may not be explicit or obvious. A text may contain several themes or thematic
interests."
For example : it can be argued that SHAKESPEARE's King Lear
(c.1605) touches upon all the following themes;  rashness, evil, the nature of
truth, appearance and reality, kinship, sexuality, ingratitude, selfishness, and
so on.
PHILIP LARKIN's poetry has a variety of themes: such as religion,
melancholy, pessimism, realism, isolation, love, nature, social chaos, alienation,
boredom, death, time and sex etc. Some critics have pointed out the narrowness
of his range of themes, while his admirers have expressed their praise for his
distinctive treatment of these themes but his limited work has unlimited
depth. There are many themes in his poetry which are as follow:
i. Religion is the most prominent and dominant theme of his poetry.
Larkin has composed his poetry in the context of his temperament and of his
personal views on life, religion, and religious dogmas. He shares his thoughts
about God, religion and the existing scenario of religious beliefs of different
classes of society in one of his poems, ‘Church Going’ in a realistic manner.
His poem ‘Church Going’ chronicles the account of that time, when people
had become suspicious of the existence of God and religion. Larkin’s sarcasm
is seen from the very first line of the poem:
“Once I am sure there's nothing going on.”
The description of the church would be familiar to anyone who has visited a
small parish church in Britain. The layout is typical of the architecture
prevalent in the Church of England, with a central aisle flanked by wooden
pews with cushioned kneelers and prayer books placed in small shelves on the
backs of the pews. An altar rail separates the sanctuary on the east end from
the rest of the church. Behind the altar rail one sees a pulpit on the left, a
lectern on the right, and in the center a large altar or communion table. Large
Bibles are normally kept open to the day's reading on both pulpit and lectern.
Although the narrator himself is not an active member of the Church, he
nonetheless mounts the lectern and reads the lesson, even closing with the
words "Here endeth the lesson," (which would not be in the Bible itself --
suggesting the narrator recalls them from memory) precisely as a lay reader
would during a service. He then returns to his persona as a non-religious
tourist, dropping a sixpence (roughly equivalent to a quarter in U.S. terms)
into the collection box and signing the visitor book. The narrator resolves this
contradiction with an understanding that the value of churches and religion
lies in what he calls their seriousness, or their long tradition of being a place
concerned with the great and meaningful issues of life and death, as opposed
to the ordinary and every day. The narrator finally understands his own
reason for seeking out churches and the purpose of the churches he seeks in
the final two stanzas:

“It pleases me to stand in silence here; / A serious house on serious earth it is, ...
/ And that much never can be obsolete, / Since someone will forever be
surprising / A hunger in himself to be more serious, / And gravitating with it to
this ground, / Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in ...”
ii. Melancholy which means "a deep feeling of sadness that lasts for a
long time and often cannot be explained". Melancholy embraces all his themes.
This is also the most prominent and dominant theme of his poetry. It is
because of his incurable pessimistic attitude. ERIC HOMBERGER, in 'The
Art of the Real ' describes him as:
"The saddest heart in the post war supermarket".
LARKIN's attitude in his poem "Ambulances" is pessimistic with an
atmosphere of pathos and melancholy hovering over it. The poem shows
the hollowness and emptiness of modern man who has no time to show love
and sympathy for a sick man, he says:
"And sense the solving emptiness / That lays just under all we do."
That modern man is devoid of sympathy, he only pays lip service for the sick
man, but no practical solution.
iii. The element of Chaos which means "a state of complete confusion
and lack of order" and Destruction is distinct in LARKIN's poetry, as his
poem MCMXIV(1914) .It illuminates the poet's impression of the post war
world. LARKIN fails to come out of the horrors of war. His poetry revolves
around the disastrous and chaotic effects of war. He minutely observes the
chaotic social, political, economic and theological system. He discusses the
chaotic situation in which people were forced to migrate to villages in search
of shelter. LARKIN sympathizes with the lost generation  and criticizes at the
craze for war.
iv. His poem, "Church Going" shows Nihilism which means ''a
philosophical doctrine that suggests the lack of belief in one or more reputedly
meaningful aspects of life'' and Pessimism which means ''a state of mind in
which one anticipates undesirable outcomes or believes that the evil or hardships
in life outweigh the good or luxuries.'' ANDREW MOTION says that:
"Larkin has often been regarded as a hopeless, inflexible pessimist"
 Church Going deals with contemporary agnosticism. The narrator in this
poem is very skeptical about churches. LARKIN's dilemma is not whether to
believe in God or not, but what a man can replace with God. Though
the 'Church' is the symbol of faith, peace and purity yet in the modern age
people have lost faith in Church. He says:
"Who will be the last, the very / Last to seek this place for what It was."
And further he says that:
"Shall we avoid them as unlucky places? "
As for as the nihilism is concerned, LARKIN talks about the negation of life
and shows his disgust with the modern civilization.
 v. Realism is also a dominant theme in LARKIN's poetry. In Church
Going, it shows the disintegration of religion and church as an institution, that
people are losing faith in existing Church and Christianity. And Church has
failed to prove its importance and value in the society. In "Mr. Bleaney",
Larkin has described the life of an ordinary man. Mr. Bleaney is actually a
post war tattered person who doesn't realize the importance of time. He
observes that the room is dirty and there is no room for books. It also contains
autobiographical elements. MCMXIV is based on reality, it shows the
condition of people just before the war, it also highlights  the miserable
condition of the people whereas , the people are simple and innocent the title
of the poem also stresses that the era of peace before war can never be
retreated. He says:
" Those long uneven lines standing as patiently / As if they were stretched
outside the Oval and Villa Park. "
"Ambulances" is also a very realistic poem, it shows the picture of post war
world, where people are sick and dying day and night.
vi. Loneliness and Alienation which means "a sense of not belonging,
either to a community or to one's own sense of self" are the recurrent themes
of LARKIN. His poem "Mr. Bleaney" is about the wretched plight of modern
man and its pleasures. MR. BLEANEY lives in abject poverty because of
economic pressures. The poet satirizes at the modern civilization which is
going to dogs. It is full of chaos and there is no hope for betterment in the life
of a common man.
vii. Love is another significant theme of his poetry. He regards love as a
supreme illusion. Love comes in the guise of melancholy. His poetry shows
that modern man has no love and sympathy for others. So, he doesn't depict
love as very ardent or satisfying passion. He believes that every one is sure to
be disappointed in love. His poem "No Road “depicts the impossibility of the
fulfillment of love. He always tries to explore the gap between what one
expects in love and what he receives in it as MR. BLEANEY and the man in
Ambulance both are deprived of love in their lives.
viii. LARKIN's pessimism leads him to contemplate about Death. It is
the dominant theme in his poetry. His imagination is always gripped with the
idea of death which made him a contemplative soul. Almost every critic noted
his obsession with death. He emphasizes on the omnipresence of death. His
poem "Ambulances" represents death. He says that the busy routine of an
urban neighborhood is disturbed by the sudden emergence of an
ambulance. ANDREW MOTION remarks:
  “The poem "Ambulances" modestly and devoutly collects evidence of ordinary
life to create a truth which can be universally acknowledged.”
 The sight of the graves makes a man wiser therefore every grave reminds the
thoughts of death. It is ‘Ambulances’, however, that provides us with the
bluntest depiction of human mortality, with its vivid descriptions of illness
and death.  The poem exposes:
“The solving emptiness / That lies just under all we do.”
Death itself figures as a subject in 'Aubade' He works all day long and drinks
at night while 'unresting death' draws nearer to him every day and his mind is
blank without any thought about how and when he will die. Work may also
help to combat the thought of death, but it cannot stave it off. So, the poet says
in 'Toad Revised':
"Give me your arm, old toad: / Help me down Cametry Road."
ix. The theme of Boredom and Sadness also rules over LARKIn’s
poetry. Insignificance of man is described in his poem Going .LARKIN writes
in 'Dockery and Son' that 'life is first boredom'. His rejection of life was due to
the fact that it never exercised any fascination for him. He says:
"Whether or not we use it life, it goes. "
Again, in "Dockery and Son" ,he says:
"Childhood for him was a forgotten boredom."
 x. Nature is represented in LARKIN's poetry as impersonal and
neutral. He doesn't take nature as holy mother; rather it comes in the clock of
chaos and destruction. He says:
"Nature is impersonal and neutral."
So, he doesn't highlight the beauty of nature but he only gives the description
of canals, civic life, village and industry. However, he imparts a moralizing
power to nature as he says that the trees don't allow people to believe in their
immortality. The trees renew themselves every year and invite men to follow
their example of refreshing the life.
 xi. LARKIN's poetry reveals his awareness of the passing of Time,that's
why he considers that the man is a salve of time. He vividly discusses the
adverse effects of time on man. Like HARDY, he is obsessed with the
destructive nature of time. The three phases of time, present, past and future
are mutually exclusive but not oblivious. He says himself in "Reference
Back":
"Though our element is time,/ We are not suited to the long perspectives / Open
at each instant of our lives. / They link us to our losses."
Deep and profound is the influence of the social and political atmosphere of
his time on Larkin’s poetry. Larkin’s realistic approach towards
hisTime makes him write what he has written. We can see the true portrait of
the post-war England in Larkin’s collection of poetry, or it can be said that his
poetry is greatly reinforced by the cataclysmic scenario of post-war England.
Time links us to our past. The dreams and hopes which we fondly cherished
are blasted as we grow old and we are overcome with a sense of loss. "There is
a double cruelty in time'. P.R. KING comments:
"It both reminds us what we might have had, and turns what we do have into a
sense of disappointment."
xii. Sex is one of Larkin’s main themes. He talks about people doing it,
his lack of it, and his desperate desire for some of it. Larkin obviously isn’t
getting any sexual fulfillment from anyone and he is unafraid to show
that. BRUCE MEYER, a poetry critic, said of Larkin’s book High
WINDOWS,
“Larkin’s poetry shows his pathetic and unattainable desires for love, passion,
and human contact.”
Another thing that LARKIN's poetry does is make people relate to his
problems and feelings and also desire the things he wants. LARKIN invokes
his own jealousy of people who are having sex upon his readers.
LARKIN targets people who aren’t getting sexual fulfillment and makes them
feel the same way he does: unhappy with their current predicament (not
having sex) and possessing a desire to change this situation. AgainBRUCE
MEYER, “High Windows is about the sexual
“When I see a couple of kids / And guess he’s fucking her… Everyone old has
dreamed of all their lives- Bonds and gestures pushed to one side.”
In the end, one can say that LARKIN, being a modern poet, has taken
up the themes of religion, melancholy, pessimism, realism, isolation, love,
nature, social chaos, alienation, boredom, death, time and sex in his poetry.
This approach is quite clear from his treatment of the questions of belief
knowledge and perceptions. All these things were necessary because of the
conditions of Post War England and also his treatment of these themes is very
unique, realistic and convincing.