Movement poetry is a term that is loosely used to refer to a group of poets who share a few common

objectives. The term was first coined by Jay D. Scott in 1954 to refer to writers like Philip Larkin, Kingsley
Amis, Thom Gunn, Elizabeth Jennings, Robert Conquest, John Wain, Donald Davie and D. J. Enright
whose primary goal was to take English poetry to new heights, eschewing the influences of Imagists and
the neo Romantic Symbolist poets. The Movement poets are primarily opposed to the manifold traits
exhibited by modernist poetry of the 1920s and 1930s. Through their works, they try to establish the
erstwhile tradition of the English Canon that had been displaced by the onslaught of modernism.

They are fervently ( passionately ) anti-romantic in their tone and style. Irony and understatement
become their leading vehicles of self-expression and they never seek to make grandiloquent claims
regarding the superiority of the poet’s role in the creative evolution of a literary work.

“The Whitsun Weddings” is one of Larkin’s longest poems and is distinguished by its leisurely narration
that reflects the poet’s train journey from Hull to London. It bears a striking resemblance to “Church
Going” in its initial dismissive tone and eventual change of heart. The poet’s detached and ironical
observation of the newly-wed couples (who got married on a Whitsun Saturday) later gives way to a
reluctant acceptance of the institution of marriage. The poet’s casual and unhurried observation of the
countryside slides into a disdainful report of the working class weddings and this scornful attitude is later
replaced by an enlightened pondering of the sights he has witnessed. The poet dons several personas
throughout the poem; from a nonchalant observer he transforms into a disinterested spectator and
finally to a sage commentator. The gradual transformation of the poet’s attitude becomes an extended
metaphor for one’s changing perceptions of life

The casual disregard of marriage and its aftermath is seen in the way the poet outlines the monotonous
life that the couples will soon lead. He feels that marriage is an unceremonious closure to a life of
adventure as the married couples do not seem to think of “the others they would never meet. ( here is
irony, for the speaker presents a whole different side of marriage on this journey).
The monotony is suggestively washed away by the fresh gust of rain and Larkin surprises the reader with
this abrupt reversal of tone and sense.

In “An Arundel Tomb” Larkin explores the themes of mortality and the inevitable passage of time. He
masterfully analyses the parameters of earthly love and its significance in human life. The poem is said to
be inspired from Larkin’s visit to the tomb of the Earl of Arundel. The sculptures of the Earl and his
Countess capture the poet’s fancy and the poem tries to speculate on the transience of Time. The
specific detailing of the medieval tomb in the initial stanzas later gives way to a philosophic analysis of
larger issues concerning life. However, Larkin underscores the fact that everything is in a state of
constant flux and it is futile to seek permanency in all aspects of life. Even the dictums set by a particular
society will be cast aside as a new age dawns. The socio-cultural norms that we hail as sacrosanct are
always subject to an endless array of changes. When the poet comments on how succeeding generations
have viewed the tomb and how their process of signification has radically altered through the ages, we
realise how meaning is moulded by the act of interpretation. With the passage of time, the meaning that
the creators of the tomb had originally intended gets lost in the annals of history.
;Larkin sarcastically comments on how “a sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace”is transformed into a
romantic ideal. The entwined hands might have been a gesture of love created by the sculptor’s fancy,
but as time passes, this becomes the most distinguishing feature of the sculptures.

By casually mocking the ideal of romantic love, Larkin re-emphasises his role as a sceptic observer of the
great drama of human life.

In the manner of Movement poems, the speaker of “The Explosion” is an observer and commentator on
an explosion at a mine.

Philip Larkin does not describe the actual explosion but rather its effects on the outer world.
With the tremor, cows stop chewing and the sun is “dimmed.” Readers do not see its effect on
the miners who are dying under the earth. That horror and suffering is hidden from view. The
speaker now uses the language of church, formal and stately and attempting to provide
consolation: “The dead go on before us, they/ Are sitting in God’s house in comfort,/ We shall
see them face to face.” The wives of the dead miners see their men in a new way, “Larger than in
life they managed.” After this transformation, the final line of the poem recalls the miners as they
were and as they are: “One showing the eggs unbroken.” Their lives and their deaths were a
harmonious, unbroken whole.

From the opening stanza onwards, the sun is a controlling image in the poem, and it exists as a pure,
life-giving force. The phrase "Gold as a coin" is a reminder of how insistently the poem seeks an
enduring value beyond the crude exchange of money. The amazement of "walking somehow from the
sun" is another example of that cautiously indefinite vocabulary that characterizes Larkin's agnostic
poetry, but the final line with its fragile,touching detail of the lark's eggs is an unqualified affirmation of
the instinct for shared protection and mutual survival in working- class communities.

“The Movement” declared itself and the British public revealed itself as ready for Wordsworth’s “real
language of men.” Novelists and poets began to take a hard look at changing social patterns: at middle
class mentality, suburban mediocrity. The poets almost desperately declared themselves as humanists,
dedicated to the revelation of “the real person or event.” Honesty or the awareness of honesty was their
religion. Philip Larkin was one of the best to reflect the new attitudes. Larkin seeking a way to deal with
things as they are, not as they seem; without distortion.