PHILIP LARKIN

(1922 – 1985)

Ms. FATIMA SALEEM

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
 PHILIP LARKIN's poetry has a variety of
themes:
1. religion,  1. social chaos
2. Melancholy 2. Alienation
3. Pessimism 3. Boredom
4. Realism 4. Death
5. Isolation 5. time
6. Love 6. and sex etc.
7. Nature
 INTRODUCTION
• Philip Larkin, post war modern poet.
• He is essentially anti romantic and anti-heroic.
• He gives a realistic projection of human society and the pessimistic state of modern man's
affairs.
• According to Eric Homberger Larkin may perhaps be called "the saddest heart in the post-war"
era.
• Larkin's poetry carries "plainness and scepticism".
• Though Larkin is associated with The Movement which rejected experimental poetry and
contented with anti-romantic and structured verses
 WRITING STYLE
• This writing style was meant for the supremacy of English verse and
Engalnd, yet his poetical work is beautifully blended with the influences of
the 20th century symbolists i.e. Yeats, T.S. Eliot and Hardy, the pessimist.
• His poetry is simple combining "ordinary, colloquial" verses with
accurateness, "clarity" and "reflective tone" about emotions, places and
relationships.
• Irony is the undercurrent of his direct engagement with the general matters
displaying "diminished expectations".
 Salient features
• Salient features of Philip Larkin's poetry are listed below:
• Symbolism
• Pessimism
• Scepticism
• Irony
• Simplicity
• and colloquial
 AS A MODERN POET
• Philip Larkin is a modern poet writing in the language of common people
about the life and matters around him.
• He based his poetry on the actual experiences of man i.e. realism.
• His poetry is the "poetry of disappointment".
• He views the "destruction of romantic illusions" in this era of anti-
romantic and anti-heroic age.
• Today, man is so incompetent that he stands defeated at the hands of time.
 POETRY FEATURES
• Plainness and skepticism
• Hard-won lyricism,
• Transcendence
• Cynicism was softened only by his skepticism , which only rarely admitted any expression of
new possibility
• Satiric stanzas
• Disabused temperament
• For all his meanness, there is also irreverent wit and a melancholy mitigated by his resolve to
look at life as it is.
• Larkin is a great poet of middle age, whose instinct for social satire
amplifies his sense of poignancy
• Tenderly observant
• Sudden openings, coupled with the subtle music of his highly-structured but
flexible verse forms, that lifts Larkin's poetry beyond the misanthropy of
which he sometimes stands accused
• Critics feel that this localisation of focus and the colloquial language used to
describe settings and emotions endear Larkin to his readers 
 AGE
• Society was passing through an unprecedented crisis.
• Anxiety is the central experience of modern consciousness.
• Anxiety is the result not only of social crisis but also the crisis in the theoretical approach to
life, confusion in intellectual matters and the absence of a sustaining faith.
• Philip Larkin is a person who embarrassed with the traditional concept, and against to
modernity.
• He portrayed the negative impact of modernity through his poem and all of his poems deal
with the life of human between birth and death.
• Larkin’s poetry encapsulates the emotional challenges modernity poses to individual.
 Religion 
• 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:
 Melancholy
• 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.
 Chaos
• Chaos which means "a state of complete confusion and lack
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.
 Nihilism
• . 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.''
 Realism
• 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 realise the importance of
time.
 Post War England
• 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.
•