Philip Larkin as a Poet of Ordinariness

The twentieth century English postmodernist poet Philip Arthur Larkin (1922-1985) is regarded as one of the pioneers of the literary movement of the nineteen-fifties against modernism: The Movement. He is generally known as ‘England’s other Poet Laureate’ for his popularity in postwar England. Larkin’s poems prove his mettle in being “ordinary, colloquial, clear, a quite, reflective, ironic and direct with commonplace experiences" (Moran 151). The predominant themes of his poems include death, disappointment, isolation, pessimism, religion and sex. He uses the technique of dramatic monologue like Robert Browning and Carol Ann Duffy to clearly bring out his own emotions and thoughts to speak out his selfhood. Larkin also seems to be fairly employing conventional poetic forms such as rhyme, stanza and meter. Having breaking away from the rules and conventions of modernist poetry thus Larkin embraces the precepts of newly found Movement poetry.  

Larkin belonging to the generation of The Movement English writers such as John Wain, Donald Davie, Kingsley Amis and Thorn Gunn used neither the biting irony of the Modernist poet T.S. Eliot nor the larger philosophical theme of Imagist poet Ezra Pound. The key objective of the anti modernists of The Movement was to rebel against the obscurity and mystification of modernist writers. Andrew Gibson in Larkin and Ordinariness observes: “...Larkin saw the major ‘modernists’ – Joyce, Eliot, Pound – as having produced a wilfully obscure and esoteric art. Their work was inaccessible to anyone with normal vision” (Cookson 9). The poetic styles of modernist poets did not much influence Larkin. T.S. Eliot’s historical and classical allusions, Dylan Thomas’s newly found sonnet form and W.H. Auden’s dramatic language have not made profound impact in Larkin’s writings. Modernism, according to Larkin, ‘helps us neither to enjoy nor endure’. He defines modernism as intellectualized art. “Against intellectualism he proposes not anti-intellectualism- which would be just another coldly willed programme- but trust in the validity of emotion” (Thwaite 103). He is also generally acknowledged to be of view that literature is anti-intellectual and should be made understood to the common man. 

The Collection of Philip Larkin’s Poems such as The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows exemplify the same. Robert Conquest puts forth the characteristics of The Movement Poetry: 

“In one sense, indeed, the standpoint is not new, but merely the restoration of a sound and fruitful attitude to poetry, of principle, that poetry is written by and the whole, man, intellect, emotion, senses and all … It is free from both mystical and logical compulsions, and like modern philosophy is empirical in its attitude to all that comes..” (Black 151)

Conquest further appreciates the literary scholarship of Larkin who strictly adheres to all the characteristics of The Movement Poetry. 

A wide array of themes is a major characteristic of modernist poems. It ranges from affluence of natural world to illusions of mystical world. Unlike modernists, The Movement poet Larkin drawing inspiration from Thomas Hardy attempted to bring out the living essence of twentieth century England. He coupled the romantic ideals of subjectivity and aestheticism with modernist or neo-romantic notions of morbidity. Larkin’s poems are therefore known for their treatment of love, religion, death, choice, pessimism and unhappiness in human lives. He was very much able to portray the contemporary circumstances and lives of common people in England. In Church Going, Larkin –an atheist- demonstrates the faithful Christian society of England. He satirizes the common ordinary man who visits the church for only the sake of going. 

“Letting the door thud shut Another church; 

Matting, seats, and stone.

Hatless, I take off

My cycle-clips in awkward reverence”. (“Church Going by Philip Larkin”)

The postwar poet gives a clear picture of an ordinary church-going man and the unrevealed agnosticism of him. His attire does not prove him to be a seemingly simple man. Macha Louis Rosenthal comments on Larkin’s portrayal of the common man in Church Going. He states: 

“...shabby and not concerned with his appearance; poor-he has a bike not a car: gauche but full of agnostic piety: underfed, underpaid, over taxed hopeless, bored wry. He is just like the man next door, in fact, he is probably the man next door” (Rosenthal 201). 

Also, Larkin was very specific and adamant in using simple and easy-to-understand themes in his poems. He took special attention in not incorporating complex and artificial subjects of concern like modernists. Larkin resembles the protagonist of Church Going. Both are “just like the man next door” (Rosenthal 201). 

Modernists also believed that poetry is largely metaphorical. The poems of modernists are often over-crowded with metaphors. On the contrary, Larkin developed a parallel relationship between metaphors and metonymy while writing his poems. Robert Sheppard focusses on Morrison’s opinion of metonymy over metaphor: “As Morrison writes, ‘The movement poetry of Larkin and Davie can also be thought of as Realist in tendency because of its marked preference for metonymy over metaphors’, which is a trait of nearly all anti-modernist writing” (Sheppard 26).  Larkin firmly believes that metonymy is very much compatible with common man. Rather than a figure of speech in poetry it is well-used by people in everyday speech. Like William Shakespeare bringing out cultural experiences through synecdochic details, Larkin also gives prime importance to metonymy over metaphor to evoke scenes and characters. 

In the poem At Grass the metonymical description of horse renders the glorious past of race horses and the gone magnificent days of English imperialism:

  “Silks at the start : against the sky 

   Numbers and parasols : outside,

  Squadrons of empty cars, and heat, 

And littered grass : then the long cry”. (“At Grass by Philip Larkin”)

Raymond. W. Gibbs in Speaking and Thinking with Metonymy states: “Our understanding and appreciation of this poem depends on our ability to think metonymically, to recognize, for example, that “silks at the start” refers to jockeys atop their mounts at the starting gate” (Panther 64). Some critics argue that the “silk at the start” could also be interpreted as the beauty and splendour of England before World War II. Larkin thus openly gives the readers a chance to interpret it as they logically think. A reader therefore need not be a man of intellect to interpret all these realistic portrayals. Instead ought to be a man of common experiences. AL-Ubaydi views Larkin’s poetry as “... the poetry of every man, not of the intellectual elite” (“Philip Larkin and the Movement”). 

Modernists emphasize fragmented forms and styles in writing. T.S. Eliot is known for his challenging craftsmanship with myths and allusions and Dylan Thomas for assonance and consonance. On the other hand, Philip Larkin’s poetic style is simple, plain and both short and long in length. He employed rhythms and repeated patterns only to give emphasis to the content and thematic concern: monotony of life. Larkin heavily relied on his observation skills and studied characters around to write his poems. 

Most of his poems are found to be devoid of major literary techniques such as anachronism, caesura, fallacy and metaphors. The poem Aubade is about the break of dawn. He makes use of iambic pentameter to highlight the dichotomy between life and death in the poem. 

“I work all day, and get half-drunk at night

Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare

Making all thought impossible but how

And where and when I shall myself die” (“Aubade by Philip Larkin”).

The stressed syllables coming next to each other and ending the line with death -“die” – render an impression of fear and impending doom. Such rhythmic patterns create an effect in listeners while reading the poems aloud. Larkin is of view that rhythm is part and parcel of both rural and urban working people. An ordinary listener gives much importance to rhythmic and harmonic content rather than theme and subject of the poem. Hence Larkin employs rhythm through rhymes to keep the ordinary readers connected to poetry. E.L. Black observes the craftsmanship of Philip Larkin: “...as to portray the realistic details of his contemporary scene in a language which has a recognizable rhythm and consistent polishes. His poetry fits naturally into rhymed and obviously metrical verse which inherits the traditional orients of poetry” (Black 152). 

Meanwhile Larkin’s poems Water and Coming are seemingly written in free verse but with “five syllable line and three rhymed pairs, two of them widely separated, in a poem of nineteen lines: “reconciling/nothing”; “evenings/sings”; “serene/scene” (Kuby 30). This also gives emphasis to Larkin’s close affinity towards rhymed iambic pentameter. Ian Hamilton comments on Larkin’s poetic style: "Supremely among recent poets, [Larkin] was able to accommodate a talking voice to the requirements of strict metres and tight rhymes, and he had a faultless ear for the possibilities of the iambic line” (Philip Larkin).

Almost all of Larkin’s poems deal with ordinary events and people of day-to-day life. That makes his poems universally appealing. In the poem Here, the “residents from raw estates” of Hull are seen busy living with: 

"cheap suits, red kitchen-ware, sharp shoes, iced lollies, 

Electric mixers, toasters, washers, driers" (Larkin 74) etc.

Another poem To the Sea showcases a family evening in a beach. The nostalgia in the poem brings an effect of déjà. The image of miners in Explosion, regular church-goers in Church Going, typical English race in At Grass, the consumerist behaviour in The Large Cool Store are all finest examples of ordinary men and common day experiences in Larkin’s poems.  

The language employed in Larkin’s poems is always colloquial and full of common clichés. Like Wordsworth, Larkin also makes use of ordinary and everyday language in his poems. J.R. Watson views on Larkin’s employment of informal and regular language: “Philip Larkin draws attention to his clichés using typography. His poems often use what Mikhail Bakhtin called ‘the dialogic voice’: they signal an exchange of persons or ideas through the encounter of different voices, and this encounter is signalled by the use of contrasting italics and roman letters; in many cases the italicised voice is the voice of a person who thinks in stereotypes”(Watson 149). The poems Vers de Société and This Be The Verse are known for their dialogical voices and rapid derogatory words:

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad

  They may not mean to, but they do” ("This Be The Verse by Philip Larkin”)

Larkin comments on his use of foul language in his poems: "I think [my use of four-letter words] can take different forms. It can be meant to be shocking (we live in an odd era, when shocking language can be used, yet still shocks-it won't last); it can be the only accurate word (the others being gentilisms, etc.); or it can be funny, in that silly traditional way such things are funny” (Motion 444). He claims that such swear words are only vehement means of aggression. Such diction was too common among working class people in the late sixties and seventies, he states.  

The social and political circumstances of the then England is also seen in his employment of diction. The poems Dockery and Son and Reference Back use colloquial speech which can be easily understood by common man. 

“High-collared public-schoolboy, sharing rooms

With Cartwright who was killed? Well, it just shows

How much . . . How little . . . Yawning, I suppose” ("A Comparative Analysis of  Larkin's 'Dockery and Son”)

The abundant usage of common nouns and everyday objects make the poem too informal. 

In a nutshell, Larkin displays the definitive characteristics of The Movement Poetry. Almost all of his poems render ordinariness through themes, language, style, diction, metonymy and common events. The colloquialism in his poems is a clear-cut decision of him to move away from his predecessors. The individual’s consciousness coupled with Cultural Revolution of 1960s (period of liberation) make Larkin’s poems an ordinary and adored read.  

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