Analysis of Poems by Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin’s poems are full of resentment and anger for youth, innocence, and naivety. Larkin, through his poems, sets out to destroy each of these ideals one by one. Using imagery and carefully planned structure, Larkin is able to create an atmosphere in which he can effectively criticize and deconstruct the subject of innocence in relation to his current life experiences. While he was considered one of the finest poets in English history, he was also revered as a recluse who was set to live a life of isolation and misery. The Philip Larkin discovered after his death in 1985 was one of misogyny and racism, tainting many people’s views of his work.

In the poem “Talking in Bed” Larkin speaks about darkness that creeps up, which I interpret to mean that the darkness, USA and other prominent world forces, are beginning to creep up on England because it is becoming a less dominant and more isolated place. The Poem ends with

“It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind.” (Larkin Lines 10-12).

This quote displays how Larkin views relationships as well as how he views intimacy. Larkin is saying here that at this point in the relationship things have become mundane, making things that were once said out of emotion and truth become things that are now said out of necessity to lie in order to please the other in the relationship. It appears as if this critique could be leading towards the idea of needing to grow in intimacy, which it should not stop but continue to be alive and growing within a relationship. Once this intimacy stops, the relationship dies.

The real genius of the poem comes through Larkin’s ability to criticize multiple facets of society and poetry through he text. Not only is he stating that England is losing power within the world, and that intimacy is dying, but he is also making a clear statement about the conventions of poetry by using a clearly classical structure yet appropriating it to fit his message. He is taking the 3 line stanza form and using it to display the journey of the form of the poem by using faux flowery imagery in lines 4-6 when he states,

“Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside, the wind’s incomplete unrest
Builds and disperses clouds about the sky,”

This quote gives the reader language that would be common amongst poems from classical periods, poems that relied heavily on the flowery language to make their poem “art.” Larkin is playing on this convention by leading the reader to believe this convention and then exposing them as a fool in the next stanza where he states,

“And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation” (Larkin 7-9).

The imagery shifts in to darkness and isolation, which is in stark contrast to what the reader was expecting from the poem. Larkin succeeds in making the reader become a fool to the convention of classical poetry.

Larkin, while appropriating the form of classical poetry, succeeded in conveying his intended message of experience over innocence and hostility over passivity and naivety. He conveyed the importance of the furthering isolation that was occurring for England, and what effect this was going to have on the country as a whole. The journals that were published after Larkin’s death present a different picture of his as a person, but I would say that they generally give the same picture as the poetry does, only in a more extreme use of words.