The ironic detachment in Philip larkin’s poetry

Abstract EN

In spite of the numerous studies written on Philip Larkin‘s poetry, it still invites comments and further exploration, because of its richness and appeal to the professional as well as common reader.

Philip Larkin established himself as a distinguished poet worthy of reading and study in a time that poetry lost its connection with immediate reality after the 1940s.

He managed to restore to poetry its popularity among the ordinary readers; he became their poet, who lives next door, the voice that expressed their daily-life ventures and disappointments.

In his rejection to the modernist poetry of Eliot, he produced poetry easily flowing with images from daily life routines, free of the mythological burdens and historical juxtaposition.

However, what sounds simple and direct is in fact rich with multi-layers of meaning as the poet conveys his themes with a tone of irony which meant hide the pathos of sympathy and failure.

Thus his seeming detachment appears in fact to be only a curtain which covers the lyrical persona‘s involvement with the experience.

The poems selected for the study are mostly published after 1945, when Larkin abandoned his romantic attitudes toward more empirical ones.