As a poet, Philip Larkin won high reputation in the
post-war British literary milieu by virtue of his distinctive poetic
perspectives. His volumes of poems: The North Ship (1945), The Less Deceived (1955), The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974) appeared on the
literary scene as milestones in his poetic career. Like T.S. Eliot in the 1920s, W.H. Auden in
the 1930s and Dylan Thomas in the 1940s, Larkin established as a major poet in
the post-war British times.
Larkin was in the galaxy of the Movement writers,
Kingsley Amis, Robert Conquest, Donald Davie, D.J.Enright, Thom Gunn, Elizabeth
Jennings, John Wain, etc., to herald a new era and mark a new trend in their
writings. Like the other Movement poets,
Larkin insists on voicing his concern for man: “man speaking to man” in his
poetry, showing its clear-cut departure from Eliot for his traditionalism and
obscurity, Auden for his leftist ideology and Dylan Thomas for his romantic
surrealism.
Larkin has distinctive poetic characteristics in the
presentation of themes underlying life in the governance of time. As a poet, he observes life in general and
the individual’s life in particular only to record his experiences rather than
to enact them by means of his poetry. He
invites the reader to participate in the poetic scene of everyday things. He is unique in the presentation of thematic
concerns by virtue of his technical brilliance and artistic excellence and akin
to the Movement poets in sharing the themes underlying life. He achieved success due to various factors:
First, Larkin’s poetic credo is concerned with
distinctive characteristics: simplicity, accessibility, clarity and obscenity
in the arousal of liking, interest and curiosity in the mind of the reader.
Secondly, Larkin has technical brilliance and artistic
excellence in employing traditional forms, double negatives for positive
expressions, images, symbolic mode and dramatic monologues in eminence.
Thirdly, Larkin’s poetic sensibility was modified
under the influence of the poets of the earlier generation: W.B. Yeats,
preeminently Thomas Hardy, D.H. Lawrence, Wordsworth, Keats, etc., in
transforming him into a mature poet.
Fourthly, Larkin’s poetics reflects his affinities
with the Movements writers in presenting his poetry universal spokesmanship.
Lastly, Larkin’s poetry is famous for his rich variety
and wide range of thematic concerns especially for time as the nucleus theme of
themes underlying life.
Larkin believes that time is not an abstract idea but
is has “eroding agents” to turn life mortal as well as futile. Time flows endlessly, bringing about changes
in life and man who exists in its domain concurs with its destructive
forces. Man inevitably becomes a victim
to time in its flux as time’s powers are multifaceted and
multidimensional. Larkin from his
agnostic background concurs with time and its “eroding agents.”
For Larkin, time flows constantly turning the future
in to the present and then into the past, bringing about changes in the life of
man against his choice. As time flows
endlessly, life advances from birth to youth, middle age and to “the only end
of age.” Consequently life becomes
transitory against man’s wish in time’s reign.
Time, at the same time, erodes the meaning of life. So, time on one hand functions as a double,
edged weapon to turn life not only mortal but also futile in reality and on the
other hand it acts as a three-fold illusion to turn life an illusion. All time – the past, the present and the
future-serves as a sources of discomfort and displeasure. The future is always unpromising and never a
harbinger of good fortunes. The past is
past, and never gives solace. For
Larkin, the past is more over uneventful.
So time in reality is an instrument with which we deceive
ourselves. As a port and man, he concurs
with time’s invincible powers as it conquers us, victimizing us by its
invincible powers. As an agnostic, he
sees time from the practical point of view and accepts its supremacy over
us. So for him time is like God to the
theist, reason to the rationalist and fate to the fatalist.
Life is rooted in time since it “exists in a
linear-time dimension”: Time is man’s element: “Days are where we live.” In the ocean of time, life becomes a
transitory voyage with ebbs and tides or a series of vicissitudes. For Larkin, life is futile, as it is
disappointing since “suffering is exact”.
In time’s flow life advances to witness a series of disappointments
against our choice as “happiness is too going”.
It is nothing but time with its destroying forces shatters our wishes to
turn life futile. In its flow, life also
turns mortal and mortality is attributed to time as it advances life with birth
and proceeds to culminate in death in its flow.
Thus Larkin’s poetry mainly focuses on life that encounters with a
series of clashes between the two opposing attitude: illusion and reality;
desire and actuality, hope and despair and so on.
Larkin believes that the future is the harbinger of
inevitable death. In the endless
movement of time, life proceeds from birth to death: “a black-sailed
unfamiliar” as life is an illusion in face of death. Death coming near and near puts an end to
life as autumn puts an end to the cycle of seasons. Man grows aware of the approach of death: the
harshest reality of life. Anything may
or may not be certain but death is certain to turn life transitory. Neither the priest nor the doctor finds
solution to the riddle of time. Man
grows more conscious of the horror of death in middle age and then in old age
than in youth. Larkin as a poet and man
was so much perturbed by the thought of death as it lays it icy hand on man sat
any time in life. Life surely witnesses
“sure extinction”, causing nothingness, vacuum and endless silence. With the awareness of the fact of the
inevitability of death, man lives with a kind of agoraphobia. Man finds his future bringing death and so
life is found dreary and futile in the present.
Birth initiates life but life advance to culminate in death, causing
vacuum, nothingness and “bird less silences”.
So life exists within the terrain of time. All the changes in our lives are decided by
time or in time as they emerge into time, becoming one with it.
Time in its endless motion brings about a change in
the life of a lover against his wish.
Larkin’s poetry throws light on love in the domain of time. Love for him is the supreme illusion because the
lover’s wants are shattered in time’s relentless destroying forces. Consequently the lover’s life lead to failure
as the Larkin lover has inability to love.
The lover is unsuccessful because he is a ‘would-be lover’. The lover’s promise is empty and so the
lovers are bound to suffer due to their failure in love. Nothing cures the lover’s suffering through
love. According Larkin, love advances to
inevitable failure in the domain of time.
Larkin observes changes in nature “Earth’s
immeasurable surprise” in the endless flow of time as he does so in man’s life
seasons becomes cyclic and the trees put on tender leaves on their twigs by
virtue of their “yearly trick of looking new”.
The trees renew their freshness with the advent of spring and shed their
green leaves in autumn. With the result,
the joy of the trees is transformed into sorrow: “a kind of grief” against
their choice. His poetry reflects his
sensitivity to the suffering of nonhuman world in the way he has deep
sensitivity to the suffering of human world.
The Larkin speaker has contact with nature for fragile
pleasure in contrast with the Wordsworthin speaker. In the treatment of nature, Larkin comes
close to Robert Frost who has a momentary contact with nature for rejuvenation
to attend his work with new vigour and enthusiasm. Larkin has temporary contact with nature from
distance as he is against nature from distance as he is against nature-worship.
Time in its constant motion causes changes not only in
life in general but also in the individual’s life in particular. Time’s constant flux brings about changes in
beliefs, customs, traditions, fashions, etc in the post-war British times. Larkin makes the reader look at the macrocosm
of British life in the post-war era though the lens of the microcosm of his
poetry. The decline of religion, the
falsity of advertisement, industrialization, materialistic aspirations,
pollution, sexual promiscuity etc are noticeable through the lens of his
poetry.
Larkin achieves in juxtaposing life in general and the
individual’s life in particular on his poetic scene. So his poetry is at once
universal and individual and it is his unrivalled achievement as a poet.
For Larkin, time is not an abstract idea but a
destructive force. He sees from the
point of view of its “eroding agents” on man’s life. He, both as a poet and man, concurs with time
that conquers man with its destroying forces.
From his agnostic background, he explores the fact that life turns not
only futile but also mortal in time’s flux.
He realistically portrays life, death, love, nature and the contemporary
life of Britons in the post-war era in his poetry with real commitment.
Triveni, Vol.21, April-June, No.2, 2012
Dr. K. Rajamouly, M.A.,M.Phil.,Ph.D.
Professor of English, & Head, Dept. of S&H
Ganapathy
EngineeingCollege, Warangal.
