Essay Questions

Describe the anti-romantic stance adopted by Philip Larkin in his poem.

Philip Larkin adopted an anti-romantic stance in his poems as opposed to the Romantic view of the poet and his poetry. For him, the poet is an ordinary man and there is nothing heroic in his deeds. In his poetry, Larkin portrays even childhood as dull and uninteresting which in earlier romantic poems was celebrated as a golden and ideal period.

Larkin has been called an “uncommon poet for the common man.” Do you agree?

Philip Larkin reacted against the poetry of Eliot and Auden only because he thought that their poetry was far too intellectually demanding, and not for common people. Larkin wrote poems for the common man and celebrated common themes in his poems in their raw state.