LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13:7 July 2013
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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An Analysis of the Themes of Death, Decline and Disappointment in
Philip Larkin’s Poetry

Shabnum Iftikhar, M.A. Political Science, M.A. English Literature, ELT

Introduction

Philip Larkin (1922-1985), a noted British poet, novelist and critic was born in Coventry, England, and educated at the University of Oxford. He treats the modern English setting in a withdrawn and non-sentimental manner. As a matter of fact, the very non-sentimental approach has been the hallmark of his poetry. Throughout his poetic career, his bleak outlook on human life has been an essence of his poetic stance. Human life and its predicament and the disappointment and disillusionment have been the recurring motifs of his poetry. Moreover, Larkin’s agnostic approach has played a pivotal role in shaping his personality and poetry simultaneously.

Larkin’s Agnostic Approach

The age of Larkin was an age of disaster and chaos on a social and moral level all over the world. The flames of Second World War were still burning in the late nineteen-fifties and there was a decline in the values cherished by societies. People had seen much destruction in the wake of first and second world wars and they had started raising questions about the existence of God. That was a scenario where Philip Larkin was born and brought up. No wonder he gives the runaround to God, religion and religious creeds. In spite of this non-sentimental and agnostic approach, he has earned a reputation of a great poet of his time as he deals with the stark and harsh realities of his time with great realism. In fact, it is his non-romantic approach towards the precarious conditions of life that has given his poetry a long lasting popularity. As a poet, he has a great command over his emotions that doesn’t let him romanticize human life in any capacity and enables him to capture the chaos and decline of human life on social and religious levels.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Shabnum Iftikhar, M.A. Political Science, M.A. English Literature, ELT
University of the Punjab
Lahore
Pakistan

Ph.D. Candidate, Argosy University
Atlanta Campus, Georgia 30328
USA
shabnum53@hotmail.com
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