By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Philip Larkin (1922-85) completed his poem ‘Here’ in October 1961, and it was included (as the opening poem) in his 1964 collection The Whitsun Weddings. The poem describes and, in its distinctively Larkinesque way, celebrates the city of Hull, where Larkin had been working since 1955 (and where he would live until his death in 1985).
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Sympathy in White Major’ contains perhaps the most mouth-watering description of someone making a gin and tonic to be found in all English poetry. But it is also, like many Philip Larkin poems, about the relation between the self and society, between the individual and the world around him (and in Larkin it is a him). What follows are some notes towards an analysis of this intriguing poem.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Philip Larkin completed ‘Mr Bleaney’ in May 1955, and it appeared nine years later in his third major volume of poems, The Whitsun Weddings (1964). The poem is about a professional man renting a room in a woman’s house, and musing on the life of the previous tenant, ‘Mr Bleaney’. In this post we offer some notes towards an analysis of the poem.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
How we should analyse Philip Larkin’s poetry depends on what phase of his career we’re dealing with. In ‘Send No Money’, Larkin examines the gulf between our expectations of the world and the somewhat less satisfying realities the world provides us with.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
An aubade – the term is from the French – is a song or poem in praise of the dawn, but Philip Larkin’s ‘Aubade’ is somewhat different. Although the meditation in the poem takes place during the early hours of the morning, there is none of the celebratory zest found so often in poetic aubades.
Instead, Philip Larkin’s ‘Aubade’ is a poem about death, and specifically the poet’s own growing sense of his mortality. You can read ‘Aubade’ here; in this post we offer some notes towards an analysis of this, the last great poem Larkin ever wrote.