A reading of a classic Larkin poem ‘Church Going’ is one of Philip Larkin’s best-loved poems. It appeared in his second full collection of poetry, The Less Deceived (1955). In this post, we’d like to offer some notes towards an analysis of ‘Church Going’, which can be read here. The […]
A reading of Larkin’s classic poem ‘High Windows’, the title poem of Philip Larkin’s fourth and final major poetry collection, is one of his most famous. The poem examines the new permissive society that flowered during the 1960s. Before proceeding to our analysis of ‘High Windows’, you can remind yourself […]
A summary of Larkin’s amphibious sequel ‘Toads’, Philip Larkin’s celebrated analysis of the realities of everyday workaday drudgery versus a life of freedom and unemployment, appeared in his 1955 collection The Less Deceived. In 1962, he was inspired to return to the same subject – and the same metaphor – […]
A reading of a short Larkin poem ‘Take One Home for the Kiddies’ first appeared in Larkin’s third poetry collection, The Whitsun Weddings, in 1964. Like a number of Larkin’s poems – see ‘First Sight’, ‘The Mower’, and ‘Myxomatosis’ for three other notable examples – the poem is about animals, […]
A summary of Larkin’s poem about advertising Philip Larkin wrote ‘Sunny Prestatyn’ in 1962, and the poem was published two years later in his collection The Whitsun Weddings. One of a series of poems from that volume which treat the world of advertising and consumerism – see also ‘Essential Beauty’ […]