THEMES IN PHILIP LARKIN'S

POETRY
Theme is derived from the Greek words "Proposition,
Deposit". According to A Dictionary of Literary Terms by
MARTIN GRAY:

"Theme is the abstract subject of a work, its central idea

or ideas, which may or may not be explicit or obvious. A text
may contain several themes or thematic interests."

For example it can be argued that SHAKESPEARE's King

Lear (c.1605) touches upon all the following themes;
rashness, evil, the nature of truth, appearance and reality,
kinship, sexuality, ingratitude, selfishness, and so on.

PHILIP LARKIN's poetry has a variety of themes: such

as religion, melancholy, pessimism, realism, isolation,
love, nature, social chaos, alienation, boredom, death,
time and sex etc. Some critics have pointed out the
narrowness of his range of themes, while his admirers have
expressed their praise for his distinctive treatment of these
themes but his limited work has unlimited depth. There are
many themes in his poetry which are as follow:

i. Religion is the most prominent and dominant theme

of his poetry. Larkin has composed his poetry in the context of
his temperament and of his personal views on life, religion,
and religious dogmas. He shares his thoughts about God,
religion and the existing scenario of religious beliefs of
different classes of society in one of his poems, ‘Church Going’
in a realistic manner. His poem ‘Church Going’ chronicles the
account of that time, when people had become suspicious of
the existence of God and religion. Larkin’s sarcasm is seen
from the very first line of the poem:

“Once I am sure there's nothing going on.”

The description of the church would be familiar to

anyone who has visited a small parish church in Britain. The
layout is typical of the architecture prevalent in the Church of
England, with a central aisle flanked by wooden pews with
cushioned kneelers and prayer books placed on small shelves
on the backs of the pews. An altar rail separates the sanctuary
on the east end from the rest of the church. Behind the altar
rail, one sees a pulpit on the left, a lectern on the right, and in
the centre a large altar or communion table. Large Bibles are
normally kept open to the day's reading from both pulpit and
lectern. Although the narrator himself is not an active member
of the Church, he nonetheless mounts the lectern and reads
the lesson, even closing with the words "Here endeth the
lesson," (which would not be in the Bible itself -- suggesting
the narrator recalls them from memory) precisely as a lay
reader would during a service. He then returns to his persona
as a non-religious tourist, dropping a sixpence (roughly
equivalent to a quarter in U.S. terms) into the collection box
and signing the visitor book. The narrator resolves this
contradiction with an understanding that the value of
churches and religion lies in what he calls their seriousness, or
their long tradition of being a place concerned with the great
and meaningful issues of life and death, as opposed to the
ordinary and every day. The narrator finally understands his
own reason for seeking out churches and the purpose of the
churches he seeks in the final two stanzas:

“It pleases me to stand in silence here; / A serious

house on serious earth it is, ... / And that much never can
be obsolete, / Since someone will forever be surprising /
A hunger in himself to be more serious, / And gravitating
with it to this ground, / Which, he once heard, was proper
to grow wise in ...”

ii. Melancholy which means "a deep feeling of sadness

that lasts for a long time and often cannot be explained".
Melancholy embraces all his themes. This is also the most
prominent and dominant theme of his poetry. It is because of
his incurable pessimistic attitude. ERIC HOMBERGER, in
'The Art of the Real ', describes him as:

"The saddest heart in the post-war supermarket".

LARKIN's attitude in his poem "Ambulances" is

pessimistic with an atmosphere of pathos and melancholy
hovering over it. The poem shows the hollowness and
emptiness of a modern man who has no time to show love and
sympathy for a sick man, he says:

"And since the solving emptiness / That lays just

under all we do."

That modern man is devoid of sympathy, he only pays lip

service to the sick man, but no practical solution.
 iii. The element of Chaos which means "a state of
complete confusion and lack order" and Destruction is
distinct in LARKIN's poetry, as his poem MCMXIV(1914).It
illuminates the poet's impression of the post-war world.
LARKIN fails to come out of the horrors of war. His poetry
revolves around the disastrous and chaotic effects of war. He
minutely observes the chaotic social, political, economic and
theological system. He discusses the chaotic situation in which
people were forced to migrate to villages in search of shelter.
LARKIN sympathises with the lost generation and criticizes at
the craze for war.

iv. His poem, "Church Going" shows Nihilism which

means ''a philosophical doctrine that suggests the lack of
belief in one or more reputedly meaningful aspects of
life'' and Pessimism which means ''a state of mind in which
one anticipates undesirable outcomes or believes that the
evil or hardships in life outweigh the good or luxuries.''
ANDREW MOTION says that:

"Larkin has often been regarded as a hopeless,

inflexible pessimist"

Church Going deals with contemporary agnosticism.

The narrator in this poem is very sceptical about churches.
LARKIN's dilemma is not whether to believe in God or not,
but what a man can replace with God. Though the 'Church' is
the symbol of faith, peace and purity yet in the modern age
people have lost faith in Church.

He says:
 "Who will be the last, the very / Last to seek this
place for what It was."

And further, he says that:

"Shall we avoid them as unlucky places? "

As for as the nihilism is concerned, LARKIN talks about

the negation of life and shows his disgust with the modern
civilization.

v. Realism is also a dominant theme in LARKIN's poetry.

In Church Going, it shows the disintegration of religion and
church as an institution, that people are losing faith in existing
Church and Christianity. And Church has failed to prove its
importance and value in the society. In "Mr Bleaney", Larkin
has described the life of an ordinary man. Mr Bleaney is
actually a post-war tattered person who doesn't realise the
importance of time. He observes that the room is dirty and
there is no room for books. It also contains autobiographical
elements. MCMXIV is based on reality, it shows the condition
of people just before the war, it also highlights the miserable
condition of the people whereas, the people are simple and
innocent the title of the poem also stresses that the era of
peace before the war can never retreat. He says:

" Those long uneven lines Standing as patiently / As

if they were stretched outside the Oval and Villa Park. "

"Ambulances" is also a very realistic poem, it shows the

picture of the post-war world, where people are sick and dying
day and night.
 vi. Loneliness and Alienation which means "a sense of
not belonging, either to a community or to one's own
sense of self" are the recurrent themes of LARKIN. His poem
" Mr Bleaney" is about the wretched plight of modern man
and its pleasures. MR. BLEANEY lives in abject poverty
because of economic pressures. The poet satirises at the
modern civilization which is going to dogs. It is full of chaos
and there is no hope for betterment in the life of a common
man.

vii. Love is another significant theme of his poetry. He

regards love as a supreme illusion. Love comes in the guise of
melancholy. His poetry shows that modern man has no love
and sympathy for others. So, he doesn't depict love as very
ardent or satisfying passion. He believes that everyone is sure
to be disappointed in love. His poem "No Road" depicts the
impossibility of the fulfilment of love. He always tries to
explore the gap between what one expects in love and what he
receives in it as MR BLEANEY and the man in Ambulance both
are deprived of love in their lives.

viii. LARKIN's pessimism leads him to contemplate

about Death. It is the dominant theme in his poetry. His
imagination is always gripped with the idea of death which
made him a contemplative soul. Almost every critic noted his
obsession with death. He emphasizes on the omnipresence of
death. His poem "Ambulances" represents death. He says that
the busy routine of an urban neighbourhood is disturbed by
the sudden emergence of an ambulance. ANDREW MOTION
remarks:
 “The poem "Ambulances" modestly and devoutly
collects evidence of ordinary life to create a truth which
can be universally acknowledged"

The sight of the graves makes a man wiser, therefore,

every grave reminds the thoughts of death. It is Ambulance,
however, that provides us with the bluntest depiction of
human mortality, with its vivid descriptions of illness and
death.

The poem exposes:

"The solving emptiness / That lies just under all we

do.”

Death itself figures as a subject in 'Aubade' He works all

day long and drinks at night while 'unresting death' draws
nearer to him every day and his mind is blank without any
thought about how and when he will die. Work may also help
to combat the thought of death, but it cannot stave it off. So,
the poet says in 'Toad Revised':

"Give me your arm, old toad: / Help me down

Cemetery Road."

ix. The theme of Boredom and Sadness also rules over

LARKIN's poetry. The insignificance of man is described in his
poem Church Going. LARKIN writes in 'Dockery and Son'
that 'life is first boredom'. His rejection of life was due to the
fact that it never exercised any fascination for him.

He says:
 "Whether or not we use it live, it goes. "

Again, in "Dockery and Son", he says:

"Childhood for him was a forgotten boredom."

x. Nature is represented in LARKIN's poetry as

impersonal and neutral. He doesn't take nature as holy
mother; rather it comes in the clock of chaos and destruction.
He says:

"Nature is impersonal and neutral."

So, he doesn't highlight the beauty of nature but he only

gives the description of canals, civic life, village and industry.
However, he imparts a moralizing power to nature as he says
that the trees don't allow people to believe in their
immortality. The trees renew themselves every year and invite
men to follow their example of refreshing the life.

xi. LARKIN's poetry reveals his awareness of the passing

of Time, that's why he considers that the man is a salve of time.
He vividly discusses the adverse effects of time on man. Like
HARDY, he is obsessed with the destructive nature of time.
The three phases of time, present, past and future are mutually
exclusive but not oblivious. He says himself in "Reference
Back":

"Though our element is time,/ We are not suited to

the long perspectives / Open at each instant of our lives. /
They link us to our losses."

Deep and profound is the influence of the social and political

atmosphere of his time on Larkin’s poetry. Larkin’s realistic
approach towards his Time makes him write what he has
written. We can see the true portrait of post-war England in
Larkin’s collection of poetry, or it can be said that his poetry is
greatly reinforced by the cataclysmic scenario of post-war
England.

Time links us to our past. The dreams and hopes which

we fondly cherished are blasted as we grow old and we are
overcome with a sense of loss. "There is a double cruelty in
time'. P.R. KING comments:

"It both reminds us what we might have had, and

turns what we do have into a sense of disappointment."

xii. Sex is one of Larkin’s main themes. He talks about

people doing it, his lack of it, and his desperate desire for some
of it. Larkin obviously isn’t getting any sexual fulfilment from
anyone and he is unafraid to show that. BRUCE MEYER, a
poetry critic, said of Larkin’s book High WINDOWS,

“Larkin’s poetry shows his pathetic and unattainable

desires for love, passion, and human contact.”

Another thing that LARKIN's poetry does is make people

relate to his problems and feelings and also desire the things
he wants. LARKIN invokes his own jealousy of people who are
having sex with his readers. LARKIN targets people who aren’t
getting sexual fulfilment and makes them feel the same way he
does: unhappy with their current predicament (not having sex)
and possessing a desire to change this situation. Again BRUCE
MEYER, “High Windows is about the sexual

“When I see a couple of kids / And guess he’s fucking

her… Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives- Bonds
and gestures pushed to one side.”

In the end, one can say that LARKIN, being a modern

poet, has taken up the themes of religion, melancholy,
pessimism, realism, isolation, love, nature, social chaos,
alienation, boredom, death, time and sex in his poetry. This
approach is quite clear from his treatment of the questions of
belief knowledge and perceptions. All these things were
necessary because of the conditions of Post War England and
also his treatment of these themes is very unique, realistic and
convincing.