Philip Larkin and English Poetry (1986)

Philip Larkin and English Poetry is a practical criticism of Larkin's poetry which discusses the poet's views on poetry as they are made visible in his prose writings and his interviews, Larkin's affinities with a series of other English poets (including Dr Samuel Johnson, D.H. Lawrence and the Imagists, and Ted Hughes, Thom Gunn and R.S. Thomas) which have been overlooked by previous critics are referred to, and Terry Whalen provides close readings of the individual poems that will appeal to both the first-time reader of Larkin's works and those who are seasoned readers of England's finest poet. Whalen stresses the depth and integrity of the `other' Larkin, the poet of beauty and of witness who explores the world of observation with a hunger for meaning and a sense of wonder which earlier reviewers and critics have tended to ignore.