Philip Larkin as anti-romantic poet

          Introduction

In answering this question, much depends on how one chooses to define "romantic" and "anti-romantic".For example, if one chooses to define "romantic" as implying optimism, naivete, celebration of love, celebration of the beauties of nature, and celebration of lofty, transcendent human potential, then it seems safe to categorise Larkin as "anti-romantic" poet. His verse is often realistic, hard-headed, sometimes even cynical, and deliberately unsentimental. It is not by coincidence that Thomas Hardy, with his bleak vision of life, was one of Larkin's favourite English poets. Yet part of what gives Larkin's poetry it's peculiar power is that he can often see and appreciate the beauties of life, even if he considers them inevitablty mutable.

Larkin as anti-romantic poet

The poetry of Philip Larkin is against the Romantic tradition in several aspects. Though he uses some elements associated with romantic poets, his attitude is very different. At this point it will be useful to remember Wordsworth's definition of poetry as he was one of the cornerstones of Romanticism. Wordsworth says in the "Preface to Lyrical Ballads" that poetry is "the breath and final spirit of all knowledge", and that it is "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." Therefore, in a romantic poem, it is the person of the poet who speaks, as well as his emotions and fears. Then the subjective corelative of the poem transforms into a deep philosophizing over the soul and the world that is full of problems and anguish. Yet, the poet remains positive and hopeful. His emotions are expressed in such an aesthetic way that the reader is moved by beautiful descriptions and the musical quality of the poem.

Thus poet is supposed to be a common among his people, like his audience, which is the key term for Larkin as well. But still he is the one with "a more comprehensive soul." He is the sage that knows and contemplates on the truths of this great universe. Nature, which is usually the subject matter for the romantic poet, is beautiful, peaceful, comforting , and has a sacred like quality. It bears a godly spirituality, metaphysical power and benevolence, so that the poet is united with nature.

Larkin's poetry is also personal but he does not assert the importance of his own emotions or experiences, and never highlights a sage-like wisdom at the speaker. The speaker in his poems is usually "I", but it is not always Larkin, the poet. Sometimes he uses dramatic persona as well. His " I" in the poems does not have a sentimental stand but he is more like an observer, a reporter. Therefore, he is subjective like Romantic poets but his subjectivism is not based on the emphasis of subjectivity or emotionalism. He wants to be an "ordinary man", not a sage. Nature may be his focal point in some poems like in " Going Going" but he does not attribute a spiritual, godly power to it like Wordsworth does. Larkin is realistic and sentimental and ironic in his poetic expression. He writes about usual, everyday life, and the familiar objects in a modern world. Yet, he sometimes achieves to be optimistic in his poetry, even at times when he explores the theme of death with a Hardy like attitude, who was an inspiration to Larkin. He is a poet with a "capacity to create a recognisable and democratic vision of contemporary society."
To Larkin, the term modern bears "a quality of irresponsibility peculiar to this century" and he is disturbed with the peculiarity because it has weakened the tension between the artist and the reader, and has led the artist to become "over concerned with his material." The "modernist" culture is so much distressed with the idea of mystification and outraged that sometimes it produced very ridiculous and meaningless objects but the audience is always told not to trust himself to misjudge arts. Larkin mocks elitism of modernism:   "Don't trust your eyes, or ears or understanding. Don't believe them. You've got to work at this: after all, you don't expect to understand anything as important as art straight off, do you?" Therefore, good poetry for Larkin needs not only to restore this deteriorated unity between the poet and the reader, but also to suppress the distress of the author to create obscure materials and to bring him down onto earth, among his fellow citizens. In other words, Larkin tactfully removes the poet from his elevated seat and puts him on the street, as an ordinary man, even as a next door neighbour. His poetry is in a way "demystification, even, a vulgarization of poetry and poets" as Neil Covey notes. However, in his later poetry collection like 'High Windows' his poetry tend more to complexity, for which he is criticized.
"The Explosion" seems, in some ways, a truly anti-romantic poem, especially since it describes the devastating laws of life of miners in an explosion in the pit. The speaker reports, without comment, the conventionally comforting words of a clergyman preaching at a funeral service. A romantic or sentimental poet might have tried to convince us of the truth of this assertion. Larkin does not. He simply lets the assertion speak for itself, allowing readers to decide whether it is genuinely comforting or merely a collection of predictable cliches. Nevertheless, the poem does not end on a very tender note. One of the miners, before work had begun, had discovered "a nest of lark's eggs" and had shown the eggs to his comrades. As the poem concludes, the speaker describes how the widows of the miners, after hearing the sermon, imagine seeing their dead husbands again. Thus, although Larkin is often thought of as a plain-spoken, sometimes even slightly crude writer, there is often real tenderness, real feeling in his poems. Larkin could appreciate love and beauty very deeply; he simply never assumed that they would last forever.
Larkin is true to life in his poetry, recording what he observes, not more or less. He does not have a Wordsworthian Romantic wisdom but he finds himself as merely a man among common man. His own life reflected this desire for the common. As a member of the Movement, he always looked for an ordinary life. Larkin preferred the language of common man whom he is dealing with, not high metaphors, intertextual references or obscure sentences like Eliot, and other Modernists that he finds himself estranged from. Larkin used traditional rhyme and metre, not a distorted, fragmented structure. He is anti modernist in this sense that he also rejected elitism, mystification, or highbrow poetry, and wanted to create a connection with him and the reader, who would no longer need to take hours of lecture to understand his poetry. Therefore, Larkin is similar to a photographer in his poetic stand, who takes pictures in life, and "persuades" the reader that "this is a real girl in a real place." Like the photographer in this poem, Larkin tells his readers what he saw as it is, neither with an idealization or emotionalism of romantics nor with obscurantism or negativity of Modernists. However, in the end he usually achieves to find a kind of beauty, hope, sympathy, or even a vitality in modern realities.

          Conclusion

Philip Larkin is a modern poet writing in the language of common people about the life and matters around him. He based his poetry on the actual experiences of man i.e. realism. His poetry is the "poetry of disappointment". His views the "destruction of romantic illusions" in this era of anti- romantic and anti-heroic age. Today, man is so incompetent that he stands defeated at the hands of time.