Larkin’s Springboards: The Poet in the Making (Published)
Philip Larkin is a key figure in the post-war British poetry. This “effective unofficial Laureate of the post-1945 England” remains the “central figure in British Poetry over the last twenty years.” Larkin’s reputation rose to an extent where “even his detractors are now naming him a major poet.” Writing in the 1970s, David Timms calls him the “best poet England now has.” In the 1980s, commenting on the sales of Larkin’s volumes, Roger Day terms him an “immensely popular poet” by “contemporary standards.” In this essay, an attempt will be made to trace what provided springboards to the making of the poet Larkin.
Keywords: British Poetry, Philip Larkin, Post-Fifties, the making of