Philip Larkin’s Poetry: Themes, Form, Style, Imagery and Symbolism
Political readings of Larkin are significant, but they should not elbow aside
other, equally relevant, approaches. When Andrew McKeown and Charles Holdefer
called for papers to be given at a conference entitled “Philip Larkin and the Poetics of
Resistance” in 2004, the result was unexpected. The term resistance, recalling political
contexts, was reinterpreted in a number of ways by the participants. After the papers had
been published with the same title (2006), Graham Chesters wrote in a review:
“What strikes one is the diversity of what resists or is being resisted. Larkin is
claimed, for example, to resist translation, foreign languages in general, specific
developments in English poetry, the academic prerequisites of poetry, time, the world,
mass civilization, loss of traditional respect for rhyme, modernity, the War, conservative
ideals with respect to sexual and social politics, unjust treatment, traditional modes of
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