LARKIN’S ENGLISHNESS: A CONTEXTUAL APPROACH
LARKIN’S ENGLISHNESS: A CONTEXTUAL APPROACH

Summary/Abstract: In the context of post-war, post-colonial Britain, Larkin emerged as an unofficial Poet Laureate, artistically representing and dealing with the diminished expectations of a nation still nourishing nostalgic attitudes towards a glorious past, yet having to cope with an un-heroic daily routine. The current article also places Larkin and his special brand of Englishness in relation to the ever changing discourse of Britishness and Englishness that has developed ever since the early 18th century. His association with the “gentility” of the Movement poets as a defining feature of an empirical form of Englishness of the 1950s is also acknowledged, while an examination of some of Larkin’s poems aims at shedding light on what this particular poetic brand is all about. The context in which this examination is undertaken is highly eclectic, combining elements of literary studies, cultural studies and a post-Brexit perspective from which Larkin’s brand of Englishness is reassessed.

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