Philip Larkin was an important poet of the decades following the Second World War, and a significant member of the group of writers known as ‘the Movement’. He does not sentimentalise human experience; he sees the sham and the lack of true joy in the society around him. A typical Larkin poem is a blend of the simple and the difficult. The clarity of some lines is often followed by passages that are teasingly difficult. Hence, a judicious elucidation of his poems becomes necessary.

This book presents a critical evaluation of a selection of Philip Larkin’s poems. These poems are most often prescribed for study at universities. In the introductory part of this critical evaluation, Dr B.G. Tandon has given a brief sketch of Philip Larkin’s life and times and gone on to review his poetry from the perspectives of its content and style; in the second section, he discusses each of the selected poems; in the last section, he has provided the annotations for each of these poems. The annotation is done in three steps—paraphrase, explication of the expressions that an average student finds difficult, and critical evaluation. Major critical perspectives on the poet and his work are incorporated in the general introduction.