It has been a while, to say the least, and I've now been instructed to look at two volumes; Phillip Larkin's Whitsun Weddings, and Dannie Abse's Welsh Retrospective. Initially, my reactions to Larkin's work were skeptical, he just seemed like another doom and gloom poet with a range of themes as limited as the range of "soft roader" car designs on the market today. After a bit of analysis, however, he seems slightly less gloomy, and far more philosophical. In fact, all of his poems seem to undergo a philosophical metamorphosis at around the penultimate stanza. This will now be referred to as a Larkin Shift.
Music features greatly in Larkin's poems, so allow me to assist this.
