Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is today acclaimed as a British national cultural icon. Historically a “Movementeer,†Larkin followed the “Pleasure principle†to democratize poetry by forging a distinctive philistine aesthetic, by employing a defiantly demotic diction, and by building his poems around a structure of rational discourse. Philip Larkin: Poetry That Builds Bridges is a well-researched and immensely readable book. It is perhaps the only work ...
