Is Philip Larkin a poet of The Movement? If so, what are the reasons supporting this?Discuss Philip larkin's poetry as The Movement poetry or a...

Philip Larkin is generally acknowledged to be a poet of
The Movement, which grew up out of and was a reaction against the Modernist movement.
Each has distinguishing characteristics that are opposed to each other and Larkin's work
fits firmly in the characteristics that define The Movement. These characteristics
pertain to form, self, individualism, and realism.

title="Modernist Poetry and the Contemporary Scene, C. John Holcombe. TextEtc.com"
href="http://www.textetc.com/modernist.html">Modernism rejected
conventional poetic form and presented itself as a fragmentation of form, which was
visible in experimentation with genre and the fragmentation of time, which presented
events in a non-chronological, non-linear, non-unified order. Self, the ontological
representation of the speaker and/or writer, is alienated--from self and society--and
similarly fragmented. Characterization or defining qualities are obscure and possibly
shallow, making knowledge of the presented self elusive.

In
Modernist poetry, individualism is a paramount concern. In this sense, individualism
refers to representing the speaker's and/or writer's personal, individual experience
regardless of whether it may or may not represent a universal commonality amongst
people. A correlated characteristic is the representation of a Modernist world view that
is anti-realism, meaning Modernist poems are not meant nor desired to be held up to
reality as a true representation or a reliable mirror of life or the
world.

On the other hand, the poets of title="Introduction to Modernist Poetry. Edsitement, National Endowment for the Arts"
href="http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=615">The Movement
embraced a return to form as a reaction against the fragmentation of form begun by the
Modernists. Regarding self, The Movement offered straightforward representations of the
self of the poetic speaker or writer, and, in that sense, presented a positive
ontological view of self as opposed to the Modernist alienated ontological view. In
correlation with self, the individualism of Modernism gave way to The Movement's
representation of the individual in relation to society, reacting to, and often reacting
against, society.

While Modernists embraced experimentation
of form, The Movement embraced the forms and conventions of previously established
poetic genres, embracing structure in reaction against the Modernist's abandonment of
structure. In addition, while Modernists adhered to anti-realism, The Movement reflected
the reality of the mundane commonplace that was more realistic than the realism begun in
the Romantic period. Whereas Wordsworth, the founder of English poetic Romanticism,
laced his realism with metaphor and what might be called low poetic diction, The
Movement eschewed literary devices, striving for plain, direct language devoid of
simile, metaphor, symbolism or other literary
techniques.

Larkin's poetry displays all these
characteristics, from the structure of his composition to the straightforward
ontological representation of self devoid of alienation to the individual experience in
society (not eccentrically isolated) to the form and conventions of poetry that couched
the descriptions of the unembellished commonplaces of life. Philip Larkin is in fact a
true representative of The Movement because his poems both adhere to and help define the
definitive characteristics of The Movement.

[For further
information, see the links to href="http://www.textetc.com/modernist.html">TextEtc.com and title="Introduction to Modernist Poetry. Edsitement, National Endowment for the Arts"
href="http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=615">EdSitement, National
Endowment for the Arts from which this answer is
drawn.]