“Born Yesterday”: Philip Larkin and the Denial of Childhood

Abstract

ABSTRACT Very little has been said about Philip Larkin’s attitude towards children, despite the fact that they play a significant role in his writing as symbols of the conventional family life he chose not to live. This article seeks to bridge this notable gap in the current body of scholarship devoted to Larkin’s work by considering some of the ways in which children and childhood are represented in his poetry, criticism and letters. It shows how Larkin’s tendency to denigrate children was reflected in his idiosyncratic relationship with the literary tradition and his antagonistic attitude towards Romanticism in particular, a trait he shared with other writers associated with “the Movement”, including friends like Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest.