Philip Larkin : The Poetry of Death & Alienation

Title: Philip Larkin: The Poetry of Death & Alienation
Author: Dr Thongam Dhanajit Singh
First Edition ISBN: 978–93–82395–06–5
First Edition: 2014
Revised Edition ISBN: 978-81-952743-8-3
Revised Edition: 2021
Binding: Hard Cover

About the Author:
Dr Thongam Dhanajit Singh is currently working as an Assistant Professor, Department of English, Mizoram University, Aizawl. An MA and PhD from Manipur University, he writes in newspapers on various issues apart from his academic engagement at the university. 

He has published several articles in many international journals and has also presented many papers in national and international seminars. His research interest includes literature of India's Northeast, English Language Teaching, Ethnic Conflicts and Interdisciplinary Studies. 

About the Book:
As one of the most controversial and discussed poets in English literature, Philip Arthur Larkin embodies a complex personality attracting critical attention of critics and literary enthusiasts across the world. His biographer and friend Andrew Motion found it hard to write a critical book on him ‘without feeling guilty’. Today, Larkin’s poetry has become a defining basis of human relationship and the predicament of man caused by his own technological inventions. From defining male-female relationship in terms of ‘condoms’ and ‘contraceptive pills’ to the portrayal of life as an uneasy experience of ‘fear’ and ‘boredom’, his poetry shows the shifts in human relationship against the backdrop of the fast and competitive world characterized by spiritual barrenness.

The Revised Edition of the book is a study of Larkin’s poetry – its technical maturity, inventive wit and the ability to redefine human relationship at the heart of it. Three major volumes of poems – The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows – are discussed at length while some of his later poems which he left unpublished are also given space for discussion. Thus, the book is a comprehensive study of Larkin’s poetry.