Write on the anti-romantic stance adopted by Philip Larkin in his poem.
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Answer:
Larkin is surely an anti-hero. He does not even adopt a heroic attitude towards death which is one of the most prominent themes in his poetry. Larkin was obsessed with the thought of death; and in many poems he reminds us of the inevitability of death. The poems Coming, Going, and Days are about death; and the climax of his treatment of death comes in the poem Aubade. But nowhere does he defy death. He does not follow John Donne’s lead. Donne had said: “Death, be not proud….” But Larkin dares not say any such thing. He fears death; he quails at the thought of death. He certainly does not show any fearlessness of death. Only in one poem, namely The Explosion, does he exalt death as a means of bringing honour to the persons who were killed in an explosion. In general, he harbours a dread of death.