“This Be The Verse” is a three stanza lyric poem in iambic tetrameter by English postwar poet Philip Larkin. Originally published in the August 1971 issue of New Humanist magazine, it also appeared in Larkin’s 1974 collection High Windows. Considered one of the best-known English poems, “This Be The Verse” offers a humorous, if pessimistic, perspective on a fundamental human experience: having parents. Larkin’s marriage of traditional form with subversive content produced a poem that continues to resonate with readers half a century later.
[This entry was updated by Bruce K. Martin (Drake University) from his entry in the Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography, volume 8, pp. 200-211.]In a time when popular reception of poetry ...
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Philip Larkin (1922-1986) was one of England's leading poets to emerge after World War II.Philip Larkin was born August 9, 1922, the son of Sydney and Eva Emily Larkin. He spent his early years in Cov...
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Biography EssayIn a time when popular reception of poetry is perhaps more tenuous than in any period since the Wordsworthian revolution, Philip Larkin has managed to capture a loyal, wide, and growing...
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Philip (Arthur) Larkin
Philip Larkin