For the most part the poets of the 1950s, and particularly Philip Larkin, reject the traditions of their immediate past. Their poetry represents a revival of a tradition associated with Hardy and kept alive only through the vigour and persistence of poets like Robert Graves. Their distrust of political programmes or religious or philosophical ideas is profound; their hatred of the "old gang," whose faith in programmes and ideas led Europe into six years of slaughter, runs deep. In poetry they took pride in their craft, and in experience they felt themselves carefully forward taking nothing on trust—not even themselves. The poetry of Philip Larkin defines the mood of this post-war generation with great sensitivity. (p. 142)

The North Ship was generally regarded as promising but poetically immature and surprisingly Georgian in tone, and his reputation rests on the poems of The Less Deceived together with the few...