How does Philip Larkin create humour in his poem 'This Be The Verse'?

People often find it quite hard to write about humour in exams – in all the analysis that is expected of you, it can be easy to forget that things can be funny! Larkin’s ‘This Be The Verse’ is typical of his characteristic dry humour, which was important to his identity as a poet. Being able to identify exactly how he makes us laugh is a good skill to have (and hopefully won’t ruin the joke!).
A key tool Larkin uses to create humour in this poem is bathos. ‘Bathos’ is a device in which a poetic or heightened tone is subverted by something comic, trivial or commonplace. He uses very traditional poetic devices, including the cross-rhymed (ABAB) quatrain stanza and a repetitive iambic rhythm. The effect of this is a sense of an elevated, or even old-fashioned style. This is also suggested in the poem’s title (‘This Be The Verse’), as ‘This Be’ has a declarative tone, which, when coupled with the definite article ‘the’, makes the poem seem even more important (of all the verses there could be in the world, this is THE one you should listen to!). So, Larkin sets up an expectation that his poem tackles important subject matter in a serious way. He then uses bathos to undercut this. His use of profanity (swearing) – ‘they fuck you up’ – comes as a surprise after reading the title, and he finishes with a wink and a nudge, jokingly warning you: ‘don’t have any kids yourself’. Larkin therefore creates humour by contrasting tight and traditional poetic form with swear words and an everyday subject matter. This is not to say that the poem is trivial overall – the image of the ‘coastal shelf’ is unsettling, evoking a gradual wearing down of humanity across generations. Larkin often uses humour not just to undercut seriousness, but to contrast and draw attention to it. Whilst we are laughing, we are also taking his message on board, and wondering if there is a way to prevent this handing on of ‘misery’ from parent to child.