ABSTRACT
An atheist, an Anglican priest who found communicating with God almost impossible, and a Christian who found little comfort in the Church: Larkin, Thomas and Causley were three poets with three very different responses to the twin concerns of faith and mortality. However, each was, in his own way, representative of the shifting religious mores, the increasingly pervasive questioning of received religious wisdoms, which in part defined their age. However it is manifest, a strong belief in God can alleviate, to some extent, the horrors of death, helping one to side-step existential angst. Ultimately, against the tide of increased atheism, Causley had religious belief. So did Thomas, though his faith was constantly being tested and his God was as elusive as comforting. Larkin did not, though he would clearly have liked to. Nonetheless, his fear of ‘extinction’ did not prevent him from tackling head on what he considered to be its inevitability.
